Postpartum Outfit 1.3 -- "Little" Black Dress

It’s hard to call a postpartum outfit little but...

Here’s the nursing friendly dress I mentioned buying for my grandpa’s funeral.

(Bought it at Kolhs.)

You guys are going to have to just extend me some major grace on photos and their quality here. 

I’m actually really bumming myself out looking at all these photos I’m taking for these posts -- 

so much fun posting your postpartum body on the internet. 

Happy Comments are the only reason I’ve pressed on.

The dress comes with a matching belt, but I didn’t want to wake the baby to go find it. (You can see the empty loops on the sides.)

And I was in a hurry so I didn’t try to make any sort of appealing facial expressions for these, sorry.

Also my hair is kinda crazy.

Postpartum mom of  three. It is what it is.

Why this dress works postpartum:

It has a v-neck line (flattering) that opens to the sides easily to nurse.

It gives me a waist.

The sleeve length hits at my waist (draw the eye to the small spot.)

It hits at a nice place on my leg.

And it looks pretty decent from the side.

(Honestly the would probably lay a lot better if I wasn’t wearing a too-small sports bra due to needing to do the laundry! But it is what it is. Again.)

I used to shy away from black clothes after I had my first baby -- the whole spit up on black thing. But I really just gravitate towards black clothes. Black is honestly one of “my colors” according to skin tone. It’s slimming. It’s versatile. It feels classy. It makes me feel put together. So I don’t care if some spit up shows on it. I find that taking a wet wipe to the spit up makes it go right away (if do you it immediatly it usually keeps it from getting that gross smell later.)

And I find that many of my black clothes hide general wetness (like milk leaks) better than many of my lighter clothes.

So this neckline is really great for nursing because it’s two over lapping pieces. 

But it likes to widened itself up too far, showing way too much. 

Normally I’d saftey pin it closed and call it a day. 

BUT….when nursing, I so don’t want to be messing with that a million times a day.

So I sewed a snap button in there. It works brilliantly.

This is an easy project to do. Grab a set of these buttons and use a needle and thread to attach it where you want your shirt to stay put. The hardest part is doing the top button -- you want to sew through only one layer, so your stitches aren’t seen on the outside. But you really don’t need to be a sewer to do this. These are on the inside and won’t be seen, so you don’t need to make it great looking. Just go in and out of the holes a few times.

Actually, I just realized that these buttons would be the perfect solution to any button up tops that gap at the chest. They make smaller versions of these snaps. And they may just wind up on some of my shirts!

Anyway,

When I bought this dress I wasn’t thinking it’d be too versatile really.

But I knew it would be a dependable staple in my closet.

But when I went to take these photos I started throwing pretty much anything on that I had in my guest room closet (which is wear I’m storing the “these don’t really fit me right now” clothes) (baby was sleeping in my room so that’s all I had good access to) and I was shocked at how easy and great the stuff was working.

Jean jacket. No problem!

 Pretty much any jacket or sweater would work.

Jean vest -- nice. 

This vest is in the guest room closet because how small it is on me right now. But it still actually looks nice here.

It almost makes the belly nonexistent here.

Then I threw a shirt on and tied it. (Another portifino in the guest closet because will fit nicer later. Kinda tight in the chest now.)

But this works great! Now it’s basically just a skirt. But I don’t have a simple black skirt -- so this is pretty cool. I’m thinking any button up shirt would work.

From the side, the knot kinda hides the belly again.

And then of course with shoes you can mix it up even more. 

Tall boots, short boots, flats, heels. (Not that I really do heels right now -- but we’ll call it an option.)

You could add different belts.

Scarves.

Leggings.

Jewelry.

Felt hat.

It’s actually entirely more versatile than I had imagined!!

I’m pretty excited about that.