Nursing Your Kids

Because motherhood has turned me into a hippie (see my first post about BPA) I’ve moved on to yet another cloth product- nursing pads. Instead of the crinkly, crunchy papery pads I used those first six months with Sam I decided to go for a softer, more environmentally friendly alternative. It’s not that the disposable pads didn’t work- they worked just fine. But now that we’re using cloth diapers it just doesn’t make sense to use a product that creates trash instead of something I can wash and reuse.

Not really knowing what to expect from washable nursing pads I read a bunch of reviews of the more popular brands and couldn’t really come up with any consensus. I imagine, that like the disposables, it’s a matter of personal preference. I know I don’t want anything plasticky, like Lily Padz- for some reason the idea of walking around with silicone stuck to my skin kind of creeps me out. I may want gel pads like Soothies for the first few weeks, but not so much afterwards. Since I had some overproduction issues I don’t want to run the risk of embarrassing leaks just using a simple cotton pad, so most of the washable pads available in drugstores are out.

So I turned to the cloth diaper message boards. Again, there was no consensus on which brands work the best, but people overwhelmingly recommended using pads that are backed in wool. Wool is used as a diaper cover because it’s absorbent, breathable, and doesn’t leak. The same principle applies to nursing pads. Everyone who uses them likes them. The only complaint is that they don’t always look right under shirts, but that applies to the disposable pads as well- I used a ton of different brands and never found one that didn’t show through a shirt.

I ended up buying a several pairs of organic bamboo velour pads with wool backing and a few pairs of thinner pads made from bamboo which is really soft. I’ve only leaked once so far this pregnancy, but I’m sort of looking forward to leaking again so I can see how well they work. The worst that can happen is that I won’t like them and I’ll have to sell them. Believe it or not, nursing pads, like cloth diapers have a pretty high resale value.