While shopping for maternity pants close to the beginning of my pregnancy, a sales associate mentioned to me that she still wears her maternity pants after having her baby. “Oh that’s nice,” I said. “How old is your baby?” “Four years,” she replied. What?! I’m sorry, but I my opinion she crossed the “baby weight” to “letting yourself go” line years ago.
Despite the fact that I wasn’t racking up hours at the gym before, or during my pregnancy, I had a what might be a distorted vision that I’d be squeezing into my pre-pregnancy jeans by the time my baby was at most 2 months. I’ll admit that my high expectations were set by super models and celebrities who are either freaks of nature, or most likely airbrushed, but for some reason I imagined myself a member of that elite society that every mom in the world openly hated.
Last month, via The Huffington Post I came across an interview with Elizabeth Banks (love her!) who says celebrities are giving moms a “disservice” by squeezing into their pre-pregnancy teeny weeny jeans weeks after giving birth.
Below is what she said (in a nutshell) during an interview with Marc Maron of “WTF” podcast:
I like to believe that if I had carried my own baby, I would have bounced back. But who knows? And by the way, it’s such a horrible — women should not be expected to bounce back … it’s a, I think, a true disservice what’s going on right now with all these celebrity moms … first of all, I just want to remind people that celebrities generally are genetically superior human beings on a certain level anyway … they’re mostly thin, you know, they got trainers, they work out, they’ve got money, they’ve got the ability, you know, and they are normally genetically predisposed to being thin people anyway, so like these women who are holding up, you know, certain people as their benchmark after they’ve had a child, like just go be with your kid for a minute … don’t get to the gym right away. It’s alright. This is not how it’s supposed to be, everybody. Calm down.
Thank you Elizabeth Banks for pointing out that unless you are genetically blessed, have a trainer at your disposal, and someone to help take care of your baby while you focus most of your time on getting your body back, it’s just not possible to slide into those skinny jeans (or even the fat day jeans in my case) in a matter of weeks.
Ok. A celebrity finally busted the other celebrity moms and gave us real moms permission to relax a bit.
However, Haven is nearing two months and I’m still wearing leggings and loose shirts. Since I’ve gotten more of a handle of motherhood and managing a schedule, I’m finally starting to do light exercise and to see a glimpse of what my body looked like before I had her. I’m definitely not there yet. But that’s ok. I’m listening to Elizabeth’s advice to “calm down”.
What do you think? How long is too long before we need to suck it up and get our flabby baby bodies back at the gym? Months? Four years? How easy was it for you?
V is 8 months and I am not in my pre-prego pants yet, I am one size away. I try to give myself some slack considering I had a c-section and then a herniated disc in my back but I still feel sometimes like I should be back to myself already. But the truth is like you said unless you have a nanny, a housekeeper and don’t have to work it is really hard to find time to work out! My sister in law told me once to remember it took 9 months to for your body to change for your baby you should give it at least that long to go back. I also just bought some bigger jeans
I am incredibly abnormal and gained 2 lbs during my pregnancy and have lost 55 lbs in the 6 months since my son was born. I am now too skinny for my skinny-day jeans and had to buy some smaller ones. I try not to talk about it with my mommy friends because I am afraid I will make someone feel bad…and I feel guilty taking credit because I’m not really doing anything other than breastfeeding to take the weight off. Everyone is different!