Bra help for DD

[teacherwith2kids]

I've had DD in tears (again) on a bra-buying expedition. Bear with me, as I'm not good at bra vocabulary.

DD is 12. Very tall, dancer. Slim, but mid-puberty with definite curves. She spends her dancing life with very slight, often completely undeveloped girls and feels uncomfortable with her curviness as well as conspicuous because of her height.

Posted here about a year ago, needing advice on earlyish bras. In the end, she was fitted at Debenhams,. who found her some nice soft slightly padded bras, unwired, with a cotton feel, in a 30b....possible not quite the size a bra interventionist would have made her (that was more like a 26-28C), but they were comfortable and got her over the 'I need to wear a bra' hurdle.

She needs larger bras. Although she still fits within her bras completely, the part between the cups is increasingly lifted away from her chest, and as she also wears a vest to avoid bra showing under her school shirt, she has a rather shapeless 'monoboob' appearance.

In the course of the expedition and tears, I have established that what she wants are:

• Bras that are pretty (ie not plan moulded T-shirt bras)
• Bras that 'do something' in terms of support and shaping. Everything we tried on, in whatever size, felt like it was just 'covering' her IYSWIM

To address the second, we tried underwired bras BUT had exactly the same problem in that in the central part between the cups, the middle part of the wire was lifted away from her chest.

And she HATES, HATES the process and the development that makes it necessary. We do have a (newish) Bravissimo locally, though she is probably just a little too small still, but she would find going in MORTIFYING in the extreme.

Any guidance???

Oh, and she would prefer padded, at least slightly,for the usual nipple-obscuring reasons of shy teenagers everywhere.

Do you know her "intervention" size now?

Try John Lewis - 28 back goes up to a DD cup in the teen bras, v pretty moulded and slightly padded ones.

The centre part lifting away is normally because you have too small a cup and too big a band. The breast tissue is literally pushing the gore away.

Can you get her to measure and we can suggest some options?

Oh, further point - we tried larger cups, to reduce the 'raising the central part from her chest' factor... but that left large spaces at the top of the bras we tried - standard teenage range T-shirt type styles in the main - without getting the central part to lie flat. What should i bee looking at? Change of style? Reduce / increase cup size? Reduce / increase band size???

Sorry, what is an intervention size? I'm having similar problems with my teenagers. and maybe even with myself

Dragons, I mean measured the MN way not the M&S way. I will try and link but SC will probably be quicker!

measuring guide

I shall try to get her to let me measure properly tomorrow....

I knew you'd beat me, SC!

Exactly the same issues. Dd is fairly developed compared to her peers & spends her life ina leotard.

However she is fine with me measuring her though she asked I took the tags out as her friends didn't believe her interventionist
size.

At her old school she was very undeveloped compared to her peers. At dance school she is one of the most developed.

She likes John Lewis bras. She likes wired ones for wearing with going out dresses but they make her look more curvy. Non wired ones hold her in a bit more.

She has a few sports crop top type ones that hold her in & flatten her when she's dsncing.

t shirt styles can be problematic because they are totally inflexible shape wise. So even if they're technically the right size they don't necessarily fit! It could also be that the cups are too wide and shallow - younger breasts especially can sometimes cover quite a small area so the root is quite narrow and they're relatively projected. This can mean that the inner part of the bra will not be deep enough for the breast tissue, but then you have space in other parts. Kind of hard to describe!

Do try Bravissimo. I've found (when a few months pregnant and wanting a normal bra) the staff to be great. You hace to book an appointment so you could request someone who your dd would like - I only wanted to be fitted by 'old' women when I was a teen! Even if there is nothing in the shop your dd likes, she will at least come away with a bra measurement and advice about what shape would fit her well.

I would hate to be that age again! From about 11 to 18 I felt so awkward. You sound like youu're really trying to make her feel comfortable and happy.

The 'just the wrong shape' was exactly our experience - rather than 'work with what was there and make it look good' we had 'just be a rather random splodge placed on top, while barely affecting what was actually there'...

Would have to be John Lewis. We have a Waitrose (naice town) but no JL within 60 miles.

Balletgirlmum, bra for dancing .... shelved leotards have been OK so far, but yes, that's coming over the horizon.....along with 'how to manage periods when your legs are frequently up around your ears in a skimpy leotard and you aren't allowed to wear knickers'...just started that too. Poor DD, its all rather going on at the moment.

I took my DD to bravissimo - she hated it but was buoyed up by the fact I'd also booked her a Mac makeover immediately afterwards. Could you try similar bribery?

Bravissimo were really so much better at fitting her than debenhams where we'd been the previous few times. I bought two bras which were very expensive considering how fast she'll outgrow them, but I felt this repaid the fitting effort. I then ordered more of the exact same style off eBay.

Is ordering online not an option? If you're confident you can measure her and get a good idea of her size, why put her through the horror of teen bra fitting (still traumatised)

Thank you Sc

Dd doesn't west a bra with her leotard - not allowed but she does for some other styles.

No knickers! That's barbaric. How can teacher's insist on that. Even full time vocational school isn't that strict. Dd has menorragia anyway so diary dolls are essential for her but perhaps your dd's teacher may not notice capezio dance knickers?

TeamBacon (you are all being very kind to me, thank you so much) - I would consider it BUT after today's experience I would say it is quite hard to find a good fit for her shapewise, even within something the right size IYSWIM? I wouldn't feel confident unless I had a good-fitting one to work from - ie to buy more in a similar style or to buy e.g. a size up in a style that works.

Thinking about it more I really would challenge the knickers thing. (Though having a conversation about how to manage menorragea with a male teacher was "interesting"

I've seen some awful pics on facebook of kids not knowing they have cameltoe (in an elmhurst audition too).

Your poor dd.

Balletgirlmum, We are going to try those. I reckon, if the waistband coincides with that of her tights, and the legs are high enough, we may be OK ... it's one of those things DD can't ask her peers, even though she dances with those older than her, because she feels - even if it isn't true - that she will be 'ahead' in terms of starting and thus can't draw attention to it.

I hated being a teen. Being a mum of a nearly teen is reminding me just how much I hated it!

They wear tights under their leotards, but DD is worried that those slip and slide as she dances (IYSWIM) and wants something closely fitted and stable for pads etc to be stuck to.

I can honestly say that even before she used Capezio you have neve been able to tell dd was wearing knickers with tights (she first asked for the capezio for the first 6 months of year 7 when she had to go back to socks instead of tights.

m & s seamless ones are popular too. One of dds classmates was an RBS associate & used to wear main white M&S (royal insisted on it) & they all wear knickers at her school.

Order millions. I'd have thanked you for that as a teen. As long as it's tight around her ribs, and not gaping in the cup it'll be fine.

In my experience the balconete shape won't work. Look for the simple tshirt bras. I grew up (literally) wearing wonderbras, but the shape was just right for me as a teenager (ignoring the massive push up bit, I just mean the shape of the underwire)

OK, back with measurements.

28" round underneath. 33 round largest point when standing up and, oddly, very similar when bending forward, perhaps 33.5. Seem quite 'wide set' - distance between base of each, measured from below nipples, is 7.5".