How To Feel Body Confident After Having A Baby
This is a collaborative post
There’s no way of avoiding the fact that having a baby will dramatically change your body inside and out. You are going to put on weight, and you are going to be left with excess skin and stretch marks. Some mothers suffer dramatic body transformations, while others are left with subtle changes from their pre-pregnancy form.
In either case, you can really be hit with low body confidence after pregnancy. Should you feel bad about your body after having a baby? Absolutely not! You should wear your stretch marks like war scars as they’re a sign of a massive achievement. You have quite literally created life and brought it into this world – the latter of which you did all by yourself. You should never feel bad about the way you look after pregnancy because it is completely normal to experience changes.
Unfortunately, I’m well aware that those nice words might mean very little to you. Yes, you appreciate the kindness and positivity, but it doesn’t change the way you feel. No matter how hard you try, you just don’t feel confident in your body anymore. It can weigh down on your mental health, but it doesn’t have to be this way. You can restore body confidence after giving birth, and here’s how:
Be Active
You’ll be amazed at how much our perceptions of things change depending on our behaviours. That sounds very cryptic, but what it means is that we often perceive our bodies in a certain way because of the things we do. There may be absolutely no change in how our bodies look, but the actions we take make us see it in a different light.
Typically, after giving birth, many mothers feel unfit. They feel like they aren’t doing anything, which makes them lack body confidence. By getting up and being active, you completely flip things around. There may be no physical changes in your body – at least, not instantly – yet you perceive it differently. Because you’re active and walking around more, you feel better about yourself. This works wonders for your confidence as you start looking at your body and realising that it’s not bad at all.
Give Your Boobs Some Love and Attention
When you give birth, your body will change a lot. One of the areas that perhaps comes out looking the most different is your chest. Your breasts will get larger as they start making milk to feed your baby. As a result, a lot of new mothers feel so self-conscious about how their boobs look. They feel like their breasts sag more than they used to, not to mention how chapped and dry their nipples can feel after constant feeding.
So, a great way to give yourself a self-esteem boost is by giving your boobs some love and attention. There are two easy ways to do this, the first of which is to address the chapped nipple situation. According to this article titled Newborn Checklist: 40 Baby Essentials To Stock Up On Now, every new mother needs to have some nipple cream handy. It is the best way to treat chapped and dry nipples, restoring them to their former glory and making you feel better about yourself.
Next, you can deal with other boob confidence issues by wearing a more supportive bra. It makes you feel a lot better, but it also provides your boobs with more support, stopping them from sagging. In more extreme cases, if you are still unhappy to the point where it is causing serious depression, you can also get breast enhancement surgery. It’s completely your choice and nobody will look down on you for doing something that makes you feel happy and confident once more.
Do Something Nice For Yourself
If pre-baby you would have gone to get your hair or nails done, make time to do this. There are options to do this at home if you would prefer, and all you’re going to need is some nail polish and some hair dye, as long as you have faith in your skills.
The point is that you should still be treating yourself like the person you were before you gave birth, because you are still them to some degree. You deserve to feel good in your own skin, and little things like this can really help with that.
Dress To Impress… Yourself!
It’s important to feel confident about yourself inside and out. No one actually needs to see what you wear, it’s just important to wear clothes that make you look beautiful. This can extend to under garments such as red underwear. Just wear things that make you feel beautiful, and this is going to be a great way to boost your confidence.
It’s far too common for women to give birth and feel really down about their appearance because they try wearing clothes they used to wear. This is more relevant in younger mums than others – say, you’ve given birth in your early twenties. You’re used to wearing tight outfits to go out clubbing with your friends, but you don’t like the way they look on you anymore.
Instead of trying to wear your old clothes, buy new ones! Dress in clothing that makes YOU feel comfortable and sexy. Stop living in the past and trying to dress like someone who isn’t pregnant. A simple change of wardrobes can work wonders on your self-esteem. You can still wear dresses, but you can find ones that you enjoy the look of on your current body. We can become so obsessive about trying to return to our pre-pregnancy bodies, but a simple idea like this can teach you that it isn’t always necessary. As long as you’re healthy, you can find ways to feel confident in the body you have now.
Don’t Pay Attention To The Celebrity Media
The final thing is to avoid paying too much attention to the celebrity media. I’d go as far as to suggest unfollowing influencers on Instagram as they are known for showing unrealistic expectations after childbirth. Celebs will have all sorts of surgery done – which is fine, but they lie about it. They make it seem like you should give birth and look exactly the same the moment after. For a new mother, you can understand how seeing things like this warps your perception of your own body.
The same goes for TV shows and films, whenever a character gives birth, they obviously look the exact same because they weren’t really pregnant. So, be aware of things like this when you’re binging your shows or movies; don’t let it trick you into thinking you should look identical to how you did before.
Ultimately, it’s normal to look different after giving birth. It would be weird if you didn’t, given everything you have put your body through. You also don’t need to ‘get back’ to where you once were. It’s okay to appreciate how you look now and not to covet a previous appearance. Hopefully, the advice in this post will help you overcome your self-confidence issues following pregnancy.
Read more posts in the Parenting Category