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.

My daughter never slept and I know lots of people say this but she literally did not sleep unless held at all times and then not for long. She'd sleep in a moving pram but not if I stopped even for a second. I breast fed . The lack of sleep, the breast feeding and the lack of abily to eat a proper meal because I was holding her. I lived on cake as and when I could grab a bite and walking miles with a pram.

I lost all my baby weight and some extra and was the slimiest I've been in my life within weeks of giving birth. I looked fabulous, but if it's any consolation to you I felt utterly exhausted at all times and like total shit and was barely coping . So yeah it's possible to lose your baby weight quickly but I wouldn't recommend it!

I am trying to imagine being with a man who knows the contents of my wardrobe well enough to make outfit suggestions.. yuck. I am married to a literal rocket scientist, he is probably more familiar with my atoms than my denim. Thank God. What is with all these weird men dictating body shape and make up application lately.

My XH (the kids' dad) was a total tit who believed that my entire purpose was to do everything so he could go to his Big Job with no pressure and not needing to lift a finger in the house or with the children.

And even HE never uttered one single negative view of my post-birth body.

going for a walk with pram, we use step counter and join mums group to walk together. 15000 steps a day should be very helpful for the situation.

walkinh 15000 a day with pram and join the mum's group look for peer and challenge for the badge together, sounds silly but it works....

You knew exactly what sort of thread is from both the title and opening post.

It's your responsibility to not read this sort of thing rather than try to police how other women want to talk about themselves.

Even if he didn’t outright say it, your husband sounds like a disappointment.

Well having my first baby broke my body. I've now had diastasis recti for 11 years. There's been no bouncing back and I no longer have a functional body! No amount of breastfeeding for years was going to help me bounce back.
I have to save for surgery because the NHS just thinks it's purely cosmetic 🙄

I do wish there was more acceptance that making a whole other human ofcourse is going to change many people's bodies forever.

my sister has been a size 6 all her days, eats terrible and never exercise, she had a baby and was back to her exact same body 4 weeks later. I had a baby and my stomach and breast and hips have never been the same despite rigours exercise and dieting. Naturally slim people seem to be able to carry baby’s without dramatic changes to their bodies. I was pear shaped and was massive all over

People really underestimate lifestyle.
I would be like your sister, always size 6, beach ball bump but not big all over in pregnancy, “never exercises” and eats rubbish - to the outside looking in.
In reality I can see my day to day is different to others and particularly those who are bigger, I don’t go to the gym because im always active playing with my kids, walking to school, walking to the coast, if I can walk I will rather than taking the kids in the car, I don’t track what I eat and I’ll have a bun or a donut when out for coffee with school mums but then I naturally won’t be hungry for lunch if I’ve had a massive pastry at 11am, and my positions are smaller than what I generally see others eating.
Very rarely when one person is thin and the other is larger are they actually eating the same and moving the same over the whole day.

Considering 9% of woman have lipodema I can assure you that it’s not as rare as you think

Well obviously i’m trying to make op feel better as she mentioned the woman she’s comparing herself to wears croptops.

I really don’t believe many women are wearing crop tops that aren’t teenagers. It’s ok not to have a body even before having kids that makes you feel comfortable in crop tops.

I had my son in 2019 and gained so much weight, it took me 5 years to finally do something about it, like you I kept saying I ‘just’ had a baby.

I’ve then had my daughter in May of this year and I can’t say I’ve ’bounced back’ but I’m surprised with how I’ve gone back to my size pre-pregnancy by doing absolutely nothing in the form of exercise (I had a section so taking it easy).

Both pregnancies I felt went the exact same, I ate very similar and did no exercise throughout.

Stop being so hard on yourself, being a Mom is HARD. If you are looking to lose weight get yourself outdoors each day for a walk and look at your diet. When I did lose quite a bit of weight for my wedding last year I took up running and it worked wonders for me.

I “snapped back” quickly after DS1 (17 yrs ago), people constantly commented on how good I was looking. They didn’t know I was drowning with PND, riddled with anxiety so severe I couldn’t eat or sleep, BF a baby who was never satisfied, and was a shell of a person.

With DS2 I was mentally healthy and had all the lovely wobbly stretched bits, which was a price I was very willing to pay for being happy!

I was back to my pre pregnancy weight after 6 weeks, I didn't gain any weight during pregnancy I just had my bump and that was it. It wasn't bloody luck! I was strictly calorie counting the whole time to ensure I didn't gain any weight while being closely monitored by a consultant to ensure I gained no weight because I was high risk for getting gestational diabetes. I got weighed fortnightly at the hospital and berated if I'd gained more than 1 was supposed to It was really hard.

It really annoys me when people bang on about "luck" and"genetics" no such thing! The only way to gain body fat is to eat too many calories. So many people here need to just accept they took eating for two too literally, you only need an extra 200 calories in the third trimester and none before that.

Please dont compare yourself to others. Pregnancy hormones affect us all in such different ways that I think it’s literally a lottery as to what you end up looking like during & after pregnancy.
With my eldest BF made me lose lots of weight very quickly, with my next one I held onto about a stone of weight that came off once I stopped (turns out I was prepped for some impending famine). It was so frustrating as I felt I knew what my body “should” do & I felt like it was letting me down.
All I can suggest is walk lots with your baby, even on non bootcamp days, reduce portions where possible to a point where you still feel satiated but not excessively full. But finally.. what is it your partner does that makes you think they are disappointed in you, because you sound like a pretty great person who is doing the best they can so I don’t know what he has to be disappointed in.

First your husband sounds like a dick.

I have said YABU however I understand how annoying and soul destroying it is to see someone "bounce back" whilst you struggle. Unfortunately everyone is built differently and there is very little we can do about it.

Go treat yourself to some new clothes that suit your current body, get your hair done and try (as hard as it can often be) to love who you are now.

I bounced back quickly, I did absolutely nothing. People made comments about it all the time, it got me down as I felt constantly judged. In reality, it’s just the luck of the draw. Your husband sounds awful.

When I had my first DC I put on 4 stone. I lost 1 stone of that in the 4 years after having them before DC2 and that was a hard slog! I put that back on on second pregnancy and now 7 months pp I've only managed to lose half a stone. I think it's a mixture between genetics, age and lifestyle change when you've had children. I personally am still very active but I just don't lose weight as easily as I used to when I was younger and I'm not blessed with kind genetics. DH needs to give his head a wobble, it's not that simple for everyone!

I'm not trying to diminish the hard work you've done in any way by saying this but I think it's important to recognise that metabolic rate is a thing and it is determined by various factors including conditions such as PCOS which affect hormone regulation. It is also proven that weight gain and the way your body stores fat can be heavily influenced by genetics.

I’m first of all sorry your husband is a Pratt.

But you also have no idea what is going on for the other mum, I was very sick in pregnancy with my second I also nearly died in childbirth- I did leave hospital in size 8 skinny jeans but I wasn’t well at all

I’m 13 stone now t 38w pregnant when I was 10.3 stone on the day I had DD at 39 weeks
but I am so much happier and healthier

Of course those things matter. I have PCOS, that's why I was high risk for gestational diabetes and everything I ate was managed to ensure I didn't gain weight. I have struggled with my weight my whole life and yo yo between overweight and healthy because it's really hard to maintain a healthy weight for me but every time I have lost weight it has been because I stuck to the strict calorie limits I was set by a dietician. I know full well how hard it is to control your food intake when you're starving all the time but that doesn't change the fact that it's absolutely true that if you control how much eat while pregnant you don't put 3 stone on. Not a single person on this thread gained 3 stone by eating the same amount of food and doing the same amount of exercise they always did. Guaranteed. They ate more because they were hungry from being pregnant/breastfeeding. I was constantly starving when pregnant but I had to just deal with the hunger because every single thing I ate was tracked and I was weighed weekly, if I gained more than my allocated 1lb that week I was told to rein it in. If people gain fluid and water weight that's different but that will resolve immediately after birth without any effort unlike burning fat so is irrelevant really.

Hormones can make you hungry, they can make you store more fat from the same amount of food than other people do which translates to you having a lower daily calorie limit than others to maintain your weight but only eating more calories than you need makes you gain fat. PCOS means that at 5ft 8 with a high muscle percentage I can still only eat 1200 calories a day without gaining weight. It sucks, I'm always hungry. People have to own the fact that they are eating too much if they are overweight and to lose it they need to eat less. It's not luck. If I ate whatever I wanted when I was pregnant because I was hungry I would have gained a few stone like the posters here then claimed it was hormones that made me fat and wanging on about how I was unlucky but I would be lying to myself. Actually losing weight or preventing weight gain has nothing to do with luck, it's about knowing your limits and staying in them. Harder if you have PCOS like me, easier if you have a fast metabolism, but to just claim it's luck and throw your hands in the air like you have no control over it and it's just fate whether you get fat or not is ridiculous.

I'm sorry that was your experience, it sounds utterly miserable. I also have PCOS and nobody has ever suggested I monitor my calorie intake so drastically whilst pregnant. Baseline calories whilst pregnant are usually advised at 1800 from what I remember. 1200 sounds like torture.

Although your lack of weight gain wasn't luck, for some, they are blessed with genetic predisposition which means they don't put on weight easily and/or are able to lose weight easily. I think those are the people OP is probably referring to in their post.

It's true that some people are lucky enough to be able to eat 2000 calories a day before they start gaining weight but those are few and far between, and some of us are unlucky enough to only get 1000 calories a day before they start gaining weight, most people that maintain a healthy weight work incredibly hard to do so by knowing what their daily maintenance calories are and staying within them. It's hard! That's why the majority of the population are overweight! It's ok to admit that you're overweight because it's hard not to be, I really wish people were more honest with themselves and admitted that rather than just thinking they're unlucky and have no power over the situation or diminish others hard work as good luck. I've been overweight many times because it's hard not to be!

I wasn't sticking to 1200 calories while pregnant that's my non pregnant maintenance amount for a BMI of 25, I'll never be skinny. But what I didn't know until the team managing my weight told me was that women don't need any extra calories at all in the first two trimesters then only need an extra 200 calories in the third trimester which is why when women think they can eat for two they get fat, because they can't. Being constantly hungry while pregnant and being monitored so closely was horrible, but I was grateful when I was my pre pregnancy weight after 6 weeks and everyone told me I looked great. I felt really good and was hill walking miles with my baby in sling at 6 weeks pp after my c section was fully healed which I wouldn't have been able to do if I'd piled weight on. I have such happy memories of that time and had I lost my fitness I wouldn't have those so really they were doing me a favour. A few women made jealous comments about bouncing back being all about luck which was grating. Now I can see they were just in denial about their own role in their weight gain but it stung at the time.

I was monitored so closely because I was high risk not just because I have PCOS, I think you only get that intense weight monitoring if you're high risk or obese at your booking appointment. Which is a shame because it would benefit all pregnant women to have their weight managed that way so they stay a healthy weight and don't end up feeling like OP and many posters here do. It's so hard to manage your weight when you're pregnant due to increased hunger and cravings and so many women have really poor nutritional knowledge, I learned a lot from the dietician monitoring me so it would be hugely beneficial if the service was available to all.

Dubious husband issues aside...

How well do you know this woman? Because what you're seeing on the outside might not be all it seems.

I was back in my pre-pregnancy clothes in five days - thanks to bad morning sickness leaving me a stone lighter than when I conceived and an EMCS.

Baby and I were both immaculately turned out every time we left the house...I realise now it was purely a control mechanism - I was diagnosed with severe PND when my daughter was 4 months and narrowly avoided being admitted to a mother and baby psych ward.

Of course this woman might just be ridiculously fortunate but int he gentlest possible way - that's not your business and neither is your husband's opinion of the body that has created, birthed and nurtured his child!