Losing the baby weight while breastfeeding

You have just made a human being and carried the baby in your body for 9 months, so of course there will be side effects of weight gained and skin stretched. Would I swap having my old figure back for my child, not in a million years, but I still miss my old body.

We shouldn’t mourn our old bodies, we should just accept our bellies are rounder now and our thighs are chunkier and that that is the beauty of womanhood…easier said than done though!

After my first baby I did exercise a lot, I was due to go to a wedding 2.5 months after the baby was born and I was doing a reading on the altar during the ceremony. I knew I would be “on show”, so to speak, so I wanted to be in good shape. In fairness, I did lose the overall weight on my legs and arms but around the middle it was still there, but I was only 10 weeks post partum, which is no time at all.

Looking back, I was naive, I thought I would get back to the size 8 that I was before having the child, and snap back just like that, but, I didn’t take into account the nutritional journey your body needs to go on too.

I needed to build back up my iron and calcium stores, so I took supplements for this. I needed to accept that maybe I would stay a size 12 for a while and never be an 8 again, but the most important thing was to rebuild my body and stay healthy. I was breastfeeding, which some people say will help you to lose weight, for me though, I have colitis, an autoimmune disease, so the breastfeeding helped to curb the symptoms but I was constantly starving, so I didn’t shed weight like most during breastfeeding.

The logical side of me (as opposed to the vain side) was reassuring myself, “you are making valuable milk for your child, nothing is more important than this” and I was really conscious about what I ate to ensure the child got adequate nutrients and that my supply remained strong.

I also found any exercise that was too strenuous did impact my milk supply when breastfeeding, especially cardio exercise. So I just stuck to yoga and pilates and left out the cardio, even though I love to run.

Once I started weaning both my kids onto solids and onto formula instead of breastmilk, I was able to start running again. This helped me mentally in that the cardio endorphins gave me a rush and helped my moods and my sleep. Also it helped my weight and I started to feel and look a bit more like myself again.

Having this knowledge helped me with the second baby, on days when I would look in the mirror exhausted and pale and feel frumpy I had the experience of knowing that once I stopped breastfeeding I could exercise again and feel more like myself. But that this was not the time for that, this was the time to prioritise my newborn and focus on the nutritious breast milk I was producing and put my energy towards this and appreciate the work my body was doing.

I think for the 4th trimester you should expect not to look like yourself, as you are devoted to the child through breast or formula feeding, you’re getting little sleep and you are healing yourself.

For the first 6 weeks it is medically advised not to exercise, after that you will have to go easy with your body. For me, I felt my hips were really sore and with the relaxin hormone in my body everything felt a bit loser in my joints.

Also similarly to pregnancy the post partum recovery is different for everyone, I accepted this a lot more on my second child and didn’t get as down about feeling heavy in the 4th trimester and instead focused on cheerleading myself and other mums for breastfeeding efforts.

At the end of the day you are keeping a child alive with milk your body is producing, so naturally it is not the time for your body to be whipped into shape in the gym