Get Over It: Your Post-Partum Snapback Doesn’t Matter

Yes. I said it. Your celebration of you losing every single solitary pound and inch of weight you gained to get back to pre-pregnancy weight does not matter.

You have finally graduated from the sleepless nights, the child tap dancing on your bladder every hour, and going from worrying how the child is going to get out to “whatever you gotta do, just get it out!” You have been blessed to bring forth life and after one glance you vow to protect that child from anything that tries to harm them. And after all of that, make sure you get your waist trainer and get straight to the gym. Gotta hurry up and get that baby weight off, pronto!

Girl, bye!

Snapback. Bounceback. Whatever you call it, is a false perception that has women thinking if they haven’t dropped back to their pre-pregnancy weight, there must be something wrong with them. Before you think I’m just being mean, let me clarify something: I lost my baby weight – fast! After about 2 or 3 months, I was back in my jeans. Matter of fact: I lost 20 of the 31 pounds I gained with my first pregnancy in a month. Yay. Awesome. Someone bring me my medal. :-/ But regardless of that, let me be blunt: none of that mattered! Seriously. None of it! Matter of fact: who cares?!?!?! Even after all of the exercise, I still had a bump & didn’t completely believe my intestines were back in the same spot. Yeah. Seriously.

Losing the major weight didn’t make me better than anyone else who couldn’t shed the weight nor was it my duty to brag about how many more pounds I had to go. My duty was to take care of my body after major surgery, take my placenta to balance my hormones, gush over my beautiful child, nurse, feed, nurse & feed again, and catch up on old reruns of A Different World. That was it!

“If ever there were a phrase that should be banned outright, “bouncing back” might well be it. The notion that women should immediately snap back to a pre-baby version of themselves is ubiquitous, which makes it challenging for even the most body-positive mamas to ignore.”
–12 Famous Moms Who Couldn’t Care Less If Their Bodies ‘Bounce Back’ | HuffPost

Now, I completely understand the stance of a new mother – you’re trying to figure out your flow and everything becomes about the baby and everyone else. You want something for yourself to feel “normal” again. We all feel that way. Where it gets cloudy and muddled is when our society praises celebrities for having a baby and being back to pre-pregnancy weight in 10 minutes! It’s insane, and usually it’s not reality!!! Social media and society strikes again creating a false narrative around the realities of life.

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What is important? It’s important that we shed light about the struggles of post-partum depression & how to treat it, understanding how to navigate having a new family, how to care for a child with colic who cries all day & refuses to sleep in the day OR at night. Let’s talk about the medical issues women face post-partum, how many women suffer from tons of hair loss, postpartum bleeding, praying you can wear your favorite blouse without leaking all over it, blowouts on a long car ride with a kid strapped in a car seat, and other health issues that had nothing to do with giving birth that shows up all of sudden. Better yet, when your CHILD has a health issue at birth. Let’s make sure mom & dad are prepared for that. Why does she have to NOW add the task of making sure she’s first and last on the treadmill to get back to pre-pregnancy weight?! Girl, we have enough time for that!

Quit making mothers feel like we have to snap perfectly back in place, with ab-wearing crop tops to show it off & let’s relish in the fact that we just gave birth to a miracle. Before you know it, we’ll be back in those jeans. If not, it gives us an excuse to buy a new pair. As long as we’re healthy (physically, mentally, & emotionally) & our babies are healthy & arrives on the scene safely, that’s what really matters.