AIBU to feel jealous of another mum’s post-baby bounce back?

[Ohbeehave]

I know it’s not fair to be jealous, but there’s a mum at my mum and baby group with a one month old. She looks fantastic, wears cropped tops and you can see a bit of ab definition. She always tucks into the biscuits, and when I ask how she’s bounced back she just says she doesn’t have time but is breastfeeding.
Im there with an 18 month old, work hard and go to bootcamp and am heavier than when I was pregnant 😭 life just isn’t fair.
Do you really think she’s just lucky or is there some sort of trick to this kind of bounce back I am missing. I know my husband is disappointed with how long it’s taking me. I had been telling him to be kind and I’d just given birth, but now with this woman I think I am kidding myself.

You don’t have a husband problem, you have a self esteem problem.

Your husband hasn’t said anything about your weight, you are jealous about someone else losing weight…have you done anything to get back to the shape you were?

Learn to love the body you have, or work to get the one you want. I hate my body, so I’m dieting, that’s life.

PS I am however amazed at people who said they left hospital in jeans, let alone pre-pregnancy ones (why did they pack them??).

I had to leave the hospital, a week after giving birth, in flip flops as I was so swollen up from all the various fluids and IV drugs they had given me for the kidney injury I sustained giving birth, that I couldn't get my shoes on.

How long has it been since you gave birth? I have big boobs, and they grew MASSIVE during pregnancy and breast feeding - I did two pregnancies essentially back to back too. As they were big to begin with, gravity was not on my side. They were very crepey after I finished breastfeeding my second (7 months pp).

I had made my peace with them, but around 3 years after I last gave birth they suddenly perked right up and looked almost exactly like my pre-pregnancy boobs. I didn’t do anything at all, I’m a healthy bmi but unfortunately I rarely exercise, didn’t do any creams or anything like that. It just came with time.

I’m now pregnant again, so we will see whether they can bounce back this time 😅

I'd say 'bounce back' is genetic. I never lost a pound through breast feeding and I breastfed five kids for a year each. My DD has just had a baby and so has my DIL and they both have very similar lifestyles. DD is feeding a very hungry baby almost continually and hasn't lost an ounce, DIL is feeding less often and is already back to pre-pregnancy weight. But HER mum lost all her pregnancy weight BF.

They are both very healthy and do lots of exercise, in fact DD does slightly more because she's gone back to the gym, whereas DIL walks a lot. So I'm saying that genetics has more to do with it than we might think.

PS I am however amazed at people who said they left hospital in jeans, let alone pre-pregnancy ones (why did they pack them??).

I think I was just very clueless about having a baby tbh. I just assumed I’d fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes once I’d given birth. And I was right, I did. But even at 9 months pregnant, I just looked like I always did but with a beach ball attached to my front and bigger boobs. I miss those boobs 😭

Oop Did not mean to to quote

where does this obligation to lose weight come from ? WE have the power to stop this unnecessary bull shiT the problem which is
”know my husband is disappointed with how long it’s taking me”

Omg you have given me so much hope! It’s been a year since I gave birth. I’m back ‘down’ to a 32 f. Was a k when breast feeding. Praying to God they do the same as yours. Thanks for sharing!

Your husband being "disappointed" that you haven't "bounced back" is fucking foul and my main takeaway from your post. Him having an opinion of your body other than "this is gorgeous and glorious, what an amazing thing your body has done to carry and nourish and grow our precious child, this body is so strong and powerful and important and lifegiving, it's changed and it's beautiful". Fuck that guy.

All of our bodies are different. My SIL is naturally slim and athletic looking, carried very "neatly" and looked much like her usual self soon after births.

My pregnancies have been very obvious and I remember (unhelpful) comments of "are you sure it's not twins" or "you've got another 3 months to go? Jesus!". First time around I carried a bit of extra weight after and took longer getting back to my old clothes size and my body felt very different. Second time I was super fit during pregnancy, exercised throughout, great birth experience and I was much fitter sooner after. That was partly in response to how shit I felt mentally the first time. I breastfed both times because it was free, that was the main motivation.

I'm much bigger now than I was post birth, this is all my own doing and my age.

"Bouncing back" is BULLSHIT.

Comparing your self to the crop top mom is hurtful to yourself. Be kind to your body, be kind to your mind. x

It's genetic for sure. I was a size 8 and skinnier 6 months after having dc2 than I'd been my whole adult life. Breastfeeding and being active, I ate loads of cake, it just dropped off.

You’d loose a good chunk of weight if you simply got rid of your husband. I’ve had 2 babies and never bounced back my partner would NEVER comment on how I looked let alone be disappointed.

I went and bought new jeans two days after the birth of my third and was below my usual size. I hadn't 'bounced back', I had been utterly depleted by pregnancy. Not sure why that's a good thing!

If it consoles you, 9 months after every baby I was always seriously heavier than straight after birth. Weight caught back up and then some because of fatigue and hunger.

Because jeans give you some support and made me feel less blubbery, and more put together.

Excellent point 👌

So many things contribute to pregnancy weight gain the main one being genetics.
some people store more fat post baby due to epigenetics if you had ancestors who survived famine etc your more likely to store fat post baby to keep you both alive! age, metabolism etc all come come into it - you also don’t know if she’s had any surgery, been on the GLP1 jabs, if she sees a PT, how many hours sleep she gets etc etc.
its okay to feel envious beauty standards have forced us to think only one way about our bodies.
ive got a friend who barely gained any weight in pregnancy and looked unreal 4 weeks afterwards, meanwhile I’m 3 years older than her and gained 18kgs who knows what or how fast I’ll loose it afterwards especially as I’m planning to breastfeed I might gain even more!
it’s okay to feel envious but honestly it’s not worth letting jt consume you! Focus on you and your goals and what support you have ❤️❤️❤️❤️

That's the language that makes other women feel like shit. Blubbery. I suppose after HG and a butchering that left me with size 6-8 everything else but size 26 around the swollen, infected and incredibly painful middle, I guess I looked a lot more blubbery than you. Didn't need to know that others saw much, much smaller as being as fat as a blue whale, but there you go, had to use the language.

doublepost

Someone is allowed to feel how they want about their own body without it being an attack on anyone else.

Yikes projecting much? She was describing how she felt about herself, I’m sure she has no opinion on how you looked.

PS I am however amazed at people who said they left hospital in jeans, let alone pre-pregnancy ones (why did they pack them??).

We packed them so we could wear them home 😳

This is really all that needs saying.

You've just had a baby. Enjoy this time. Forget about your weight for now.

That's the point - using that derogatory language about being objectively much smaller then means logically that being larger than that makes the person in that situation feel even worse.

Would it have cheered her up to say 'Christ, you look like a harpooned manatee'? No. But that is what using such terms conjures in the mind.

@NeverDropYourMooncup "Christ, you look like a harpooned manatee'?"

Thank you I am going to start using that when I have eaten one seven too many hobnobs.

She hasn’t seen you…women are our own worst critics it’s widely known we can chastise ourselves while feeling different about others who may be objectively similar. All that matters is she felt blubbery, I think even a very slim woman can feel
blubbery after birth, I would say it’s less about volume and more the deflation of what’s left which most of us experience for a varying length of time!

Oh give over, I did feel blubbery post-partum. I didn't say "fat" or "swollen" (in fact context makes it clear that that is not what I could have meant). I felt like my intestines were swimming around all over the place and my jeans pulled them together like a girdle.

Apologies if my choice of words in my third languages feels sub-optimal and insufficiently precise to you.

But also, the projected judgement is all yours. I felt my stomach was blubbering and moving all over and I liked wearing my jeans. I did not say that I looked bad. I said I wasn't enjoying the feeling of blubbering wobbliness and instability. And I even less so implied that other women should look a certain way.

After my first, I looked like I bounced back quite quickly. In reality, I was still suffering the effects of hyperemesis gravidarum which went on throughout my entire pregnancy, along with the effects of postnatal depression as an undiagnosed autistic mother struggling to cope with a newborn and walking for miles and miles every day to calm my baby.

After my second, and a pregnancy without any sickness, I gained a lot more weight thanks to a different antidepressant for a second bout of PND (again, more likely to be related to being autistic and still undiagnosed at that point).

It was only once the kids were both correctly diagnosed as autistic themselves as well as myself and my husband, we could be authentic as a family, the kids got a lot older and gradually became independent - albeit at a much slower pace than their peers - that I was finally in a place to juggle regular exercise with full time work, and that I was able to lose weight and improve my fitness.

It’s partly down to genetics and luck, partly it’s a season of life and you just weather it until you can do something to change it. And you don’t judge anyone else because you never know what’s really going on for anyone.

I’m hoping that’s just a misconception on your part and your husband doesn’t genuinely feel that you haven’t bounced back quickly enough… otherwise you’ve got a husband problem, not a post-pregnancy body problem!