25 nursing bras to be won!

In March, we turn 25. For quarter of a century we have been making maternity and nursing bras to help mums get the comfortable support they need, without breaking the bank. We're really proud of this. To celebrate our birthday, we're giving away presents, rather than getting them.

Come back on 1 March to find out how you can win one of 25 of our fab new Next Generation nursing bras - so comfy you'll never want to take it off.

Calling all retailers! Help us celebrate our 25th anniversary and win

In March we will be celebrating our 25th anniversary. That's 25 years of making comfortable, supportive and affordable lingerie for new and expectant mums. Can we get a Woohoo! or at least a big cake with candles?

To celebrate, we’re inviting all of our online stockists to send us a link to the Emma-Jane product page on their website. An independent consultant will view the pages and the stockist who they think most accurately reflects the Emma-Jane ethos of comfort, support and affordability will win a £250 prize to spend with us. That's £250 worth of free Emma-Jane stock for you to sell, with the profits all going to you!

Stockists can simply leave a link to their page in the comments section below or post it onto the wall of our Facebook page by 31 March to be included. Winners will receive exposure on this very blog - and on Facebook and Twitter.

For mums, watch this space because during the month of March we will be giving away 25 - yes 25! - of our new Next Generation nursing bras. Come back on 1 March to find out how to enter. 

Conflicting advice on when to wean - a mum shares her story

In January, a report came out which went against the WHOs recommendation that all babies should be exclusively breastfed for six months. We wrote about it here. It's easy to look at all the different arguments from a distance and see the different points of view. But when you are a new mum and you have hormones raging through your body and you're not 100% sure what you should be doing but you know you want to do what's right, conflicting advice can be very upsetting and confusing.

Helen, a mum with a now 10 month old son, writes a blog at http://petitmew.blogspot.com/. She was kind enough to share her experience of receiving conflicting advice about weaning onto solids.

What we take from her story - and what we hope other mums will take from it - is to listen to all the opinions out there and then make your own mind up. You know your baby best so read his cues. Every baby is different. There isn't a one size fits all answer. So don't beat yourself up if you think you've got something wrong. It's a learning curve.

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Helen's story

When my son was born I felt so overwhelmed with joy and happiness. I was unsure before as to whether I would breastfeed but when I saw him for the first time I knew that I wanted to breastfeed him for as long as possible. 

I was kept overnight because I had stitches and my son had a little help with the ventouse which left his head rather sore, but also they wanted to make sure I could breastfeed him without any trouble. I thought all I had to do was show him where the nipple was and he’d be enjoying breast milk. It was not that simple one bit! It was a learning curve for both him and I, neither of us really had a clue what we were doing. I was very lucky to have had a midwife who specialises in breastfeeding and would help any mum with advice, showing them how to position yourself and baby and so on. Once I had shown the midwife I could do it on my own I was discharged and able to go home.

Everything had been going well and he had been perfectly healthy. I suffered with sore nipples and felt like giving up a month later, but we bought some cream and nipple guards which helped give my nipples a bit of rest. At the age of 5 months old for a week I was having trouble keeping him on the breast and found him pushing me away and crying loudly. I was confused and when I asked for help seemed I wasn’t doing anything incorrect and was suggested to see my Health Visitor. I did just that and he had lost nearly 2lbs in weight. She suggested I see my GP right now and almost instantly I had swapped rooms and was getting my boy checked by the doctor. She saw nothing wrong with him, but noticed signs of teething and desire to be weaned. I felt so stupid for not noticing these signs before and rushed off to get some baby food, juices, everything you need for weaning. I expressed milk using a manual pump but over time I found myself making less and less milk until finally I was barely making enough to make a bottle for him.

One week later I returned to make sure he was gaining weight again. He had not only gained it but had also put another 2lbs on top of what he lost! I was so relieved and happy to know the problem had been resolved. Sadly my Health Visitor was not happy. The moment I told her I was feeding him food and no longer able to breastfeed him she went off on one. She was not only angry at the doctor, who she said should not have told me to wean so early, but made me out to be a bad parent. When I asked what I should do now her words were “well the damage is done now, continue what you are doing”.

I was hit hard by those words. As I walked back home I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. It took me weeks to get over what she said to me, but now I feel confident that I did the right thing for my boy, who is very healthy and happy now at the age of 10 months.

Breastfeeding is a wonderful experience that I suggest all mums-to-be to try. I won’t pretend it wasn’t a struggle and you probably will have sore nipples for the first few weeks, but with the right help and a supportive family you can get through all that and follow on until your baby is ready for food.

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Have you had a similar experience? We'd love to hear your breastfeeding stories - whether you exclusively breastfed for 6 months or whether you weaned early. It really helps new mums know what other new mums have gone through so they realise how different everyone is.

And it goes without saying that if you are breastfeeding, you'll be needing some nursing bras, so do check out our range!

Scared of breastfeeding? One mum shares her fears

Breastfeeding. It's a subject that seems to cause so much controversy. But one mum - Kelly - who writes her blog 'A place of my own' - was brave enough to express the fears she has about breastfeeding her second baby. After reading it, we asked her if we could repost it here because we believe it's important for new mums to be honest about how they're feeling so that they can get the support and comfort they need. Kelly has already received lots of great feedback and support on her blog, but we hope that our readers might have some encouraging words of advice for her too.

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Tears and confusion

I cried in Boots today. How utterly embarrassing. I stood there, all wrapped up in my parka, with Piran in the Xplory and big tears started sliding down my face. I had gone in to buy Piran shampoo but that wasn't what set me off. As I weaved my way between the baby aisles I noticed the Tommee Tippee bottles and stopped to have a look.

It is not the bottles and it is not the fact there will be a small baby. It is that I am scared. I am not scared of having a second child. I am not scared of the hard work, the sleep deprivation or the intense changes that we have coming up in the next few months. I am scared of breastfeeding.

I am also scared of writing this post, although it is in my head, crowding out all thoughts a lot of the time. This is my place, where I can write and vent and let go but breastfeeding is such an emotive subject that I am afraid of what people will think of me if I say all this. It has to be done though, so please just remember that this is how I feel about my situation. I have to get it out, that is for sure, I cannot just wander round sobbing in public.

I wrote this post The F-Word 12 weeks after Piran was born. It explains our journey with feeding and how he ended up being bottlefed. I can't actually read it back the whole way through at the moment.

There is a lot behind it, all tied in with him being ill and such a strong willed hungry little man but in its simplest form for many reasons when I tried to breastfeed Piran it did not go so well and in the end I found myself angry at him, resenting him, full of horrible bad feelings towards my own baby son. So I stopped breastfeeding. I stopped trying to breastfeed. I did express as much milk as I could and gave him every last drop until after two weeks my milk dried up.

Over the past 18 months I have come to terms with all of that. He is a beautiful, healthy wonderful child and as far as I can tell formula has done him no harm. I am happy and completely convinced gave him the best start that I was able to give.

But now I am here again. Thumper is growing, kicking, moving, making her presence known. In a few short months all being well I will hold her in my arms. I am dealing with my fears about birth, but ever present and unable to ignore is my fear of breastfeeding.

I know it is not meant to be easy. It is not simple and both of us will have to learn how to do it. But what if it is too hard. I am afraid to try. I am afraid that all those feelings will come back. I don't want to start feeling the way I did about Piran again. Those were dark, evil, terrible feelings that I never ever want again.

So what do I do? Do I simply admit that the fear is too much and just bottlefeed from day one, supplementing with expressed breastmilk for as long as I can. Do I give her the same start I gave Piran? That is what made me cry today. I was looking at bottles, mentally calculating how many we will need and I realised that part of me assumes I will be bottle feeding again.

Or do I try? Do I fully commit myself to breastfeeding this time. It may go okay. If it does how will I feel then? That I am somehow giving her more than I could give Piran. Also, I only know what it is like to have a bottle fed baby, so Mr C could feed Piran and give me a break. I got whole nights of sleep on occasion, will I be able to deal with the fact that if I breastfeed I don't get a break. How will Piran react, will he understand? How will I breastfeed and manage a toddler home alone during the day. How do people do it?

I am scared of what to say to the midwife when she speaks to me about it. I am not sure I can admit face to face any of this. How do you say I am afraid to breastfeed as I am scared it will make me hate my baby. It doesn't make sense, and how would you react if someone said that to you? I know that it is a bit blunt but it is the basic truth. God, if I say that they will probably just take the baby straight off me when it arrives.

Oh it is all so jumbled in my head. It is not even making sense on the page. I am not sure whether writing this has helped or whether I am more confused than I was. It could well be the latter.

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Visit Kelly's blog to read the comments she's received but feel free to leave her some here too. If there are any other mums out there who are feeling the same way or who have a positive second time around story to share with us, please let us know.

Woohoo! Our soft nursing bra has got an award

There are some things in life that just need to be kept simple. No fuss or fanciness. Just soft, comfortable and simple. And that's exactly what our soft nursing bra (style 411) is. Recently it was reviewed by mums for BizzieBaby and it was given a Silver Award, scoring 5/5, 4.8/5 and 4/5 respectively.

This is it (teamed up with our 512 briefs):

You can read the full reviews here  but we've pulled out some of the highlights:

"It is so comfortable to wear, in fact I am still wearing it and am no longer breast feeding! This really helps make breast feeding easier, it is easy to use and very comfortable. Overall, an invaluable product that is excellent for feeding!"

"I liked the style and found it really comfortable to wear, it’s also very easy to open and it doesn’t get in the way when getting baby into position. This makes it easier to be discreet when feeding in public."  

"A good fitting quality bra made of lovely material.  Fits well and looks like like your normal lingerie.  The fastenings make it very easy to feed baby and very comfortable to wear. Certainly made breast feeding easy and just so comfy to wear.  Good value for money and will probably still wear after I have stopped feeding for a while.  When you find a good quality product like this you keep going back for more." 

What we found most interesting, is that all three reviewers said that they liked it so much, that they would continue to wear it once they'd stopped breastfeeding. We think that happens often with our products. They become that item in your wardrobe that you turn to day after day because you know it will fit and be comfortable. Those fancier, racier, more pricey items stay tucked in the draw for that special occasion, but it's your Emma-Janes you turn to daily. Like an old friend. We love that.

So tell us, do you still wear your nursing bras now that you're no longer breastfeeding?

And the winner is.....

We hope you had a fantastic Valentine's Day yesterday with your loved one. But more importantly, we hope that our Love Yourself blog posts have made all the mums and mums-to-be out there realise just how amazing they are.

We put every person who commented on our posts and all the people who liked us on Facebook into a random number generator. And the lucky number was 15 - Becky Taylor! Becky we've got in touch via Facebook and we'll get these chocolates sent to you.  Congratulations.

To everyone else, thanks for your support. If you haven't joined us on Facebook yet, please do. We'd love to hear from you. If you know of any mums in need of a pick me up, who perhaps is being hard on herself or feeling less than gorgeous, please send her this way as we're always here to give a little bit of comfort and support. And if it's your breasts or bump that need comfort and support, check out our range here. Keep on loving yourself ladies!

Love Yourself - Valentine's Day - A whole new you

Due to a technical glitch, this post was meant to go out yesterday. But it's just as relevant today. Because it's all about loving the new you - even if you're not quite sure of who you are anymore. This is the culmination of our Valentine's Day Love Yourself campaign. If you haven't been following it, read back over the last two weeks worth of posts for plenty of reasons why mums-to-be and new mums should love themselves.

So today we wish everyone a very happy Valentine's Day. And while you are sending out cards, kisses, cuddles and love to the special people in your life, don't forget to Love Yourself too.

Day 13 - A whole new you
It is impossible to understand how your life changes once you've had a baby until you've had one. Many people say it won't change them. And perhaps it won't. But they'll be the exception rather than the rule. For most women, becoming a mother changes everything.

It's not just the changes in your body or how often you can go out. It's not just that your friends change, as do your holidays. It's not just your career, which often gets put on hold or stopped altogether.  It's not just how your relationship with your partner gets altered. What really changes most is you.

You realise that you see the world through different eyes. Those things discussed on the news about schooling and health care now mean something. You understand the importance of having a network of friends and family so much more. You feel fear like you've never known before and joy beyond anything you could have previously imagined. You sacrifice so much because you want to be the best mum you can, to the extent that you completely lose sight of who you originally were. That pre-mummy person becomes a distant memory.

The thing is, having a baby gives you the opportunity to become a whole new you. It's virtually impossible to stay the person you were. But it is important to hold onto some of the things that made you what you are. Don't lose all of your former self. Don't feel guilty about doing something for you. Do use this life changing time to redefine who you want to be. Don't be afraid to try something new. Be confident, even if you don't feel it.  Realise that you are changed and embrace the change. Love the person you have become.

It's your last chance to leave us a comment (we'd love to hear how motherhood has changed you) or Like Us on Facebook to be entered into our draw to win these fab choccies. We'll announce the winner tomorrow.