Please help me with my post-birth wardrobe - two sizes bigger and no waist!!

[SamJohnsMum]

I am having real difficulty with my wardrobe at the moment - since giving birth 4 months ago, I am about two dress sizes bigger than I was (I am now roughly a size 14 bottom half and size 12 top half) and have no waist at all. I am still breastfeeding, which means I don't want to diet and all my clothes need to have easy access to my boobs!! I can't afford to spend much and I have already spent too much money on jeans which immediately seem too big after one wear and never go back to looking good.

Therefore, I am going for a boots and skirt look, but I don't know what style of skirt to wear so that I don't look like a sack of potatoes!!

So, please help - what skirts might look good? Does anyone have any other ideas? Aaagh!!

It's a transitional between sizes wardrobe so can understand you don't want to spend too much, but whatever you choose, it's important to love it and get it in the size that fits you now, it will have a positive effect on how you feel, interms of skirts with boots how about things like:

black cord skirt
draped front skirt

You could also choose shirts or cardi which create a waistline eg:

frills plum shirt
beige circle shirt
grey cardi

Sounds like me (never had much of a waist, but it vanished entirely after childbirth).

I found the most flattering things were really simple styles - flat fronted trousers, M&S jeans - high waisted to avoid the muffin top that had evolved, flat fronted slightly A-line skirts (fat face were good for these).

To create some illusion of slimness I wore simple, soft but quite tailored things and layered a soft jacket or open cardy (fitted, NOT baggy) to kind of break up what I felt was the big expanse of me!

I'm no style guru, that's just what worked best for me. I absolutely couldn't do things with belts / tie waists, they still make me look like a sack of spuds, but I have a long back and the ribbons etc are always around my ribcage, not where my waist should be....

Thanks for these tips - I particularly like the black cord skirt you have found, samsonara. I love fat face anyway, captain, so will def look out for these!!

Oh God I totally sympathise. Alll summer I felt like a heffalump and seem to have spent rather a lot in an effort to find something that made me feel a little less elephantine. DD2 was 6 months old at the end of September and lo, the weight just seems to be sliding off me. I started her on solids just after 6 months and I remember now the same thing happening with ds. I just thought that after 3 dcs I was never going to be the same again. So you may find that in a couple of months or so you'll see a difference. I went for higher waisted jeans to cover the muffin top and decided to hell with worrying about wearing a bigger size than I was used to, if I felt comfortable I felt better in myself iyswim. I've discovered Uniqlo and Dorothy Perkins 2 pairs of jeans for £25 which frankly I don't mind binning once I don't need them anymore. If you want jeans to hold the tummy in, try Tummy tuck jeans. The photos on the net make them look awful but if you find a good shop who can help you they really can make a difference while you're in this post-natal gloom stage, but they are relatively ££.