Feel pressured to get pre baby body back

[JadeJaunt]

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 husband is an arse

And for what it’s worth, despite being very active and very careful about food it took me a couple of years to shift the not-particularly-vast amount of baby weight I gained. It only shifted when I stopped breastfeeding.

So it’s not necessarily a matter of determination…

But mostly- your husband is an arse

What a prize pr!ck, the only weight you need to loose from your life is him

If he wants a trophy wife, then you can trade: tell him, if he put his mind to it, he could be a trophy husband that was fabulously wealthy so that you could have nannies and chefs and PTs.

But to answer your first sentence, yes, I have so far found it hard to navigate…and I’m only in my second trimester of a first pregnancy. I’m a real gym bunny. Have been for 15 years. Incredibly disciplined, and for the last 4 months, have been an absolute slob potato. I get inundated on IG with videos of “let me show you my 8 month bump!” and it’s like she’s just got some trapped wind. I don’t want to shame the slim builds/small bumps etc, but a HUGE angle of this stuff is “oh, I’m so teeny tiny and tanned and rested and my body has barely changed! A ha ha ha”.

It’s not real. Your body did something bloody amazing. It sometimes needs time to recover.

Are you breast feeding?

ive realised i will never get it back.

just taken me 17 yrs to realise it

he’s s right dickhead.

Wow.

I'm 8.5m PP and just about starting to be able to fit into some of my more forgiving pre-preg clothes after losing 12kg. It was NOT easy. It was 4-5 months before I felt physically recovered, never mind thinking about weight.

Fwiw losing it had little to do with exercise but watching what I eat and intermittent fasting. I hardly ever sit still, but it's not like I have time to go to the gym (or do anything for myself....) plus I'm shattered from broken sleep.

If some man was pressuring me to fit in exercise sessions to look better I would probably explode with rage.

Firstly your partner is an absolute dickhead for making that comment.
Secondly, I found it far more difficult than I thought it would be to shift the baby weight and I don’t think I ever really got my full pre baby body back. I fit into most of my pre pregnancy clothes after about 5-6 months, but my body was never really the same as before despite regular exercise and a generally healthy diet.

Honestly I could never be with someone who placed so much value on physical perfection. My dh recognises that my body grew two babies and that life takes its toll. I am 12 years post partum and a couple of stone heavier and signifiicantly saggier than pre pregnancy but my dh tells me I am beautiful every day.

Your partners a twat

You have a DP issue. I hope your baby didn't inherit your DP's lack of tact and sensitivity. Presumably your fanny slammed shut at that comment.

I walked out if hospital literally directly to the clothes shop to get a pair one jeans one size below my normal size.

It wasn't dedication. It was sickness throughout pregnancy and a sign of lack of health.

By which I am just demonstrating that yes, some women lost the weight, but it's not necessarily dedication, it's that bodies are fucking weird.

Your husband, on the other hand, is not so much weird as just an ass.

Your partner is a dick! Ignore him.

I was 8.5 stone, nearly a stone lighter than I’d been pre-baby, about 8 weeks after giving birth. With the milk filled boobs and slim waist etc I looked pretty good on the surface, but I felt horrendous. Part of the reason for the quick weight loss was that my chronic illness had kicked in, exacerbated by lack of sleep and feeding a baby. So others may have thought ‘how did she do it?’ but hey really wouldn’t have wanted to swap places with me.

Don’t judge yourself against others, you don’t know their story. If you want to lose weight do it for you.

My body bounced back quickly after baby 1. Baby 2 was a very different kettle of fish.
If I could get my weight down to what it was just before I gave birth to baby 1, I’d be absolutely delighted.
Your partner is a twat, hth

No, I didn’t feel much pressure and there is no way in hell my DH would have said anything like that to me.

Why is it that you only have a little more than an hour of free time to yourself? Does your partner help at all with your child? Is he unable to take your child for more than an hour? There is a huge imbalance between you in expectations for parenting, free time, and recovery from birth. This is a baseline problem that will only get worse with time. When the baby is more difficult and you have real parenting problems to manage, if he is involved this little, you will be shouldering it all, and with "HIS" expectations that you look smashing as you do.