Dear designers of maternity tights...

[HumptyDumptyBumpty]

You are SHIT at your jobs.
Maternity tights are appallingly badly designed and horrifically uncomfortable. I have tried every brand on the market, and they're all bad.
The ones I have just wrestled on have two enormous seams which go either side of my bump. If these seams are not in PRECISELY the correct place, they cut off the circulation to my legs. This is poor design. I hate you.
Not to mention that bending over to put the bastarding things on makes a bit of sick come up into my mouth.

I fucking hate fucking maternity tights. I wish I could wear leggings every day (going out for nice lunch, so leggings would look shit with this skirt).

Can you tell I'm 41+3 and sick of being bloody pregnant?

They also, always, make them 'long length' by increasing the gap between the crotch and the waist band, not the length of the leg. And they're nearly always a stupid, slidy material

I had to wear them under my uniform through both my pregnancies. OP, I feel your pain!

And they make my bump itchy!

Probably not worth it at 41+3, but i recommend opaque hold ups for smart events.

They are a pile of shit, I agree! I've tried every bloody brand too, they all l fall down or cut the bump in half.

The only vaguely acceptable ones were mothercare woollen opaques.

I didn't even know they existed, I've just been wearing my ordinary tights and folding the top down

Have you considered hold ups? Or hell, just thin leggings! Nobody would know if you wore boots over the feet :)

I am 26w today, and fairly bumpish although not enormous and I have recently solved my tights issue. I like black-black opaques with some bum-sucking and critically no feet, but my trusty M&S ones I've had for years were getting worn out and uncomfortable.

In ASDA, in the tights section, I found some all-over bodyshaper 'leggings'. They are £3.50, footless with no waistband, so are soft and comfortable over my bump. And they hold in my considerable arse and thighs.

Only possible downside is they do have a seam up the middle, but again it's pretty soft and you can't really see it under my growing collection of jersey wrap dresses. And I wear ankle boots, mostly - so maybe footless wouldn't work so well if you wear grown-up shoes.

I'm 5'10" about a 12/14 and the L/XL fit nicely and I think will, for a while. So I reckon you could be a lot more preg and have them still fit if you are less of a giantess than me.

Being small of bump and short of body my maternity tights came up to my armpits. This made them stupidly too hot.

someone gave me a pair but I couldn't work them out. Until then I just wore normal tights under the bump. Works fine for me

Totally agree. Just emailed to complain about the ones I bought. Totally rubbish!
Grrr

I totally agree. Would recommend Falke Family tights (they're non-maternity despite the name) in a nice L size, I've found they're actually better than proper maternity tights – not as itchy.

I found the mothercare thicker ones not too bad - the h&m ones though i can only assume were designed exclusively for giants

Phew, I'm not freakishly weirdly shaped then.

Hold ups, I've tried pre-pg, but my legs are a bit conical, v fat thighs, which taper quite fast, so hold ups are either a) too tight around fat part and cutting in or b) the elastic bit rolls up and then they fall down.
This is not a sexy look, as now I cannot even bend down to retrieve them.

I like the sound of some of these solutions though. As soon as this lazy, late baby is out I shall burn all maternity tights, forcing myself to look into these options for next time, ta.

I thought I was going to have a nightmare with maternity tights but i've done really well with the M&S ones. I do struggle to get them on now but im struggling with getting dressed in general so cant blame the tights!!

I like the mothercare ones; I have 2 pairs; one black woolly, one grey ribbed woolly. Both are brilliant, stay up, don't itch and the seams don't bother me (but I tuck my maternity "secret support top" (vesty thing) attractively into them which means the tights don't actually touch my tummy above my giant maternity knickers at all). I practically live in them for work under jersey layers.

23 weeks here & just considering maternity tights. remembered being heavily preggers with DD1 and sitting on the edge of the out of breath after wrestling and crying my eyes out because of those fuckers.

I have some from m and s, they are comfy.

Wear normal tight and slit the waistband vertically with scissors. The Ahhhh factor is really something.

You are forgetting the worst part...after wrestling getting the tights on (including the breathing struggle, bit of sick, and possibly even a one-leg-tights-half-on loo break), you finally put your one remaining smart work dress on, pull it down a bit....and catch your engagement ring on the tights making a massive hole! Wave of despair.... (and your fingers are so fat you should have taken the ring off weeks ago but are still in denial about just how much weight you have put on)

My main beef with maternity tights is that they are so bloody expensive! Mamas and Papas were charging £9.00 for a packet of tights that will probably ladder after three or four wears/washes. Whereas I went down the High Street and paid £15 for a pair of decent quality maternity leggings that have lasted me all pregnancy and still look decent. It proved a no-brainer to me really. Am extremely bored of wearing leggings pretty much every day but they do the job and are practical....

I had some brilliant H&M ones with DS but by the time I had DD they'd changed suppliers and they were awful - I feel your wrath.

Spanx are good but pricey.

I bought a pair of mothercare ones on their website, 40 denier i think, and either it wasn't made clear, or perhaps i didn't look carefully enough at the blurb, but when i got them they were maternity control tights. It's like they were made of iron.

Has anyone here had to wear those surgical stockings in hospital? The ones which feel like they are meant to go over nothing fatter than a finger? And yet, if two or three people you stretch them to buggery they will go on, but then feel as if they are squeezing the life out of your ankles and legs? ... that's what these maternity tights felt like! And i bought XL!!!! I'm a size 14, FGS.

It took me an age to get them on, i pulled a muscle, had a mini sick, they felt awful, were shiney as a penguins bum, and - yes - i laddered them. I actually got weepy :(

What a bloody waste of £15. My review is there to see.

fatty oh Christ yes. There is no more depressing sound in the world. Or getting them half way up and realising one leg is twisted.

Maternity control tights? WTAF? That's insane. And surely not good for you.

Oh well, induction on Friday, so no more fecking tights for me!

Sounds like a good suggestion, claudeekishi; do you mean just one slit in the waistband and does it matter where? Thanks.