We, unfortunately, were swayed by the Boppy crowd. This is fine horse shoe shaped pillow with a wide array of fashion covers. That's where it ends. This thing, for us anyway, has proved useless as a feeding aid. The concept is simple and thus the Boppy is the simplest solution. Wrap the pillow around your waist, lay child on pillow, attach child to boob and you have suckling bliss. Not.so.much.
The faults are many--the pillow is rounded on all sides, thus there is no platform to lay the child on. There is nothing that holds the pillow to mother thus there is nothing preventing it from detaching nor any ability for mother to shift in concert with the device.
I'm quite certain that in an idealized situation, where mother is in the exact right position, with ideal posture the pillow provides the requisite cushioning for between mother's lap and the child as that's all that you'd need. Such and idealized environment might be a glider chair which the
nice folks at Target have delayed yet again from shipping to us--but that's a whole 'nother post. The limited support, stability and positions limit feeding options and flexibility and have rendered this device useless to us. It would make a very nice travel head rest pillow thing for a very large-headed individual though. Turns out the folks at Boppy seem to agree...the image to the left is a "product shot" from the Boppy home page. No mother, no breastfeeding but boy the cute baby looks happy in a cute little chair/pillow.At the apex of our hatred for the Boppy we were at a loss when Zeke'sMom dropped by for a visit and offered up her used but no-longer-used My Breast Friend. The alternative to the Boppy in this holy war of breastfeeding furniture. A day later, Zeke'sMom came back with unit
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and life changed. The goal is identical to the Boppy, to provide a place for child to rest while enjoying what daddy no longer has access to--mommy's mammaries. However everything the Boppy is not, My Breast Friend is. First, it straps on with a simple buckle and adjustable belt. Second it has a firm AND flat surface conducive to holding the child stable. With these tow, we end up with a surface that moves as mother moves. Finally, the unit wraps completely around the torso with an added unit for back support. The result is that mom can feed in ideal surfaces, in bed, even standing up.
Like the Boppy, the unit features interchangeable fashion covers that are machine washable. Unlike the Boppy, there's a whole heck of a lot more to it than that.I'm sure there are others out there who love the Boppy. We heard from a number of them and they convinced us that it was the best. I'm not calling them wrong, just different. I've laid out the reasons the Breast Friend is our new best friend (come on! I had to pay some homage to a terribly kitchy name) and why it gets the the Captain Suburbia Seal of Approval.
