You're back at your desk, or on a call, or in a meeting. You look professional. Your camera is on. Nobody can tell that you're also navigating feeds, engorgement, and the mental load of a body still doing postpartum work while your brain is trying to be present at a 10am standup.
This is the chapter nobody prepares you for.
The practical wardrobe problem Workwear and nursing wear are not designed to overlap. Office clothing typically has no feeding access. Nursing clothing typically doesn't look office-appropriate. The solution most women land on — a blazer over a nursing top, or a wrap dress — works but requires constant thinking about what can be worn where and with what. You're already carrying enough mental load. Your clothes shouldn't add to it.
What actually works for the return-to-work nursing period: tops with concealed feeding access that read as regular workwear. A zip or button mechanism that isn't visible when closed. Clean, solid colours that look deliberate on a call. Fabrics that don't show heat or stress by 3pm. The piece that does both jobs — professional and functional — without announcing either.
The body you're going back in It may not be the body you left in. Your bust is larger and still changing. Your waist is somewhere in between. Standard office sizing probably doesn't fit the same way it did before. This is temporary, but it's real, and buying workwear in this window is frustrating because you don't know exactly what size you're buying for.
The practical answer: soft, adaptable fabrics with some give. Overbelly waistbands if you're still in that window. Pieces that work across a range rather than requiring precision fit. One or two well-chosen pieces that carry you through the nursing period are more useful than a full work wardrobe refresh you'll need to redo in six months.
The part that's harder to name There's also the identity piece. Walking back into a professional context, being seen as your work self again, after months of being seen primarily as a pregnant woman, and then a new mother, is disorienting in a way that's hard to articulate. What you wear on those first days back matters in a way that goes beyond function.
You're still you. The work didn't stop being yours because a baby arrived. Getting dressed in the morning for a day that includes both is not a small act.
Especially, the Just In Case top that's made with 95% cotton + 5% spandex. It blends into your wardrobe so seamlessly while still having a secret concealed zipper that opens to fit a pump / breastfeed your baby without any hassle. This was made specially to fit in a working (corporate or otherwise) woman's wardrobe while being functional.
be imli's pieces are designed for exactly this overlap. Professional enough for a call, functional enough for a feed, in fabrics that hold up across a full working day.
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