Nursing Pillows

I have two nursing pillows.  One is the standard Boppy that everyone has.  The other is a My Brest Friend. My routine with my son was to keep the Boppy in the living room and the MBF in the bedroom.  This allowed me to nurse in varying positions like the football hold and the standard cradle during the day.  This is helpful in those first few weeks you start breastfeeding so you get evenly worn so to speak.

I'm not sure if the Boppy lost some fluff in the year and a half since it's last use, but it is not the wonderful pillow I remember.  To be honest, I use it as a back pillow now and a standard bed pillow to hold up the baby.  Again this can be shoved on my side or held across my lap and gives me the same flexibility while nursing on the couch.  (Course to really complain, our pillows are down so they're way too soft and I'm constantly torquing the pillow to get it the way I want it, but even that is easier than using the Boppy).  The pillow can't be all bad though.  Everyone I know has one at some point or another while they have a baby. My sister has a great technique for giving her 3 week old son tummy time, and he falls asleep on her lap while straddling the Boppy and loves it.  However, after starting to nurse my second child it has lost it's luster for me personally.

What makes the MBF so great you ask?  Well for starters it's a firm foam pillow.  It holds one shape, and that's it.  It wraps around your body, and you clip it on, so it stays in one place.  There are two bumps on either side of the front of the pillow which help position the baby's head turned slightly upward.  This is an ideal nursing position otherwise you have to support both your breast and the baby's head which gets old.  I like to use my free hand to play on my cell when I'm up at 4 am!  The part that wraps around your waist has a great back support.  While I feed on the couch I find myself leaning forward or trying to keep more upright and this gets tiring.  When the MBF is in the right spot, I can relax and lean back and not worry about the baby slipping or shifting.  I've used if outside a few times and it fits great while I sit on plastic outdoor chairs.  The other day I even used it to nurse while I caught up on emails, hands free!

If I could do it all over again with my first I'd wish for two MBFs.  It does seem a little lazy since I could really just carry the one pillow wherever I needed it.  But in the beginning when you're tired you don't want to go to bed and wake up for a late night feeding and realize you forgot the pillow in some other room you're not sure where.  But, now that our little girl sleeps mostly through the night, I'm almost ready to move the MBF to the living room for good!