Reclaiming Our Right to Love and Appreciate our After-Baby Bodies

Hello All!

I am brand new to this sight and my 5 month old daughter (I also have an 8 year old son) is happily nursing/suckling/napping as I type this!  Armed with much less information the first time around, bfing stopped around this time for my son, but the plan is to continue much longer this time - until whenever she is done!

After searching through the various topics on here - I see a lot of people on here for the same reason as me, and I wanted to clear up a few common misconceptions about postpartum weight loss!  As a certified doula I can tell you that the idea that bfing helps you lose weight faster only takes into account that you burn more calories each day - it does not consider that most women spend at least the first 4-5 months famished almost constantly (caused by hormones)!  So although we may be burning more calories, we are also required to take in more calories.  Therefore it would be much more accurate to say that bfing simply provides an opportunity to lose weight faster as long as you can ignore your hunger pangs and your baby can sleep through your stomach growling!  Also remember that your body retains an extra 5-10 pounds of fat stores to ensure that you and your baby can stay nourished while you are bfing!  Losing that 5-10 pounds is nice when you are done, but it is so not worth ending bfing any sooner than you or your baby is comfortable with!  What a gift we give our children and ourselves by giving them the best nutrients available, and such great bonding time - no one else can offer this special relationship to them!

I think we all need to stop focusing on how tight our jeans are, or worse yet, the numbers on the scale and start paying closer attention to the respect and admiration our bodies deserve!  They have created, carried, birthed and fed each of our beautiful children - all while we paid attention to the weight gain (I am just as guilty)!  If our bodies need some time to heal, and slowly lose the weight - they deserve that time!  If our bodies need to retain a few battle scars (stretch marks, c-section scars, etc) - they have earned them and we should wear them proudly!  If our bodies need us to walk a few more steps and pay more attention to calories and nutrition than we did before - I think that after everything they have done for us, we can afford to show them a little tlc and respect back!

So doing things like cc is great - we can get a good handle on what we are putting into our bodies!  And by doing so our bodies will have an opportunity to heal and get back to (in its own time) some image of "normal" - whatever that is for each of us.  If going to the gym works for you than great - I personally can't motivate myself to worry about getting my DD into a schedule that would allow me that time each week (although more power to you if you can figure this out), and I won't leave her with a gym sitter (although there is certainly nothing wrong with that!).  So I put on my wrap carrier with my 19 lb DD (who needs ankle weights when you have a healthy bfed baby to carry around) and my running shoes and walk my son to and from school whenever I can, and on days I feel really motivated I take an extra long detour on my way home (3 miles in an hour this morning!!).  Doing it this way means I get to hold my DD's chubby little hands, talk to her and hear her coo back, and show her the world all while I work on my body!  Sometimes in the evenings and on weekends, my DH and I will get out our son's bike, put the baby in the wrap carrier and go out as a family for a walk!  I can't tell you how much weight I have lost because I refuse to step on a scale!  I can tell you however that I feel healthy, strong and motivated to take care of my body - and that as long as that is my focus, I will eventually reach my goal of fitting into those skinny jeans that my DH bought me two months before getting pregnant with DD that didn't fit me than! (For now I still enjoy wearing my mat jeans every so often when I can't be bothered to worry about sucking in to hide the extra lumps and bumps around the waist!)

So my advice to each and every one of you is to please take a moment each day to marvel at everything your body has done for you, and give it the respect it deserves!  Wouldn't you feel better if every time you couldn't zip up your jeans you thought of the day you gave birth to your beautiful children instead of your sister in law's size 28 waist 2 months after her 6th child??  Wouldn't you be a happier person if you thought of your baby's first smile every time you walked past the mirror instead of telling yourself how badly you need to lose weight?  And most importantly stop looking at other people as your marker, that won't get you anywhere!!

Sorry for my rant - but as you can tell this is a passionate subject for me, I so wish that we, as women, could start reclaiming our right to love our bodies in all their childbearing glory!  We deserve to feel proud of what we have accomplished instead of ashamed, embarrassed, or disgusted with what we feel we haven't!

AMEN!!  Today I am embrace my huge childbearing hips.  I love my big pregnant belly.  I stare at it all the time in awe!  I thought I would be embarrassed by it-  but I'm not.  I'm hoping to keep up the attitude after I give birth.  But until then; i am warrior mom in the making!!

Well spoken, sister.  They say that the only constant is change, and if our changing bodies bring beautiful new lives to this planet, how can we complain?

Thanks for your post.  i gave birth to my first child two months ago via c-section and have been trying to lose the excess weight without damaging the incision.  Needless to say, it's been a challenge.  I can't help but look back on old pictures of myself before i got pregnant and dreaming of having that body back.  I don't like the stretch marks or my new love handels and have been obcessing over losing the weight.

My husband tells me daily how good i look and how proud of me he is, but i couldn't get it through my thick skull until i read your post.  I'm VERY proud and honored to have begun a family, and i love my daughter with all of my heart.  But it wasn't until i read your post that i realized how special my new body is.  I'll still work hard to achieve better health, but i'll try not to be ashamed of who i've become since giving birth.

Again, thank you for putting things into perspective.  You've touched me (your post made me cry).  Hopefully, you can help other women the way you've helped me.

That was an amazing post.  Thank you for taking the time (hunched over the keyboard, baby on the legs :) to write this out.    It can be a bit hard to swallow, when in our youth our identity is all wrapped up in how we look, to realize that our post baby body goals are not only unattainable but completly unrealistic!  I can't tell you how utterly dissapointed I was after I'd lost all the weight after my first pregnancy.  I felt tricked, like no one told me it was premanent 'damage'.  That was really where my mind was at the time, thinking I was damaged.  I'm lucky I got to a place where I can laugh about it now.  And here I am, after my second child, loosing the weight again, but have a MUCH better attitude!

Great post.  It just takes time and I love my children so I don't regret a single pound I put on.  I am slowly working through losing the weight even though my youngest is 1 year and a half.  That is o.k., we are all healthy and that is the most important thing.

I loved your post, but find that I agree in theory, but not so much when I look at photos and realize I'm delusional if I think I can pull that outfit off in this body.  I have a three-month-old and a three-and-a-half-year-old.  I love the fact that I was able to carry and deliver two perfect little people, but I miss looking and feeling like a woman and not a milk delivery system.  How do you reconcile both halves of your brain?  I feel conflicted all the time!

Wow, thank you so much for this post. I am in tears! My little one is 2 1/2 yrs old. 

I have 45 lbs to lose (roughly) and after I lost the first 25 lbs, I gained it all back. I know it was because of shame/fear/disrespect for this mother-body AND mother-lifestyle I have now. I breastfed until she was 2, and thought the weight would melt off afterwards, or my appetite/habits would suddenly disappear.

I realize my dear body needs some lovings now, after all this amazing work.

I'm so grateful for your beautiful words!

I am new on here too, and all my friends think I am crazy because I insist I did not lose any weight while bfing. Then again, none of them bfed to begin with. While I have tons of weight to lose, I did feel good when I found out one of my friends, his boss, and a coworker all saw me moments before I told him I was pregnant...and they all thought I was hot! Even though I was already in my second trimeser. That was such an ego boost. Your post just reinforces those feelings.

But I have to admit, it is a constant struggle for me to walk an hour everyday with my 10 month old, do kettlebells for an hour three days a week, and keep to my calories on here...still the scale doesn't budge! Instead I have an additional 10 pounds to lose, and no I don't think it is all muscle. I just want to fit into my prepregnancy clothes that everyone assured me I would get into again, but I am about ready to just take them to the thrift store. I am honestly just ready to give up on the whole thing, cry, and just get over it.

I am not trying to be negative, just honest.

 

I'm some what new to this site. I used it a little before I got preg.then quit because I didn't want to be obessed about weight gain and wanted to focus on eating healthy. I am 5'8" and weigh 192.0#. I have a 3mth old who was born on Valentine's Day, so he's obviously a special gift from above(: I didn't have the greatest delivery but after all the trouble we went through he's here and healthy! Anyway, I weighed 180.0# before getting preg. so I don't ave far to go BUT I have a ways to go to be at my desired weight of 150.0# ugh! Getting married in the Bahamas in Dec.of this year so I want to look my best. My only worry is I can get very obsessed with weight loss and working out.  I'm bfeeding and don't want to compromise my milk supply.  I guess the reason I'm rattling on is for support.  It's so nice to read a post (above) about someone who cherishes their body after giving birth!  

This is a great post! I am personally much harder on myself than anyone else is. I had my BEAUTIFUL blessing of a son 7 months ago and for some reason I beat myself up about my body. My husband is very supportive and tells me that he loves me no matter my weight. So what the heck is my problem.

My coworkers always remind me that I just had a baby and I shouldn't be so hard on myself.

I am really loving this site. It has helped me realize what I eat during the day and helps me make better food choices (since I have committed to log everything). I really love this post because it helps me make the connection that I am eating healthier to be healthy not "thin".

I will forever battle with weight but I have decided I have to work with my body and not beat it up!!! Best wishes on your individual journey

thx caydison for your post!!! i have an amazing 7 month old baby boy and a 7 year old beautiful lil girl who makes me sooooo happy every single day! and like you said its just crazy how our bodies go thru so much change during pregnancy and breastfeeding!! we do have amazing bodies to be able to handle all that!  I just started this site the beginning of may mainly to make sure im eating healthy and lose a few more pounds.  im currently 126 5'4 and i cant seem to get below that weight even though i was 120 before i got pregnant.  but like you just explained its because we keep that extra 5-10 pounds of fat stored (now i know why!) i also plan to breastfeed as long as my baby wants! (bf for 14 months with my daughter) its definately the best thing we can do for them! 

thx again caydison! gl everyone!  *hugs and kisses my babies* :)

thx for your post ....I think people need to remember not to sweat the small stuff like wieght and a few scars (or in my case a lot) and remember that whats important is that you and your little one(s) are healthy and happy, things happen in time and having a baby is no easy feat ,and breastfeeding is not a cure all for weight though it can help to a degree, but something your doing for your child so that they have the best start in the world that you can give them, I wish I had been able to BF longer then 5 months, however after I got really sick (had a trip to emergency) things were never the same and I dried right up not long after which was really hard to take , even with the pills the doctor gave me ....been trying to lose this baby weight (all 60 lbs of it) which as all mothers know is not easy! I had a real time of it during labour (2.5 days no sleep lots of pushing)and then a C-section , then I pulled a few internal staples(sigh) so it took awhile before I was able to do a whole lot however , after all I went through to get my beautiful baby girl here I look at my stretch marks and my tummy which just hangs there and think these are my badges of the honor of becoming a mother and women,( cause it takes a real women to have a baby)soo for those of you out there don't sweat the little stuff like weight or a few scars (or alot in my case) anyhow I heard from my Vet who had number 3 not to long ago , not to worry about the weight go buy a few new clothes cause she found even when she was downto her pre-pregnancy weight that her hips had gotten bigger so she end up having to buy a different size anyway

cheers!

Well, I have cheered up quite a bit since my last post. I had to quit bfing because I have a class that requires me to camp out for two weeks that starts this next week. As a result I will not be able to take my daughter with me, and who wants to be miserable out in the mountains by being engorged? But my daugher is 11 months, so I don't feel too guilty about quitting. Anyways, since I quit bfing I lost 5 pounds in 4 weeks!!! The funniest thing is I weigh 20 pounds more than I used to, but I can still wear most of my clothes I had prepregnancy. There are a few pencil skirts I can't wear due to my scars still, but I figure if I keep toning up and eating healthy it won't be so noticable before long. I am just so happy I have my daughter, we are both healthy, and I can still get into my favorite pants! Thank you Caydison for bringing to light how bfing causes us to hang on to extra baggage, but it is worth it. After all the hard work and everything my body has gone through (I almost died giving birth due to HELLP) I can finally appreciate it again and love it. Scars and all!