Sarah Mayhew Craddock is a Mum About Town

Nursing clothes are both expensive and offensively unflattering – fact!

Nothing like kicking a girl when she’s down (about her figure, that is).

No new mum realistically expects to be back in her figure-hugging frocks and tops immediately after giving birth, but to be able to throw on something that enables one to not nervously ask: “Do I look smaller than a heavy goods vehicle in this?” would be nice.

Given that more than 729,600 women in England and Wales gave birth in 2012 one would have thought that a fashion designer, somewhere, might have cottoned on to this “trend” in procreation.

No matter how practical it is to pick something up from Mothercare whilst bib/dummy/baby socks shopping, an outfit from Mothercare is not going to make a girl feel good.

There’s fashion and there are sacks, and there’s the impossible, sweat on the top lip and trickling down the spine inducing battle with non-nursing tops as one desperately tries to wrestle nipple into mouth without flashing at Uncle Jim/Dad/weird staring woman in the café/niece and her curious gaggle of girlfriends/an in-law who’s insistent that you should just give the baby a bottle.

Shopping with a baby is tricky at the best of times, and who has time for returns?

So where’s good? Answers on a postcard (or comments on the online version of this article) please.

Your sisters (and anyone who wants to look at you) need you!

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