Breastfeeding on the front row: a beginner's guide

Breastfeeding on the front row: a beginner's guide
When I got pregnant last year, the first thing anybody asked me was, how would I carry on working? Maternity leave was never going to be on the cards. As a fashion blogger and writer, I knew that, from a financial standpoint, work couldn’t come to a grinding halt. But I’m blessed with a mother keen on being a hands-on grandmother, who knows how to lull a baby to sleep with Cantonese nursery rhymes, and a partner who works part-time and is a firm believer in 50/50 parenting. As my due date loomed large, I blissfully thought things would just work themselves out
Back in January, a week after I gave birth to my daughter Nico, I was still working to a print deadline – dictating sentences into my iPhone and breastfeeding at the same time, before graduating to one-handed typing. Sure, I couldn’t move my bum off the sofa because it was so painful but, hurrah, I could knock out a few paragraphs about women’s tailoring.
It was really adamance on my part to keep working. My postnatal mind was suddenly preoccupied with nappies, nap patterns and breastfeeding latch techniques. Continuing to do something familiar was my way of taking back control of my sleep-deprived, cry-addled brain. So when the requests to host panel discussions, cover shows and go on press trips started to filter in, I said yes – and delved into the conundrum of doing the fashion thing and caring for Nico.
Dressing was the least of my problems. I’ve enjoyed hunting for tops or dresses with yankable necklines and billowing hems to facilitate breastfeeding, without having to resort to dull nursing tops. Retaining my personal style was one immediate way to feel like the pre-mother me, just by pulling on, say a favourite Molly Goddard dress while worrying over Nico’s slimy green poo.
Travelling with her has had its ups and downs. There were the easy trips such as a gentle Eurostar train to Paris for the Chanel cruise show, where Nico got to stay in a hotel room bigger than my house. I chortled at her gurgling in her pram at the Prada Fondazione in Milan, with Courtney Love on the next table. On the flipside I nearly had to lock myself in the bathroom on the flight back from the Gucci cruise show in Florence, as Nico screamed relentlessly and I could see Jared Leto(who features in Gucci’s perfume ads) wincing in his seat.
When I did have to leave her behind for the Dior and Louis Vuitton cruise shows in Los Angeles and Tokyo, it required weeks of pumping like a milking cow to build up a stash in the freezer, as well as the mental preparation for doing the dastardly thing of leaving a three-month baby. The week away will be remembered for the countless lengthy trips to the toilet, pumping milk out in order to maintain supply, while looking at pictures of Nico on my phone – like a non-sexual parallel of masturbating with porn.
The fashion industry, full of inspiring women who have done the motherhood thing and managed their careers, has been a source of support in my mission to work with baby in tow. But this full-throttle life has its pitfalls. At Paris couture fashion week, stuck in traffic and late for both a show and Nico’s feeding time, I felt a failure professionally and personally.
Back home, I imagined shards of judgment from other mothers – a self-imposed guilt dictated by the construct of a conventional maternity leave where you’re supposed to be nurturing your baby 100% of the time. But will Nico remember any of those times I’ve looked at her and momentarily wished I didn’t have to shove my breast into her mouth? Not likely. Will she care that she came along for the ride with her mother and her suitcase full of frocks to eight countries in the first six months of her life? Probably not. Will she one day, eventually, understand the importance of being able to work in a vocation she is passionate about and be a mother at the same time? I hope so.
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