[Michelle Murphy]

<p>I know it's a little early for this, but since there have been many confessions of maternity pants into the 4th trimester, I thought a little prep may be in order. <br>
I have no idea how I found this.  It may have been a link from here.  I've been online more of the morning <hangs head in shame> and can't make heads or tails of anything.<br>
I'm hoping we'll come back to this topic, though. <br>
For the record, my go-to non-maternity jeans are from Old Navy and I think my "big girl" jeans are Gap, so . . . I'll need an intervention.  That said, I usually have a shirt covering my butt because it gets cold and it helps my torso look longer.  Still not an excuse. <br>
Second disclosure: I have always just followed my own crazy version of fashionable so I gets a few hits and lots of comfort/laziness-driven misses.  Still, I'd like to know more about cracking the code on my two biggest nemesis: bras and jeans. <br>
Here's the all-important article: An Inconvenient Gap of Truth.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.graspingforobjectivity.com/2012/07/gap.html" target="_blank">http://www.graspingforobjectivity.com/2012/07/gap.html</a></p>

 

[synepona]

<p>My fave jeans are !iT and Lucky and Guess. I do have Old Navy jeans in 'postpartum' size -- which is about 3 sizes too big for my normal size, but when my hips are in the wrong spot for a while and I don't want maternity clothes anymore, sometimes the cheap accessible jeans are the right ones <br><br>
I don't own yoga pants, except for sleeping in or actually doing yoga (which I never do, so I sleep in them). I can see how they'd be ideal postpartum clothing, but I just can't wear sport-specific garment as every day wear on a routine basis. Maybe the first week postpartum. But only if I wasn't leaving the house. Summer is a good time to be stuck in wardrobe limbo -- you can wear skirts or capri leggings w/ tunics. And there's the other end of postpartum wardrobing -- nursing accessible tops. I am a 'pull the top down' sort of nurser, not a 'lift my hem to my collar bone' type ... considering which you may become is useful and having a few nursing-friendly tops suitable for going out can make you feel much more put together in those early days.<br><br>
Do not go shopping for jeans until at least a month after you think you're back to 'normal'. It's too depressing. Plus, your new normal might not stick around a whole month, and there's no need to buy jeans for it unless you can find thrift store pricing. I think I've said it here already, maybe in the weight gain thread, but it takes 9mth almost to the day for me to fit back in my regular jeans. About 4 size changes on the way down, and as a daily jean wearer, that's a lot of jeans to keep on hand for relatively short months of use. I usually have 2-3 pair in each size along the way, and am not shy to take 'hand me downs' from friends who are losing or gaining weight, to keep some variety in my collection.<br><br>
There is a blog somewhere about shopping for jeans and avoiding the mom jeans. It's pretty amusing, but helpful if you're not accustomed to shopping for jeans with 'mom-jean-avoidance' as the goal. (here ... it's from the same blog as your link ... <a href="http://www.graspingforobjectivity.com/2009/03/mom-jeans-and-dreaded-long-butt.html" target="_blank">http://www.graspingforobjectivity.com/2009/03/mom-jeans-and-dreaded-long-butt.html</a>)</p>

 

[ecnarwold]

<p>After my first pregnancy, it took me a while to lose the weight so I ended up getting some jeans a size bigger than usual at thrift stores. I wouldn't have wanted to wear maternity stuff that long. Since it will be summer this time, I'll probably wear a lot of elastic waist skirts and t-shirts or tanks i can easily pull up for nursing. I also like nursing tanks under my shirt to hide my belly while nursing.</p>

 

[primalmom]

<p>I honestly fail to see what's wrong with wearing maternity pants after you've given birth... well, I mean, to a point... they should still FIT you, when they're not staying up, it's time to go buy something that fits, which may be completely different than what fit you before pregnancy or after your last pregnancy... some peoples' bodies change a lot, some people can leave the hospital in their pre-pregnancy pants.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I've always had a hard time finding pants, so "are they mom jeans" (or really anything besides "do they fit? do they cover my butt crack? do they look halfway decent?) is SO far from my mind - though I can't say I'd ever look at jeans with an elastic waist </p>
<p>I have really short legs with big butt and thighs, so beyond a need to hem almost anything, often what fits my thighs doesn't fit my waist (hourglass figure), and I need the "high waist" style to avoid whale tail and/or plumbers crack - but I know from experience that if my friend with no butt wears the same pair of jeans, they look like mom jeans on her.</p>

 

[synepona]

<div class="quote-container" data-huddler-embed="/community/t/1395483/post-partum-fashion#post_17543238" data-huddler-embed-placeholder="false"><span>Quote:</span>
<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by <strong>PrimalMom</strong> <a href="/community/t/1395483/post-partum-fashion#post_17543238"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif"></a><br><br>
I honestly fail to see what's wrong with wearing maternity pants after you've given birth... well, I mean, to a point... they should still FIT you, when they're not staying up, it's time to go buy something that fits, which may be completely different than what fit you before pregnancy or after your last pregnancy... some peoples' bodies change a lot, some people can leave the hospital in their pre-pregnancy pants.<br></div>
</div>
The principle of wearing what fit at 5mth pregnant home from the hospital has worked pretty well for me & most of my friends -- I left the hospital when DD was 3 hours old, and DS was 28 hours old. In the next few weeks, I'll stash something out of the clean laundry into my box of 'newborn/hospital bag stuff' that is sitting in the closet.<br>
About a week after birth, I'm completely sick of my maternity clothes (honestly, I was probably completely tired of them at 8mth pregnant but refused to buy anything new to reduce the monotony at the end), so I will find a way to wear something that has a real waist band and a functional zipper <img alt="smile.gif" class="bbcode_smiley" src="http://files.mothering.com/images/smilies/smile.gif">

 

[amyrobynne]

<p>I agree with SynEpona that summer is the most forgiving time to be post-partum, clothes-wise.  I live in jeans during the cooler months and after my March babies, I had nasty tearing and didn't feel comfortable in jeans for at LEAST a month, no matter what size. With my July baby, I'd made 3 or 4 skirts with yoga waistbands and fun fabrics so that a couple got tight by the end of the pregnancy and the others fit perfectly in the 3rd trimester. I wore a looser one to the hospital and a tighter one home and never had to wear stretchy pants that made me feel frumpy. It was awesome. By September, I was wearing jeans in some reasonable size. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>As for weight loss, it took me 9 mo with my first (gained 35+ lbs), 3 mo with my 2nd (gained 30 lbs), and with my third, I was down to 5 lbs over my pre-preg weight by 3 mo postpartum (gained 25-30 lbs) and I started gaining again. When he was 16 mo old I joined the Y and got down beneath my wedding weight within 4 months, losing 25 lbs. So I've been all over the place. But 2 mo postpartum, no matter what I weigh, nothing fits right.</p>

 

[ladyelms]

<p>I must be weird because I absolutely cannot wear jeans if I feel fat. I can maybe do low rise stretchy cords, but that's as far as I'm willing to go w/ having something buttoned around a pudgy waist. I stick w/ yoga pants, leggings and long bohemian skirts until the pudge is gone--they feel/look so much more forgiving. and ftr, I don't sport a sporty look at all. I find yoga pants and leggings super easy to dress up w/ cute boots or sandals.</p>