Any good tips for disguising bump?!

[Panickypants]

Don't want to tell work for a good few weeks but my trousers no longer do up! Any good ideas? Are dresses best I wonder? I had a colleague who got to almost 30 weeks by wrapping a huge pashmina round her (but everyone clocked the bump!) x

I am 20w and haven't told work. They haven't noticed afaik. (Certainly no one's mentioned anything.) I don't need to tell them as it's a short-term contract that ends at about 25w & although there's no medical reason for it think I would be side-lined from interesting work if they knew. Am going to see if I can get through & surprise them at the end!

So far, what I've learned is

• accept that you're going to look fat (I am fat, which helped with the acceptance, but I used to dress for the body I had, now obvs am in disguise and look a bit crap imo)
• post-xmas is a good time to moan about putting on weight (suspect post-Easter choc is too)
• try to avoid anything that creates a fitted, b shaped silhouette
• waist bands that cut across the bump help make it not look like a bump but a fat belly
• if your boobs have gone out, too, dresses that hang straight down from them work well (you look like a tube, not a b)
• stiff A skirts that fit above the bump are a good disguise (think 50s style)
• a jacket or cardi can break up your shape more
• boobs & jewellery & scarves & whatnot to draw attention upwards
• try to avoid meeting people when they're sitting & you're standing up (I think the only people who've guessed are some canny ladies in another dept who met me eyes at bump height)
• get someone to check your outfit each morning - a perfect disguise one week won't work the next
• check charity shops & supermarket sale rails for larger-than-normal sizes in ordinary clothes. I've grown out of things I bought a few weeks ago already so need a stash of cheap bits
• see if you can work from home?!

It's hard to say if any of this is helping, but I have also made myself some other rules:

• don't talk about babies. Also, if you can find other pregnant people, resist the urge to befriend them & continue to talk about them with the scepticism of the un-procreating. Esp if it's your first. People seem to expect an attitude change as much as anything (judging by the people who do know & reactions to a couple other pg women on my floor).
• try not to change your habits
• visibly have 'non-allowed' foods even if you aren't actually consuming them, e.g. stick to your 3 cups of coffee / 17 cups of tea a day (even if you've secretly switched to decaf or hot water in your sealed cup).

By wearing a man's ski jacket I got all the way through my winter pregnancy without my neighbours/ shop keepers knowing I was pregnant. They were all astonished to see me with a baby. Not a strategy that will work in an office though.....

i agree about the ski jacket, or anything padded. I wore a gillet/bodywarmer thing in the shop I work in all through the winter. no-one noticed a thing. I took it off when it got warmer and by that time I was about 6 months and very noticeably pregnant and all my customers got a surprise! no good for smarter situations though.

Normal clothes in a bigger size.

I'm 31w on Sunday people still can't tell and assume I'm just fat. I haven't told people though

Gain lots of weight?

Maternity bands - 3 for £10 New Look - over the top of your opened trousers ?

Scarves still hide my bump at 29 weeks. I have always wore them.

Yes I wore my big mountaineering jacket when out and about in winter and some people didn't notice even when I was 42 weeks pregnant! Watch how you walk - don't hold your hand on your lower back, or touch your bump, or waddle. One canny lady who had had 4 children spotted me as I walked across her company's office, trying to find her. She told me I didn't have a bump but I 'walked pregnant'.

Of course thanks to having a post-baby body people tend to think I look pregnant now.

I got to 20 weeks with my first and 23 weeks with my second before I told anyone at work. Peplam (sp?) style tops were great for me and tulip style skirts where they come in at the waist and stick out. Same as skater style dresses. I wear a lot of black and waterfall style cardis over a black base are distracting. Loose silky blouses over skinny smart leggings are trousers work well too. Baggy over skinny confuses the eye.

Impressed with all of you. I remember the day a colleague came in my office, shut the door, sat down, gave me a knowing look and asked if there was anything I'd like to tell her. I was 8 weeks.