Dressed on a Dime postpartum

Dress: $40, underskirt: $13, scarf: $2

Total: $55

Last week was the dress I lucked upon, and this week is the dress I stalked. It looked like exactly what I was looking for in terms of postpartum wear.... the front buttoned up for nursing, the waist was smocked for a nice fitted but not form hugging shape, and the fluffy ruffles disguise all the lumpy frumpiness of the early nursing days. $65 was the original ticket price, plus shipping, so when it showed up in the clearance section in my size for $40 with free shipping, I snapped it up. And it fulfilled its promise and more; it's quite comfortable, slips on easily, and fits like it was made for my measurements. Obviously I need to actually iron it at some point so I don't look quite so much like an indignant chicken, but that's one of those things I planned to do in the three weeks longer I expected to be pregnant....

The only downside to the dress is that its lowest button leaves a huge gap open at the bottom, which is not at all conducive to toddler chasing. This I solved by throwing on a lace-trimmed skirt underneath it, a stretchy waisted black and white number from the mall. The waist scarf was snagged from an online clearance sale.

Dressed on a Dime for nursing

Sometimes hours of searching online catalogs and poring over etsy and ebay doesn't uncover the perfect item so well as just simple good old fashioned thrifting.

Dress: $8, belt: $4?*, shoes: $7

Total: $19ish

*(The belt was on clearance in a set with this shirt. )

When I had Jack, I didn't buy any nursing shirts, just a few tunics with drawstring or smocked necklines. I didn't end up wearing them very much, and I thought it would sure be nice to have something better this go round. Button up shirts with traditional collars don't generally look very good on me, so I began the quest for shirtdresses, preferably ones with cute collars.

I found some really nice ones at various places around the internet, but my grail of a nursing dress was hanging around at goodwill waiting for a loving home. Nice sturdy fabric, the perfect collar, cute sleeves, a not-too-low-but-not-too-high neckline, pockets big enough for my cell phone, and a cut that somehow manages to flatter a newly postpartum belly. Oh, and did I mention the color? My husband loves it, my baby loves it, I love it, and the budget loves it as well.

Comparison

I know you're not supposed to compare your kids, but there, I did it. :) Jack at 18 days and Dominic at 21 days.

Now I think it's ok for me to say that these jeans made me compare more than just my boys, and the conclusion was unsurprising... my thighs are bigger the second go round, and, well, suffice it to say that my incision did not really care for the low rise waistband at all.

So no, I won't be wearing the jeans for longer than a few minutes for quite some time, but the rest of the outfit works well for postpartum and nursing. Jeans, tops (one clearance, one thrifted), and zip up hoody, $23ish

Same clothes, different look

For me, part of having a budget efficient wardrobe is having versatile clothes. Not stuff that can be worn multiple ways so much as stuff that can be worn on multiple versions of me. You know, regular me, massive pregnant me, and baby's personal milk cow me. I'm in that last stage right now, and I'm a little better prepared this time than I was last time. I made sure ahead of time to incorporate a lot more button-up items into my closet.

The ruffled blouse was thrifted for $5. The stripey tank and knit skirt (which both made appearances in my maternity wardrobe) were Old Navy clearance items at $4 each. My earrings were all gifted, but the necklace is a commissioned custom work for $20.

Between the three of us, we covered most of the options for cheap shopping. Jack's shirt was bought off an online garage sale for $3 (I've discovered that Thomas is so popular that pretty much every garage sale with kids' stuff will have him around somewhere). Dominic's footy is a hand-me-down from Jack, but it originally came from Nordstrom Rack. After working at a children's boutique, I developed a bit of a fondness for adorable and super-soft Kissy Kissy baby outfits, but I never fell in love with the prices. For $13, about the same price as just a tiny hat in the same print at Nordstrom not-Rack, I found this frog footy with matching jacket.

So all of us are dressed for under $50... under $30 if you don't count the necklace (which I wouldn't, since I'm not counting my VS underthings or the boys' cloth diapers either). We cut some corners around the house, but I promise that we are not so frugal that we don't wear shoes or put pants on Jack when we go out in public. Heheh.

What This Was All About

No more maternity pictures, because he is out! I had expected to get to a hundred days of this project, but it was not to be, as our little tiny kidlet decided he wanted to arrive almost three weeks early via emergency c-section. Suffice it to say I have not been taking outfit pictures these days. But many pictures have been taken! They just contain a whole lot more cuteness than my wardrobe.