To ask how long it took you to feel like you again after birth and baby.

[PooNPop]

I gave birth nearly 3 weeks ago. I appreciate that is not very long ago at all, im just wondering how long others took to feel themselves and if they felt like this too?

I thought if I ever felt down after birth it would be the stresses of having a baby, sleepless nights, finding my feet with a newborn etc... But he's an absolute joy. I'm loving every minute of him.

But I just can't help but feel so low and frankly horrified at the 'state' of me. I look horrid. Everywhere is bigger, I have huge angry stretch marks all over my stomach, I don't have much time to make any sort of effort with myself at the moment and I just feel so upset when I see myself at the moment. I don't even want DH to take any pictures of me with baby, it makes me cry seeing them.

It sounds daft I know. I'm not a vain person usually at all so I've been really surprised with my strength of feeling about all this.

But I can't help looking at pictures of me before pregnancy and birth and just thinking God, I'll never look like that again (not that I was ever a model or anything but I certainly looked better than I do now!).

It's spilling over into thoughts about my relationship. I keep feeling like I need to be reassured by DH that he still loves me. I feel like how on earth could he look at me right now and feel anything but disgust quite frankly. I'm not eating barely because I'm desperate to lose weight as quickly as possible.

I'd never take it back, I have my gorgeous boy and I understand how lucky I am for that, really I do (it took us a long time to get him). But I can't seem to shake these thoughts

About 6 weeks I looked and felt back to pre pregnancy, back to college within 2-3 weeks despite a traumatic birth, back to running 5k a day and back at the gym within a month

Last time round I was only 18 (nearly ten years ago), and a lovely size 10 within weeks..

This time round Im due in a week, I’m huge, have stretch marks and doubt I will have the same bounce back and also worried about the huge saggy belly so much so that I have already booked in for early next year for it fixed

I think it took me about a year, then I had another baby. After that my father passed away and I lost a ton of weight. When my children were little, I got into running and at age 39 had never been in better shape physically. I try to maintain that now I’m 50 with a few runs a week. My kids are teens now.

I know it’s easy for me to say because I’m a long time away from having babies but you have plenty of time to get back into the shape you like and feel confident in.

Congratulations on your lovely baby boy!

It takes ages in my experience, and in many ways your body never 'goes back to normal' because it's gone through a shocking, lifechanging, wonderful transformation. It would be good if people would talk about that more in advance. I vividly remember sitting in the bath when my first baby was about a week old and surveying the damage just as you have done, and wondering why no one had warned me.

Focus on the miraculous thing you and your body have done and give it more time than you ever expected. Don't not eat properly. Not only is it disrespectful to your body and bad for your baby if you're BFing, but it won't work anyway. Three weeks is nothing. It took you the best part of a year for the changes to occur. Budget at least a year for reversing the reversible ones.

Baby laid inside of your for 9 months. Your body will take that time and a wee bit more to recover. But you are not the 'you' that you were before, you're somebody else. Rest, be kind to yourself and seek help if you feel low for much longer.

Honestly I couple of months with my first, my second I l still don’t feel the same nearly 2 years later.

3 weeks is early days, your DH is probably in complete awe of what you’ve achieved. You have so much time to get back to feeling like your old self your body will probably be very different though. That’s ok, your body did a huge thing. Take those pictures, those early days fly by and you’ll look back and wonder why you didn’t have more with your baby.

Functioning human who wore clothes and could do some stuff - 1 month
Back to normal weight - 6 months
Feeling like I had some energy / not constantly shattered - 10 months.

It's a gradual process that took me nearly a year. At 3 weeks I was all over the place! You'll get there. Had ds at 28.

For me around 18 months.I had 2.5 stone to lose before I looked like me again tbh.

It takes 9 months to grow a new person so it takes a while to return. I've definitely noticed a change at about 6 weeks PP - I've been really puffy both times and it seemed to go at around that mark, and then just a gradual shrinking from there. Pregnancy does mad things like make your hips & ribcage wider and it does take a while to settle (I still ended up wider after my first than I was pre baby)

In the mean time I find making an effort with my hair & make up makes a difference to my mood & confidence - as does getting to escape the baby for a bit and have a nice hot shower or bath!

OP please please please eat properly. You’ll look better and feel healthier if you give your body the right fuel. You need to recover! Your body has done so much.

I felt awful for 6 weeks and then just low for 6-12 weeks.

If it's any consolation I ended mat leave 20lb lighter than pre-pregnancy due to all the walking.

Five days to get back to my prepregnant weight of 8 stone 5lbs. But the spare abdominal skin never went away! I have a very petite frame, and DD was 8 and a half pounds, so I looked like a water melon on a stick.
Fortunately, I never gave a shit what I looked like, and my self esteem wasn’t linked to my appearance. DH loved me to bits regardless.
OP, becoming a parent can change priorities for a lot of people. Self obsessing over body image may be fine for teenagers but gets increasingly inappropriate as we mature. Focus on your new baby, and on your own development as a person in your career and your parenting, rather than being bothered about shallow stuff like appearance! And congratulations on your new arrival.

Took me about 2 months to feel somewhat normal again, and about now at 7 months I’m starting to feel properly back to myself again. Pregnancy and birth is harsh, give yourself time.

Any day now. It’s been 3 years 😳

I had an emergency c section 9 months ago, I'm still not really "back to normal", but I'm slowly getting there.
With regards to you feeling rubbish, that could well be all the crazy hormones rampaging through your body still, it definitely was with me!
Make sure you're eating though, your body has been through enough the last 10 months, don't add to the trauma by not eating.
Hope that helps

Firstly congratulations.

Secondly - please take those pictures. You never have to look at them but if you don't have them one day you will want to see them.

And feeling like yourself - hmm probably a year to be honest! Everything up to that point felt a novelty and very stressful getting ready to go anywhere etc. You are different now - for now- but the old you is still there I promise.

Continue enjoying your baby, I promise the old you will emerge again in time.

I did my make up when my baby was 8 weeks old. That made me feel a lot better 😃

It won't be long. Maybe your DH could take photos and just not show you, so when you feel like yourself again you'll feel better about yourself and have some pics with your baby.

With the first two DC - around a year (had PND with DC1 so actually a bit longer).

Now I have DC no.3 who is four months old. I feel very much like myself, this has definitely been the quickest recovery both physically and mentally, despite the fact that I'm a lot older this time around. My only problem is that I'm still not my pre pregnancy weight, I need to loose 10lb. However this is entirely within my control, if I was really disciplined I would have done it by now, but I'm too greedy and lazy.

I wish my DH had taken more photos of me and my first baby, I hardly have any. Looking back it almost looks like I don't exist.

About 8 to 9 months when my babies started properly eating solids, the half stone that my body seems to hold onto to enable EBF dropped off again and I'd say I felt like myself physically. That's also when I went back to work.

When I felt like pre-baby me again emotionally, I'd say quite recently and my youngest is nearly 3.

For me it was when my youngest was about 3.

But I had 3 children in 3.5 years so I was always pregnant and breast feeding. And hadn't slept a wink in years!

She is focusing on her new baby. It’s wrong to dismiss a new mother’s feelings because they don’t chime with your view of what a mother should be focusing on. Any struggling mother will read that post and just feel worse.

OP if you struggled to have your baby the struggles and emotions around that can catch up with you in funny ways after baby arrives. It did for me anyway.

The priority for your recovery is nutrition and rest so your body has the tools to recover. The weight and the change in appearance are things you deal with or come to terms with little by little .

💐

9 years and I'm still waiting.....

I was shocked at how big and squidgy the whole front of my body was after DS1. I'd taken a normal dress about 2 sizes bigger than normal into hospital but had to go home in my track suit I'd gone in with.
I went back to work when DS1 was 8 weeks old and I was fitting into my normal bigger clothes then and by the time he was 8 months old I was looking fine in my bikini on holiday. I didn't do much extra exercise - no time. For the first 3-4 months i wet myself every time I rode my horse, but that resolved. DS2 I was 38, and I got more stretch marks and enduring flabbiness, I think it is more important to exercise and do your pelvic floor exercises the second time around, especially if you are late 30's or more.
To answer the question asked I felt like myself when I went back to work, being at home wasn't natural for me and I felt a bit guilty and useless.

Honestly something between 6-9 months. I gave myself 9 months to lose the weight (it did that that long to gain it). By 1 year I weighed less than I did pre pregnancy.

I wish I'd taken more me time earlier on to do my hair and makeup. Then I would have felt so much better in photos. Those days where I did so my hair, I felt so much happier. Even when the weight gain was still an issue.

Be kind to yourself. Your body has done something incredible. It'll take time to get back to "normal". But it will happen.

It was about a year for me, be kind to yourself, your body has been home to that beautiful baby for 9 months xx