Customizing the EZ-2-Nurse Pillow
The EZ-2-Nurse pillow is considered by many to be the gold standard of double nursing pillows. It’s great – nice and big, with a firm surface that can support two babies. The top angles in to help position the babies, and once everything is set up, it’s possible to nurse twins hands free. (I know, I’ve done it!)
However, many women have found that when they have the pillow strapped on, they still have a gap in the middle between the pillow and their tummy. Some women have rolled and stuffed a receiving blanket in that gap, while others have taken a more involved approach.
My fabulous friend Melanie and her husband figured out a way to modify the pillow itself to reduce the gap. Here’s how:
There have been some posts lately about tandem nursing and I wanted to throw out a tip for making your EZ-2 Nurse pillow more functional. I had a problem with it not fitting against my belly correctly. I had to stuff receiving blankets into the gap to keep my girls from falling in. I complained about it to my husband and he fixed it for me! All you need is a bread knife or one of those electric turkey carvers.
Take off the cover and cut out a sliver along the edge of the curve. The cut-out part will be the bottom of the pillow. The cut-out sets against your belly and allows the pillow to push up closer to you and eliminates the gap.
This is the bottom of the pillow
The cutout allows for belly room.
The modification is still effective with the cover on.
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Ah ha! It took me a minute to figure out what gap you are referring to, but now I realize I must be eliminating it by always having a large, fat pillow behind my back (and a little “head/neck pillow to rest my head on) so I can scootch up closer against the inside edge of the nursing pillow. I’ve always found (with 2 other nursing pillows as well) that the “back rest” pillow they provide for this purpose is sorely, sorely lacking.
I find having this extra back support is really important for having the pillow go far enough around and behind me so that my girls can have their bottoms/legs supported off to the the side (as they got older, obviously). I am still using this pillow today with 2.5 year olds (yes, years!) and it still works! Obviously their legs rest up the back of my chair, but without the long sides and the back pillow I don’t think it could still be comfortable for us.
I always needed extra pillows for back support, too! I think this gap may also be more pronounced in certain body types – something about how the pillow rests on the lower abdomen and then gaps above that, maybe?
I also used extra pillows UNDER the sides of the double pillow to support the growing weight of the babies. I’ll bet there are as many pillow configurations as breastfeeding mamas (probably more)!
I agree that it is probably a body-type thing and also a “where you nurse” thing. I nursed on my couch and couldn’t sit up completely straight. If you are leaned back at all, it is harder to avoid the gap. I have had people tell me that they had no problem with their pillow having a gap and I’ve had others tell me that the modification really helped them. I used three pillows behind my back and also propped up the sides of the nursing pillow from underneath with folded up beach towels. I’m kinda tall and skinny and I was an A-cup when I delivered, so part of my issue was that the pillow had to be REALLY close for the babies to reach the goods! I think if you are more blessed in that area and not so tall or long-waisted, it might not be as much of an issue.
Once I got it all figured out, I was able to nurse my girls totally hands-free, which was awesome! It took a lot of trial and error and experimentation to get it right, but eventually I got my little “nursing nest” perfect and it was smooth sailing.