What did women do in the days before the breastfeeding pillow, I often wonder. Hold their babies while feeding? Cuddle and cradle those precious little children while providing them with life-sustaining nourishment produced by a mother’s own body?
Pshaw! Women of the 21st century have way too much else to do. We want to have a hand free to change the channel, chat on the phone or browse online while breastfeeding.
Hence, the nursing mother’s need for a good breastfeeding pillow.
If you’re like most ladies, you’re probably lured in by the appeal of the Boppy. Cute name, cute slipcovers. A Boppy pillow is pretty much a requisite baby registry item, right? But that doesn’t make it the best. As a nursing mother of twins, trust me on this one. The Boppy is nice for some things, but nursing isn’t necessarily one of them.
Early in my nursing experience, I was introduced to the My Brest Friend
nursing pillow (yes, that is the real name). When my babies were teensy tiny newborns, they were too small for the Ez-2-Nurse Twins Nursing Pillow
Why? I’ll tell you why. It’s made for the breastfeeding mother. The Boppy, on the other hand, is trying to do too much — it wants to be a prop, a lounger, a pillow, and a cute C-shaped object all at the same time. Not to mention the racket that is the changeable slipcover. ($10 – 25 each? Seriously?)
So, let’s go through the details.
Boppy
Boppy pros: It’s cute. No doubt. It is actually nice to have an extra (expensive) slipcover around when baby drools or pukes on it. The Boppy doubles as a Tummy Time prop, which has proven more agreeable to my girls than putting them on the floor directly. We also like to put our Boppy pillows next to us on the couch while we eat dinner so that the girls aren’t relegated to a bouncy chair or swing in a corner — it allows us to interact with the babies when we otherwise might not be able to. My husband has also discovered that the Boppy is very comfy when placed around one’s neck to fall asleep on the couch.
Boppy cons:
Notice I didn’t actually mention anything about breastfeeding in the “pros” section. The Boppy is just too soft to really support the baby for nursing. You end up having to hold up the baby anyway. I also don’t see how anyone with a waist larger than 22 inches could fit into this thing. The expandable middle that it touts? BS. Sorry. It opens up only to collapse in the front so that the baby further falls down. If you think you’ll use this to help your baby learn to sit up, think again. The baby has to already be able to sit up on her own to really benefit from the little support the Boppy provides.
So, what’s so great about the My Brest Friend?
My Brest Friend
My Brest Friend pros: This nursing pillow is made with the nursing mother and baby in mind. Instead of a soft, pillow stuffing like the Boppy, the My Brest Friend (MBF) is made of a firm, non-collapsing foam. On either side of the pillow where the breasts are, there are two small “mounds” formed into the foam. This makes is such that the baby can lie on his side and have his head slightly elevated to be ergonomically friendly for him, and nicely in line with the nipple for mama.
Where the Boppy is an open-backed pillow, MBF has a sturdy, expandable snap-belt. While plus-sized moms might be wary of this, I have read forum reviews of women in the size 18 – 20 range who simply don’t buckle the strap but can still wrap the pillow around the waist.
There’s a little pocket on the side to hold extra items such as a burp cloth or, uh, remote control. And if you’re looking to tandem nurse newborn twins, you can do it with this pillow. I used the MBF until the girls were 8 pounds or so.
Random bonus: When you stand up with the MBF buckled around your waist, it looks like a cigarette girl’s tray.
My Brest Friend cons: If you can call it a “con,” the MBF can only be used for nursing. No cute tummy time pillow or baby prop here. Also, mine absolutely STANK of plastic when I first opened it. I had to wash the cover to remove the smell (thought it did come out readily with the first wash).
About the author: Idoia never intended to get married or have kids. So she got hitched and had twins. Wait….what? Read more from this author.
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I totally love MBF. I didn’t even buy or register for a Boppy as all of my nursing and mommy friends recommended the MBF. The only thing I don’t like about it is what the hell do I do with it now? It’s so big and bulky and doesn’t serve any other purpose. . .
It DOES allow me to nurse and type though. SO totally worth the storage woes.
I don’t use any sort of pillow at all, but I used the Bobby with S. I have no idea why I don’t use a pillow. It’s a wonder MJ eats at all the way I hold him all jacked up.
ok the boppy pillow after your little one grows out of them i find that well you can still use it for self to lay your head on at night
when i had my twins i had a boppy-like thing with a velcro back that i still use with the 4th. mbf was great when they were tiny, though. and i used it as a shelf to hold the twins when the slept! i would hold their tiny bodies up with one arm and wipe my ass or make lunch with the other!
Thanks so much for this review Idoia! I had a Boppy, and I thought that the problem was w/ me. It never seemed to be at the right level and my little guy would slide all over the place. However, I just got a MBF, and it made feeding him soo much easier. If you have a mega-let down, which really can be a huge pain when feeding such a little guy, MBF seriously helps.
Hi,
My wife didn’t like the Boppy at all but when she got the Boston Billow nursing pillow she was in “7th heaven.” The Boppy just didn’t work as a nursing pillow while the Boston Billow was sufficiently flexible so that she could adjust it to her body and the baby.
Suggest you make a comparison too of this nursing pillow with the others.
[...] gave up on the EZ-2-Nurse and used the My Brest Friend nursing pillow instead. I was able to use it to nurse the babies one at a time, then tandem, for quite a [...]
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