Hi! This is Margaret. I was a "charter author", but haven't posted anything a long time. Having two kids under two and living in the dark ages of dial-up limit my internet time considerably. But, I wanted to chime in with my experiences with losing baby weight. With my first pregnancy I gained about 27 pounds and after having a beautiful 7 pound baby girl had an overwhelming 20 pounds to lose! I kept watching the scale waiting for the weight to melt off (as I had been told it would by other people) especially since I was breastfeeding. But, the scale remained the same for month after month. I even started running several miles a day once she reached 2 months old. The scale remained the same and I was getting more and more frustrated. Then, when she was 5 months old, I began to notice that I was a few pounds lighter. I was doing nothing different by this point, except continuing to eat well and exercise. It just seemed that my body finally got the message and the pounds started disappearing. This continued and I lost all 20 pounds and returned to my pre-pregnancy size the day I got a positive pregnancy test with our next child! I gained about 17 pounds that time and only had 10 pounds to lose after his birth five months ago. I reminded myself to be patient and sure enough, just recently the weight is coming off and I've got just three pounds to go!
I would encourage all of you ladies struggling with baby weight to really be patient. It seemed for me that my body was almost storing the extra pounds to ensure a good milk supply. Once that was firmly established, the pounds came off and I can fit into all my pre-baby clothes. As the other authors have already covered, good nutrition and exercise are important. Just like every baby, every body is different and the old saying really is true. It took 9 months to prepare for birth and it takes nearly that long to fully recover.
10 comments:
Thanks for your posts, ladies! I'd also like to encourage new mothers not to throw away any of their "skinny" pre-pregnancy clothes. I didn't gain a lot of baby weight and lost all of my baby weight 2 weeks after she was born, but I still couldn't fit into my clothes comfortably because my hips were still wide, etc. I gave some of them away, thinking my body would just never be the same. A couple of months later, all my clothes were too big and I was wishing I had kept my "skinny" clothes :)
Meagan
I want to second what Meagan said! I was fortunate to have the same experience with losing baby weight. However, we crated when Lydia was two weeks old and I had to decide what clothes to keep, sell, or crate. I did a poor job keeping my "skinny" clothes and wish I had kept more of them :).
Great post Margaret! My question is how did you only gain 17 pounds with your pregnancy with Benjamin? Wow!!!
Meagan....TWO WEEKS after delivery you were back to your normal weight? Oh my word. Do you have a fast metabolism?
I too went through my closet thinking, "well, now I'm going to be a THAT Mama that never loses this weight. Oh well. I'll just give these clothes to the teenager next door. These shirts are waaaay too short anyways! Knowing that those my "nursing girls" would indeed return back to normal size and then some, I would have kept those shirts."
Hollie,
I have a decent metabolism, but I think it was mainly because of morning sickness. I lost a good bit of weight the first trimester because food was just not appealing to me and only gained 20 pounds the whole pregnancy. I lost 10 at birth, and the other 10 came out in fluids the next week, it seemed. But I definitely kept the pregnancy wide hips and flabby belly for several months even though the weight was gone :)
Meagan
Thank you for the great reminder that it doesn't happen over night. When 3 or 4 months go by, and you're still not seeing change, it's tempting to throw up your hands and grab the double-stuffed oreos that are calling your name when you walk down the aisle in the grocery store. (Oh, maybe that's just me!)
So thanks for encouraging us not to give up.
What's interesting to me is that I lost all the WEIGHT, and was back to my pre-pregnancy WEIGHT pretty quickly, but my body was in no way the same. It is taking a LONG time to get rid of the belly blubber and re-gain some of the muscle that I actually lost during pregnancy. I have to focus on target areas, rather than what the scale actually says.
Good to know I'm not alone in this journey! :)
Off the subject, but any advice for when you can't sleep... hip / joint pain b/c can't sleep on stomach b/c baby kicking. I'll be 20 weeks Monday and I just went to the recliner / couch after tossing and turning for over an hour... I'm tired, but my hip hurts and the baby is really kicking!
swan5475@hotmail.com
www.cmbadura.blogspot.com
Thanks!
Mariah
Sort of feeling dumb to mention this, but what do you do if you are having problems GAINING weight during pregnancy? I will be 20 weeks pregnant with our 2nd tomorrow (M7/14). I have only gained 4 pounds and the OB always comments on that and says they want me to gain ~30 pounds. I gained 20 with our 1st and lost 17 before leaving the hospital.... My weight gain is slower this time (probably b/c I'm chasing a 21 mo. old) but my measurements are larger....
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Mariah
swan5475@hotmail.com
www.cmbadura.blogspot.com
Mariah,
I just want to say that I understand your problem about gaining weight with your pregnancy. I started this pregnancy 10 pounds less than my last -- due to nursing and being pregnant at the same time and chasing around a one year old :) And then morning sickness hit and I've only lost more weight since. I'm now almost 13 weeks pregnant and my OB is bugging me to gain a bunch of weight as well. I can't really give any advice, since I'm struggling in this area as well, but I know that with my last pregnancy, I had the same problem and I didn't start to make up for lost pounds til the 3rd trimester and I only gained 20. But my baby was wonderfully healthy, much bigger than expected, and I had plenty of milk, even though I was "underweight" the majority of my pregnancy. So you'll probably be fine even if you don't gain 30 pounds like they want you to.
Meagan
Pregnancy question- Is diaherrea during pregnancy OK? Does it mean anything? (Should I be concerned; I'm 20 weeks and it has been pretty bad today. I just called my OB and they took a message for the Dr. to call me back.)
Mariah
swan5475@hotmail.com
www.cmbadura.blogspot.com
Meagan! i didn't know you were pregnant again!! Congrats!
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