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You Can Blame This One On My Mom
Amy Storch of Amalah.com | January 5th, 2009 - 2:02 PM
My mom thinks this is something I should tell the Internet. She felt quite strongly about it, and my sister agreed. Both of them, over Christmas, responded with a forceful “YOU NEED TO TELL THE INTERNET” when I told them about my ingenious idea. My ingenious, totally weird, totally gross idea.
So. Nursing pads. I never used them with my first baby, except maybe once or twice early on — in those dark, toe-curling days of improper latchings and round-the-clock comfort nursing — to get a little padding for my poor chafed hamburger meat nipples. I had terrible supply issues and never ever leaked milk, so the box of 100-count nursing pads sat on my nightstand unused, occasionally mocking me and my pathetic boobs.
I refused to be mocked again, so this time I bought the smallest box possible, just in case. I figured I could repurpose them as doilies or pee-pee teepees, if I had to.
And of course, I blew through those suckers in record time. OVERSUPPLY. CRAZY ABUNDANT MILK. I hear a baby cry from two states over and my bra is soaked. It’s…totally insane. Awesome, really, and totally unexpected. But it’s forced me to get creative with nursing pads.
Because here’s the thing: I hate nursing pads. The disposable ones are beyond annoying — they bunch up, they don’t stay put, they pop up and out of your bra and I never figured out how to gracefully dispose of them when trying to discreetly nurse in public (or at least keep them from falling out onto the floor while I was busy juggling the baby). The reusable, wash-by-hand ones may be environmentally friendly, but I am already up to my eyeballs in Small Things I Need to Wash. Plus, like the disposables, the reusable ones are just so much BIGGER than I really need, and visible under unlined bras and nursing tanks, which are what I usually wear. And I don’t know about you, but I can think of a zillion other things I’d like to comparison-shop for besides NURSING PADS. Ice cream flavors, for example. And various sizes of diamonds.
So…I ran out of pads. Just in time for us to load the kids up and take a long drive home for the holidays. I knew the situation called for some padding (stuck in traffic, a delayed feeding, baby cries from backseat, Niagra Falls, ahoy!), but I had nothing. Nothing except…the giant box of Kotex panty liners my husband had mistakenly purchased for me immediately postpartum. (I give him props for TRYING to buy me maxi-pads, though.)
The box called to me: ultra-thin, ultra-long, ultra-absorbent!
I pulled one out and snipped it into four sections, removed the backing on two of them and secured them to the inside of my bra, Voila. Nursing pads. The back of the panty liner is edge-to-edge adhesive so it stays put feeding after feeding, and it’s thin enough to be completely invisible under a tank or unlined bra. It absorbs just as much as a regular bulky nursing pad and is a fraction of a fraction of the cost. I get three or four pads from a single liner and can wear them all day in complete comfort and confidence.
So… there you go. I have a panty liner in my bra. My mom thinks I’m really smart and stuff. Let’s not tell her otherwise.
THANK YOU for this idea! You really are smart – I just wish I read this 5 nursing pad boxes ago…..!
what a great idea!!!! I have a favorite brand of nursing pads, but this will work great in a pinch!
Great idea. It also gives me hope to know that you had a lot more milk with the second one.
I have a lot of milk, but no leaking with this baby. SInce, as you say, it changes from baby to baby, I’ll keep this tip handy for the future!
I am so glad your mom and sis told you to write about this. I’m not nursing yet, so you just helped me save money by not buying nursing pads I may not like or need.
Holy shit that’s a good idea.
I sure wish I would have read this four months ago! Also, I HATE the Lansinoh nursing pads. Don’t ever, ever, ever buy them. They bunch and don’t stay put.
DUDE!! I just want to tell everyone that you are absolutely right on with this one. I did the same thing with my first and I plan to do it again with this baby (I’m due like, NOW…). If I may add a bit of advice though, if you cut the panty liner into only 2 halves and make sure the cut open end is facing UP to prevent leak-out you will have unending hours of use from the same pad. It’s teh awesome!
Panty liners for nursing pad.
BRILLIANT!
Anything damp next to a chafed boob is hell. I went straight for the Lily Padz with my second. It’s like a removable blister band-aid for your boob that somehow keeps the milk in. Aaaahhhh. Not cheap, but reusable for months. And totally worth the initial $20 investment. At least for this mama…
OK, I don’t want to rain on anyones parade, and I applaud your creativity, but the thing is:
“Most pads and pantyliners use absorbent fibers that have been bleached with chlorine, creating dangerous toxins, like dioxin. Studies have shown a direct link between dioxin exposure and cancer, birth defects, and reproductive disorders”
I’m not making this up. Call me crazy and paranoid, but this doesn’t seem like something I want contaminating my milk. At the very least, make sure you wash the cancer causing nastiness off of your boobs before inserting them in your baby’s mouth please? I know I’m coming off all crunchy here, but I’d give the cotton washable kind another try.
-signed, Interfering, unsolicited advice giver.
P.S. to add to my earlier message of doom and gloom…The super absorbant chemicals that allow pads and panty liners to be so nice and slim?…If you breathe them in they cause respiratory diseases like asthma and lots of other unpleasantness. Possibly not a huge concern when they’re rubbing against your naughty bits, but again, you want to keep it away from your baby’s mouth.
I soooo did the panty liners in the bra with #1 – brilliant (except for all the cancer-causing chemicals that I must have fed him. Oops!) I also had CUH-RAZY over supply in the beginning and for overnights, when the nursing pads didn’t even come close to doing the trick, I have shoved the following into my bra: 1) extra absorbant, super-duper maxi pads, 2) baby face cloths folded into 4s, 3) adult face cloths folded into 4s, 4) a newborn diaper in each side. And STILL subjected my husband to sleepng in a wet puddle of milk for at least a month. I really hope it happens again, though, with #2 and I don’t have the Opposite Amalah Effect.
I used panty liners in my daughter’s underwear when she was potty training. It didn’t catch everything, but the mess was less than going without.
I’ll have to rememeber that.
You are definitely brilliant.
Tho I really really liked the flannel pads I got, soooo warm and toasty. (machine washed ‘em in the lingerie bag with my bras)
I’ve done this. I had gone for months with the bulky, regular kind and had no leaks. So I thought one day that I was done with inadvertent leaks so I went without. And TA DA! Surprise! I sprung a leak and all I had with me at work in my desk were 2 tampons and a panty liner. SNIP. SLIP. SAFE.
Another option for people who are going reusable, men’s white handkerchiefs, folded in quarters.
omg now i feel remiss in not telling you that my mom told me that trick years ago – only she had to use those NON-STICKY-BACKED ones from the sixties.