Rockin' rocker: Nursing Rhymes

When I was pregnant I was told to purchase a glider, which is basically the love-child of a club chair and and laz-y boy. Maybe a bloated rocking chair on it's best day. Waddling around my big box baby store, I couldn't stomach it. Both too ugly, bulky, pastel-y and matronly, if furniture can read as such, both my design sense and my one-bedroom-apartment told me no. The This Old House'er in me martyr-nursed in an old rocking chair with the charm of an upstate farm house and the comfort of a pitch-fork. My husband loved to tell me how chic and rustic it looked with five pillows on it. Ugly gliders aren't good news for the design-preferenced nursing mother. Let me tell you - you log a lot of hours sitting, nursing, holding that baby and there is a real need for a comfortable, soft, roomy place for all of the above. And when you're not sitting in it you're likely looking at it - peripherally, but logging hours around it nonetheless changing diapers, folding tiny pants, etc. As my son turns 13 months old, I still find myself parking it in the rocking chair sometimes three times a day for story time and nap time. I think there simply must be a better option....You have your refusal to compromise ideals for safety, President Obama, I reject the notion that I have to surrender to something ugly to take care of my child in comfort.

Modern nursery designers have been sprouting daily it seems - across all price points and I'm thrilled. Often family-inspired entrepreneurs who are bringing really beautiful streamlined pieces to market. I am going to go out on a limb and say that the glider is not really the piece to go for clean lines. We need soft and nurturing, womb-like here. Not stark. Not stripped down to essentials, devoid of ornamentation. We need a little extra on the arms to hold that baby, a little extra in the tush. Thank goodness good design solves all. As a nonconvetional modern exception, the egg chair, although wholly unconventional is great example of clean lines, extended, to be comodious and although I haven't tried it as a nursing chair - next time I will. The real winner in my book however is the Empire Rocker from NurseryWorks. Oh my goodness. Ok, I admit it - I am a sucker for modern references to traditional furniture. But it happens to be one of the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in. The Empire Rocker is a wink and a nod to an old tufted smoking chair, which was ironically neither intended for a woman, nor to be comfortable - but this version is - both comfortable and intended for nursing, reading, night-nuzzling and all the other delights of bedtime. And the ultimate sniff test: I'd put this in my living room -it doesn't read nursery or kids room, in rich eggplant-hued velvet - score one for nursing moms driving design!