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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Feel pressured to get pre baby body back

41 replies

JadeJaunt · 12/06/2025 16:16

Is it me or is this quite challenging to navigate? I see loads of it on social media, women who have effortlessly fitted back in to their exercise routine and look so slim just weeks after birth. I gave birth a few months ago and have struggled to get back in to any sort of routine with exercise. I was in a shop with my partner earlier and we walked past a woman in leggings, great figure and clearly just been/ going to the gym. My partner recognised her from his gym and said that she gave birth at the start of this year ‘so it shows it can be done with some dedication’ - I just can’t escape it!!

OP posts:
anitarielleliphe · 12/06/2025 16:25

JadeJaunt · 12/06/2025 16:16

Is it me or is this quite challenging to navigate? I see loads of it on social media, women who have effortlessly fitted back in to their exercise routine and look so slim just weeks after birth. I gave birth a few months ago and have struggled to get back in to any sort of routine with exercise. I was in a shop with my partner earlier and we walked past a woman in leggings, great figure and clearly just been/ going to the gym. My partner recognised her from his gym and said that she gave birth at the start of this year ‘so it shows it can be done with some dedication’ - I just can’t escape it!!

Your partner is NOT helping, even if he thinks he is. Every person . . . every body is different. And, if you are home with a new baby . . . every baby and every baby's schedule is different. To look at one woman who shares the only commonality with you . . . being a new mother . . . and use that as his baseline to "encourage" or "shame" you into believing that you can repeat her exercise routine . . . her weight loss and everything . . . is insensitive and coming from a place of sheer ignorance. When your partner has grown another human being in their body for 9 months, had hormones overtake and continue to affect his body, and then births that baby, and deals with the subsequent flood and changing levels of hormones, while being in a body that carries more fat than a man's . . . then maybe he is qualified to have an opinion on this.

So, in answer to your question, "is it challenging to navigate both society's and clueless men's opinions on women's bodies, especially those newly changed from motherhood?" YES, it is. It is also frustrating, annoying, and maddening.

If those commenting on women's bodies carried more concern about their own character flaws related to such thoughts . . . well, then, we would have an entirely different world, wouldn't we?

HiddenInCubeOfCheese · 12/06/2025 16:26

I can’t believe your partner said that. What a dick.

HenDoNot · 12/06/2025 16:27

My partner recognised her from his gym and said that she gave birth at the start of this year ‘so it shows it can be done with some dedication’ - I just can’t escape it!!

I take it your partner is doing his bit to make sure you have plenty of free time to go to the gym? No, probably not. I’m sure he manages to get there a good number of times a week though, without a second thought about leaving you at home with the baby.

AdoraBell · 12/06/2025 16:32

Your partner can do look after the baby, feed/change nappy and entertain the baby while doing housework and laundry and have a meal ready when you get from the gym, if he wants you to go to the gym. Easy for him with some dedication.

KPPlumbing · 12/06/2025 16:55

OK, social media is one thing. You need to avoid it. We all know it's horse shit, and people post their very best photo of the 50 that they took, getting the angle and lighting JUST so, having skipped a meal that day to make sure they're at their slimmest and have zero bloat.

Your partner is a whole other issue, which is not related. The comment he made is disrespectful and patronising and you need to tell him to go fuck himself. I trust he looks like Brad Pitt in Fight Club....

MammaTo · 12/06/2025 17:00

Pressure from who? Social media that is designed to prey on peoples low self esteem or your partner who is awful for comparing you to other women? Either way neither of them deserve to take up any headspace while you enjoy your new baby.

daff0di1 · 12/06/2025 17:03

That's awful from your partner, although maybe he didn't mean it that way. Social media is just not real, not just for body but everything! It's crazy, the truth is you've created and carried a baby and you may not get your old body back. It's difficult xx

Bigoldtable · 12/06/2025 17:06

You grew an entire person, in your person? If your “partner” wants you to be dedicated, I assume he takes the baby for at least an hour everyday specifically to give you time to exercise?

ConfusedSloth · 12/06/2025 17:15

I was in my skinny jeans at full-term, I was in them immediately after birth.

That's because I had awful HG and was sick from week 5 through to being induced at 38 weeks. I had the best abs of my life from so much throwing up. I'm sure I looked great but I was so unwell. I needed hundreds of litres of IV fluids and iron transfusions, I haemorrhaged during the birth... None of me having a "pre-baby body" was down to determination and it was not, at all, a demonstration of health and wellbeing.

I still have a dysfunctional digestive system, my teeth were ruined, my hair has bald patches and has come back all patchy, dry skin... I'm permanently put off certain foods (mostly healthy foods, if I'm honest).

No grown adult should think that a woman being thin after childbirth is a sign of good health or conscious effort. That's not to take away from women who do work hard and achieve wonderful things - but that's not enough correlation to draw a conclusion. It's like assuming everyone who is rich has worked hard to be rich, or assuming everyone who appears rich is actually rich - it's not true.

Bodies take time to recover from birth - part of that, for many women, is retaining fat. And that's sometimes both the healthiest and most realistic thing. Your partner needs to recognise that.

FatherFrosty · 12/06/2025 17:17

It literally took me ten years.

your dh is an absolute prick.

ThisOchreScroller · 12/06/2025 17:17

I can tell you pretty quickly how to lose 180lbs of dead weight.

dontcomeatme · 12/06/2025 17:20

I never lost a single pound from one baby to the next, I'm in my "child rearing years". I ain't putting all that effort in just to get pregnant again! I'll work on myself after I've had my last.
I'm not obese, just soft and squishy and still breastfeeding so storing fat like im feeding 10 infants 😅

JustAnInchident · 12/06/2025 17:20

Clutching at straws perhaps but had you just been talking about how it was impossible, and he maybe meant it as an encouragement, ‘you can do it too!’ type statement? Probably not but we can hope. If it helps, I didn’t feel myself again for probably 2-2.5 years after I had my son. The weight was gone, fairly quickly, but I just felt all blobby and squashy for a long time.

Original poster
JadeJaunt · 12/06/2025 17:21

DH works in a gym, so does exercise more or less daily. I do have some free time each day but it’s usually little more than an hour and there’s a lot I’d rather do than regular gym sessions if I’m honest.

OP posts:
Planesmistakenforstars · 12/06/2025 17:21

How many times does he go to the gym a week while you are caring for your shared child? How many times has your partner offered to do everything a for a couple of hours while you go to the gym?

MixedBananas · 12/06/2025 17:23

I don't have social media so never an issue and all my friends are normal Mums who have new Mum bods. SM is the curse of our lifetime and those who use it are choosing to hurt hemselves daily.
I have 2DC and have a new body that has changed shape and I embrace it as it gave me my kids.

Digdongdoo · 12/06/2025 17:24

Presumably he's helping you prep healthy meals every day, doing his share of night wakings so you're properly rested and making sure you adequate time to rest and exercise? If not he can get fucked. And even if he is, he can get fucked. It isn't possible to get back a pre baby body post baby without a time machine.
I'd steer clear of social media, it isn't healthy. In the real world women come in all shapes and sizes, pre or post baby.
Next time he has a baby, he can show you how he bounces back can't he?

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 12/06/2025 17:25

HenDoNot · 12/06/2025 16:27

My partner recognised her from his gym and said that she gave birth at the start of this year ‘so it shows it can be done with some dedication’ - I just can’t escape it!!

I take it your partner is doing his bit to make sure you have plenty of free time to go to the gym? No, probably not. I’m sure he manages to get there a good number of times a week though, without a second thought about leaving you at home with the baby.

This.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 12/06/2025 17:25

JadeJaunt · 12/06/2025 17:21

DH works in a gym, so does exercise more or less daily. I do have some free time each day but it’s usually little more than an hour and there’s a lot I’d rather do than regular gym sessions if I’m honest.

Why are you only getting an hour of free time a day?

Blobbitymacblob · 12/06/2025 17:35

Those influencers and celebrities are trying to make a living off their bodies and while I don’t begrudge them, I was very grateful that I wasn’t in that position and could let my babies enjoy their mummy’s squishy cuddly belly and boobs instead.

Once you’re up chasing them around as toddlers, the extra weight will fall away anyway.

Crushed23 · 12/06/2025 17:38

JadeJaunt · 12/06/2025 17:21

DH works in a gym, so does exercise more or less daily. I do have some free time each day but it’s usually little more than an hour and there’s a lot I’d rather do than regular gym sessions if I’m honest.

Can’t the other parent step up so you get more than 1 hour free each day?

daff0di1 · 12/06/2025 17:39

JadeJaunt · 12/06/2025 17:21

DH works in a gym, so does exercise more or less daily. I do have some free time each day but it’s usually little more than an hour and there’s a lot I’d rather do than regular gym sessions if I’m honest.

Most days it's a good day if I've managed to brush my hair!! Gym is the last place on my mind lol

mybrainpills · 12/06/2025 17:40

I worked out at home after i had my son i was a single mum so did not have time or money for the gym.
I had a C-section so had a good 4 week rest pottering about.
When i was healed i started working out on the floor.
I knew if i didnt do now i would struggle as i got older to shift it.

Topjoe19 · 12/06/2025 17:46

What a prick!!!

Amba1998 · 12/06/2025 17:48

Honestly, no. I see so much on social media these days and amongst friends and family about taking care of yourself and not putting yourself under any pressure and you’ve grown a baby etc etc

so really the issue here is your husband