[Ronja]

Oh dear, just how much I feel for you!
Babies are wonderful, miraculous creatures and becoming a mother is sure one of the major life events. You need time to adjust. Your body needs time to adjust. Your mind needs time to adjust. But just where, oh where do we get time to adjust with a little baby (or babies!) in our hands? They're not waiting until we're ready. They're not waiting until we recover from pregnancy or labour. They want their milk ready, and their diapers changed, and their share of cuddles, and their share of baths, and walks with pram and all sorts of things.

NO WONDER we find comfort in chocolate, sugar and junk food. Honestly anyone who hasn't held a constantly-crying baby in their hands for hours at the time, who didn't have to get up every frikking hour or so to feed the hungry monster (did I say monster? I meant the lovely cutie pie bunch of joy), they just won't understand the level of tiredness, and frustration that comes with becoming a mother.

Don't get me wrong. I love my babies. All four of them. But dear me, they're NOT easy!

I gained weight while breastfeeding my first set of twins. A lot, actually. They say your body needs lot of calories to make milk, not to mention milk for two. Well I sure was able to eat all those calories back, and some more on the top of them!

I noticed I was gaining weight with my second set as well. Thankfuly, I was able to STOP - actually, I lost nearly 10 pounds now. What did I do? Nothing difficult, nothing radical, because I had no mental energy or real life time to spare on diet. I just stopped the biggest dietary mistakes, such as tons of chocolate, eating late at night, pushing sugar into my body before even properly waking up...and it worked. I took it one day at a time, one thing at the time, I had some set backs, but I carried on. And I'm proud. There's still a VERY long journey to go before I reach my goal wight, but I'm not giving up, if it takes years, then it takes years, but it's not over until I said so!

And you will be able to get back to healthy eating too. Just give it a while. I didn't get back to any sort of actualy monitoring what I ate until my second set of twins was 6 months old. You might be able to do it sooner, but I wasn't. Just take it easy, take it slow, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy your little one, they grow up way too fast.

[banananutmuffin]

Patience.

And self-love.

That's where you should focus right now.

Love for the baby comes naturally. But sometimes finding love and forgiveness for ourselves is a lot harder.

I've got 3 kids (ages 6, 4, & 20-months). I could give you plenty of "weight loss" tips for new moms. I've tried them all. Some work. Some don't. And, of course, which ones work depends entirely on you and your unique situation.

But the best advice I can give you is this: You have lots of time to get the weight off. But these early days with a baby are short. Enjoy this time. It passes so quickly. Be patient and forgiving with yourself. It doesn't hurt to keep your weight loss and health goals in the back of your mind when you're reaching for a snack, but be forgiving with yourself!

Moms feels a lot of pressure in a lot of different arenas. You'll get pressure from all kinds of people to be all kinds of things. Right now, during this wonderful sweet time in your baby's life, try and relax the pressure on yourself to be thin.

Strive to be healthy, but don't focus too much on the number on the scale.

[mottainai]

Thank you for that response. I do in my heart believe that's the way to go. It's only been three months, but already I find myself nostalgic for two months, and one month, at times, so I realize the truth of people saying how short these early months and years are!

I hope I can focus on my health in the ways that will allow me to BETTER enjoy this time, such as not overeating so that I feel ill and sluggish and not choosing to spend time eating junk food and zoning out over playing with the baby, but not get so hung up on my body that I forget to just be happy regardless!