As a nursing mom you barely have time to make yourself a priority, let alone enough time to care for your nursing bra. If you're not paying attention it will start to smell like rotten milk, become full of stains and irritate your skin. But you wear it all the time. Your nursing bra is your lifeline to sanity when your breasts swell from milk and make breastfeeding accessible every 2 hours, so you don't have to undress.
We got you covered with some tips to help you care for your nursing bra and keep you sane.
Tip 1: Hand Wash your Nursing After Every Two Wears
So let's begin proper care for your nursing bra, by keeping a fixed schedule of how often to clean it. Generally best practice is to wash your bra after wearing it twice. This is assuming it’s not milk stained, has locked sweat or has any other marks from dirt and oils secreted from skin. Our body is constantly shedding skin and the creases in and around your bust and armpits are hot and sweaty. Because a nursing bra is very figure hugging, it can pick up odors and dirt easily.
Tip 2: Hand Wash your Nursing Bra Overnight
If your nursing bra smells of rotten milk wash and scrub your bra by hand (no need to use a washing machine) before you go to sleep with baking soda, warm water and a touch of lavendar (for smell). Scrub and leave to soak over night. In the morning rinse and hang to dry.
Tip 3: Use Fragrance-free Baby Wipes
Wipes are your best friend as a nursing mom. As soon as you have a leak use wipes to wipe off the breast milk before your bra stains. Make sure you rub the spot real good with the wipe.
Tip 4: Carry breast pads with you to catch leaks.
While lactating and actively nursing, breast leakage is constant and can't be avoided. As such, always have extra breast pads on hand to catch leaks that otherwise soak and settle into your nursing bra promoting rotten milk odor.
Tip 5: Travel with extra bras
Have an extra bra on hand when traveling or when soaking your current dirty nursing bra. The last thing you want to do is irritate your breasts when you need them to breastfeed. Change your nursing bras frequently.
Tip 6: Wear a nursing tank at home
If you do not have multiple nursing bras (they can be expensive depending on the brand) go braless on easy days when you're home and can keep track of your nursing schedule. A great replacement is a nursing tank or tank with a bra top that will still give you support. Express your extra milk, to store, when you start to leak and your baby is not hungry.
Tip 7: Express Milk Often as you travel
When traveling without your baby, breastfeeding bras can still be a comfy option to unlatch and breast pump. Try to breast pump as often as you can to prevent leaks and stains on your nursing bra. Find a private, clean, comfortable spot such as a dedicated nursing room where you can conveniently pump then store your breast milk. Use Moms Pump Here's nursing room locator on your mobile phone to find a nearby spot to express breast milk.
Tip 8: Machine Washing a Nursing Bra
When washing your nursing bra in a washing machine place it in a mesh bag for undergarments. Mesh bags are specially made for bras and underwear. They can be found in your local Walmart or Target. This will prevent zippers from jamming and the bra from being mangled or ripped in a heavy wash.
Here are the Specific Steps to Machine Washing a Nursing Bra
1. Remove the nursing pads and tighten any clips, then put the bra in a fine mesh laundry bag to protect the bra's delicate and sensitive material.
2. Use a detergent that's great at removing dirt and stains yet hypoallergenic for gentle and sensitive skin. Hard chemicals and fragrances will irritate a nursing mom's breasts and baby's sensitive skin, not to mention they're pretty bad for the environment with the strong enzymes they possess.
3. ONLY wash your nursing bra with clothes with similar colors, or colors that do not run. Simply put, wash light bras in a light colored wash and dark bras in a dark colored wash. The reason is other colors accidentally staining your bra during a wash can make it hard afterwards to tell if marks are from skin sweat and dirt or not. Especially keep light color brah with other lights.
4. Place the mesh bag in the washing machine without bleach or fabric softeners and wash on "delicate" cycle in warm water. A fast spin cycle will create strain and stress on your bra, creating possible rips, tears, and stretching.
5. DO NOT use hot water, it could deteriorate the delicate fabric. Use cold water instead. Nursing bras last longer after a cold water wash, and cold water will also prevent dyes from running, thus keeping the bra looking fresh and newer for a longer time.
6. DO NOT put nursing bras in the dryer, instead hang and air dry them in a warm open area such as a drying rack. A nursing bra is assembled using several different fabrics that react negatively to heat, therefore any machine drier will cause shrinkage to components of the bra causing it not to fit properly anymore. It will also weaken and loosen the fabric structure causing in tearing and breakage.
Not only will following the previously mentioned machine wash steps keep your bras lasting longer, but will also prevent you having to spend more money on new ones.
Tip 9: Bring extra leakage pads when traveling far
If you're a mom actively feeding or pumping while traveling to far locations away from home, you'll need extra pads on hand to absorb constant milk leakage. You're likely pumping at regular intervals and storing milk, so make sure to use the pads to prevent leakage and potential smell buildup from milk which would otherwise settle in your nursing bra.
