The New-Mom Wardrobe Essentials (From The Women Who Actually Wore Them)

Anyone will tell you that new motherhood is a joyful experience — colored, of course, with bewilderment, anxiousness, and abject exhaustion. Feeding and clothing a newborn is no simple task — and you’re supposed to get yourself dressed, too? At a time when you’re getting by on so little sleep that you may qualify for insanity, and your body is changing its shape and size practically by the hour, assembling any kind of outfit becomes a Herculean task.

Now, we firmly believe that a new mom should wear whatever makes her feel the most comfortable, and we are in no way advocating that you should dress in some totally reinvented type of way after giving birth. However, here on the Shopping team, we’re students of fashion, and style is deeply connected to our sense of well-being. That’s just us. We have a feeling that if you’re reading this article, you’re in the same boat, and you might be looking for some insight on how to put yourself together during a time when it feels like you have very little energy, and very little control.

In order to figure this out, we went straight to the source: actual moms. We polled some R29ers — including our executive creative director, Piera Gelardi — and some of the most stylish fashion-industry mothers we know, grilling them on what they reached for in those first few chaotic months of motherhood. (Veterans of motherhood also filled us in on some of the pieces they still rely on years later.) Their suggestions ran the gamut from technical maternity gear (a mega-supportive, double-duty nursing/pumping bra) to the unexpectedly kid-friendly (an edgy, oversized button-down offering easy boob access) to the simply genius (a handbag insert that turns any tote into a super-compartmentalized diaper bag). The one thing all these picks have in common? They made these style-inclined new moms feel pretty good about themselves — and that's a tiny luxury everyone deserves.