Well, I’ve been feeling pretty guilty lately about not writing in over a month. I have no excuses. There have been so many things I’ve wanted to write about, but as I start forming brilliant ideas for relevant, funny and insightful posts (at least they are all of those things in my head!), I start to get overwhelmed thinking about the time it will take me to write, and then edit my always-too-long thoughts. Then I think about how I haven’t done anything cool with the layout of this blog, or even added photos…. and so I just do nothing.

But anyway, here I am. With the changing weather and the necessity to start digging into clothing for a new season, I want to revisit this topic I jotted down a long time ago and saved to write about later…

How To Dress Yourself After Having A Baby

Congratulations! You had a baby! You spent the last 9 months constantly adjusting your wardrobe to fit your growing belly, and boobs, and feet. You figured out what shoes you can wear every single day without having to bend down to put them on or tie any laces. You discovered 5 million different ways to wear maternity leggings. Now you’re done with all of that! You have a baby! You now can go back to wearing all of your cute and familiar pre-pregnancy clothes and not have to worry about anything except for cuddling with your sweet baby who sleeps 12 hours a night and never cries!

Wait, that’s not right.

It took me WEEKS to figure out how to dress myself every day, and then that learning curve started all over again when I went back to work 2 months later. Clothing just wasn’t something that played into my planning process during pregnancy. I knew that I wouldn’t fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes right away; believe me, I had no delusions that I’d shrink back to that size anytime soon. I knew I’d be breastfeeding so I’d need clothes that would work for that. I’d bought maybe two nursing tanks and one sports bra style nursing bra while I was pregnant. I just didn’t realize it would be such a hard thing to figure out.

It started in the hospital. I neglected to pack any nursing clothes in my labor & delivery bag, completely oblivious that I might want to be dressed before leaving the delivery room, yet would need to give my new little nugget access to the goods. So that was a little awkward, and I think I changed about 10 times in the hospital, and always ended up wearing the same 1 or 2 things, never really getting comfortable.

When I got home, I still couldn’t figure it out. I ended up just being topless, or only wearing a bra, most of the time. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to wear a bathrobe. But I knew that I needed nursing tops, ASAP. When my mom, Will and I packed ourselves and tiny little J into the car to go to the Breastfeeding Center, I was wearing a zipper hoody with just a bra underneath, and my maternity jeans. Once I had a few more nursing tanks, those three elements made up my every day wardrobe (when I left the house – otherwise, pajama pants).

I’m not gonna lie, I wore maternity pants for a couple of months after J was born. There was one pair of cute skinny jeans that I rocked pretty much all the time, and there were a few pairs of work pants that I needed when I first started back. When the weather warmed up, I was able to fit into my lovely elastic skirts that I wore pre-pregancy! So summer was relatively easy; but now, Winter Is Coming (see what I did there? #GOT).  I have a couple of pairs of (non-maternity!) jeans that fit me now, and I will wear leggings under my skirts for as long as I possibly can, but at some point I’m going to have to either suck it up and buy some pants that fit, or go ahead and drop this last 15 pounds in the next month (HA!).

Anyway, while I figure that out, here are a few tips that might help new moms when it comes to getting yourself dressed right after you have a baby:

• Invest in nursing tanks. Lots of them. Good ones are freakin’ expensive, but that’s OK when you realize that you’ll wear them every day and every night all year long for as long as you breastfeed. Shoot, put them on your baby registry. I wish I had.
• Reorganize your closet. I guarantee that you’ll already have plenty of tops that are nursing friendly – v-necks, cowl-necks, button-downs, zip ups, maternity tops. Put all of these together for quick and easy decision making in the early months. At some point, you’ll get more comfortable with nursing in any old top, as long as you have a nursing tank or bra underneath.
• Purge your closet. I mean, you probably need to do this anyway. There are some things that you will want to wear again once they fit, but there’s probably so much that you’ll never miss once it’s gone. And it will feel SO good.
• Buy a couple of new pairs of yoga pants. It doesn’t matter if you already have 5 pairs of identical black yoga pants. Buy two more. That’s one for every day of the week, and that’s how often you’ll wear them in the early days of baby life.
• Keep one or two pairs of maternity pants or leggings around. For the rare days when you want to “dress up” or look like you’re NOT wearing yoga pants. Comfort will be soooo important, and no one else will even know about that stretchy elastic panel hiding under your pretty, flowy top.
• If you need new clothes to make you comfortable, buy them, even if it’s just a couple of key pieces. I just read this article about not waiting to lose weight before buying new clothes. I haven’t, mostly because who can afford a new wardrobe when you’re buying so much crap for your baby? So my thoughts are, if it fits now AND will still fit (or can be tailored) later when I’m (hopefully) back down to my goal weight, then go for it.