There’s such pressure for women to have the perfect body, no matter what stage of life you’re in. When you’ve recently had a baby, it can be incredibly hard to feel like you’re not meeting society’s expectations. Messages about what your postpartum body is supposed to look like are everywhere, from images of celebrities “bouncing back” after baby, the boot camp testimonials with before-and-after photos, to Facebook friends selling magical diet products touting “safe for breastfeeding.”

Even though you’re undergoing a major life transition and are attempting to care for this tiny human you’ve created, the expectation seems so clear, yet totally unrealistic.

When we glance at US Weekly and Star Magazine in the grocery checkout line and see these shiny, happy images, we immediately start to compare ourselves and subsequently start to feel bad about ourselves and our postpartum bodies. These images have a way of getting to the core of how we see ourselves as new moms. If society wants us to be fit, skinny, and smiley, while toting our babies looking fabulous, shouldn’t we want those things too? If what we see in the mirror doesn’t match this image, we might start to feel like a total failure.

Left unchecked, these feelings of body shame can lead you down a rabbit hole of judging yourself during what’s already, one of the most vulnerable times in your life. You’re already struggling to adjust and it doesn’t take much to make you feel like you aren’t good enough. Not only is this listening to this judgy voice terrible for your self-esteem, it can also make you feel incredibly unworthy, even depressed.

Maybe this sounds familiar? A few months postpartum, tired of those well-loved yoga pants, you decide to reach for your fave pre-baby jeans – the dark wash skinny ones that always looked effortless and made you feel confident. You pull them up, only to discover that they aren’t budging over your thighs. Hopelessly grateful that your trusty maxi dress will work for the Southern California winter, you crumple the jeans up and toss them into the corner of your closet. You silently (or not so silently) curse your postpartum body – the newfound mombod.

Let’s be honest: really this closet experiment just ends up making you feel even worse about yourself. So you dig a little deeper to find some pants that fit, but it just isn’t happening today. You decide you just simply have nothing to wear. Eventually, maybe you even avoid situations that involve you needing to actually get dressed, get out of the house, and get some much needed time around friends.These uncomfortable feelings can leave you prone to isolation.

Ask any new mom who’s been there and they will verify that this stage is a tough one, filled with endless self-doubt, even minus all the noise telling you what you need to look like to feel like the “perfect mom.” It’s so hard to be in this place of wanting to feel confident, wanting to regain some sort of control in your newly out-of-control existence, only to feel like a frumpy version of your once-fabulous self.   You want so badly to feel at ease, but the insecurities just keep mounting.

There’s no escaping that coping with negative feelings about your postpartum body is an unfortunate, yet likely universal part of the experience of new motherhood.  However, just because you are feeling this way about your postpartum body doesn’t mean that you will be stuck feeling like this forever. You can learn to quiet that negative self-talk that makes you feel like crap about yourself and strengthen a positive self-image.

With the right skills and perspective, you can begin to accept and even embrace the amazing woman that you’ve become.

So what happens if we don’t work to feel better about our postpartum bodies? 

Your feelings of negativity about your body might be masking feelings of even greater insecurity about being a new mom. The funny thing is, how we feel about our postpartum bodies is often really just taking the attention away from those hard-to-feel feelings that are in the pit of our stomachs. Continuing to stew negatively about our bodies affects our relationships with our friends and family, and undoubtedly affects our relationships with spouses and partners.

Many women have a history of negative body image or disordered eating that started well before pregnancy and new momhood. If that includes you, it’s so important to take a look at these feelings now, before more serious habits develop. Studies have also confirmed what seems intuitive; that negative postpartum body image can be a contributing factor in the development of postpartum depression.

Even though this postpartum body shame seems benign, as our kids get older, they are watching and absorbing everything. Here’s the kicker: continuing to live with a negative perception of our bodies eventually seeps into the way our kids will feel about themselves. Do you really want your kids to form negative feelings about their own bodies? If you’re like most moms, you want your kids to feel proud of their bodies and positively about themselves.

You can learn to respect and accept your postpartum body

Though you’re struggling with some postpartum body shame and it seems overwhelming, you can absolutely work towards a more positive view of yourself. With the skills to shift your negative thoughts, you’ll experience improved self-confidence. This will allow you to be a more present mom, and a mom who emits the kind of self-love that your children will come to embody.

Moreover, when you choose to focus on quieting the voices telling you that you’re body is somehow lacking, you fight that inner feeling that you will never be “good enough.” Body acceptance is just a little piece of this greater self-acceptance that we are really all seeking.

Right now, you have the amazing opportunity to get to know what’s behind what might be a lifelong struggle with body acceptance and self-love, and you can take steps to change that. You can decide what’s really important to you and the family that you’re growing. It’s about so much more than your sense of self: this is your time to establish and live by your own, unique values.

3 Tips for Achieving Postpartum Body Positivity

Even though your negative feelings about your postpartum body have left you insecure, anxious, and even depressed, there are steps you can take to turn this around. The reality is, if you are going to tackle postpartum body shame, you’ll need to be prepared to do some little things in your everyday life to challenge those inner thoughts, establish and protect your new found sense of acceptance. Here are some simple tips for taming your postpartum body shame, and building lasting, positive body image:

You’re Stuck in the Cycle of Compare and Despair

In my therapy practice, one of the things I’m constantly hearing about is how much time people spend looking at others like celebrities, especially on social media, and feeling like they don’t measure up. One of the reasons you’re probably struggling with this is because you feel like you’re supposed to look a certain way after you’ve just had a baby. Maybe you’re even embarrassed because that message is not so subtly telling you that you should have lost all that baby weight in about four weeks?

1. Quit the comparisons

One of the best ways to combat this is to shield yourself from exposure to the damaging messages you’re exposed to on social media.

If you find yourself scrolling through your Facebook feed and feeling like shit, stop scrolling!

Try to limit the amount of time you are spending on apps like Facebook and Instagram every day to 30-min or less. You can do this by installing an app like Antisocial on your phone, which will help you out by quantifying the amount of time you spend online. If that’s not enough, you can even delete social media apps from your phone until you feel like you are in a better place.

It’s true, though, that avoiding social media altogether can be really tough (and also isolating) for a new mom and I totally get that. It’s completely possible to build a positive relationship with your body and social media. Clean out your feed by un-following any pages or influencers that are sharing body shaming messages. The bopo (body positive) movement on social media is growing stronger every day. Find and follow some pages like bodyposipanda, themilitantbaker, curvesbecomeher, and so many more that will help lift you up.

In therapy, I’m always working with clients to help them to figure out what is truly just external noise, and what beliefs about yourself and your body are more deeply rooted within. Limiting all that external stuff can help make this clearer. If you are still left with feelings of unworthiness after your social media detox, you’ll have much more insight into areas that you can take a look at further.

You’re Feeling Far from Fabulous

For clients I’m working with, it can often be a super discouraging and emotional experience to try to dress their postpartum bodies. Getting dressed for the day can feel awkward, even foreign. Not being able to easily find comfy staples in which you can feel good can really be a struggle, especially when you’re learning to care for an infant and don’t have a ton of time to spend on yourself in the first place. The truth is that everyone’s journey with size and weight after pregnancy looks totally different. The good news is that you can work to have compassion for and accept where you are.  

2. Respect the skin you’re in

Sure, it would be great if all your pre-baby clothing fit you just weeks after giving birth, but not only is that idea unfair, it’s just not realistic. However, being able to pull pieces of clothing out of your closet that fit and make you feel confident is important, and that’s OK!

Closet Update

With clients, I’ll often help them make a plan to set aside time to comb through their closets and pull out the items that don’t fit. It’s OK if you don’t feel ready to give up or give away these pieces of clothing. It can feel cathartic just to place them in a box and put them away or in another room. If seeing those jeans, dresses, and tops, in your closet that don’t fit you is causing you stress, you deserve to get them out of sight.

The last part of this project involves shopping. I talk to clients about enlisting the help of a trusted shopping partner and who is best suited for that. Whether it’s your mom or a friend, this needs to be someone who can be a positive, uplifting companion in helping you chose some new clothing. When you’re at the store, take a lot of different things into the fitting room and try them on. Mute the voice in your head talking to you about sizes or making negative comments about how you look. Try your best to find a few staple items to get you through the week, and maybe something special to wear for date night. Tell yourself as many times as needed that you deserve this self-care and, if you don’t already, soon you’ll believe it.

A Letter to my Body

In another one of my favorite activities with clients, I task them with writing a letter of appreciation to their bodies. Try sitting down and, (here’s the hard part) without judgment, make a list of all of the things your body does for you that you are grateful for: everything from a housing a womb that has grown an actual human, to strong thighs that allow you to bend down to pick up your baby.

I’m not going to lie: this is a task that can evoke a lot of strong emotions. Create space for yourself to feel what you are feeling and the self-care to step away if it gets too tough. In the end, you’ll uncover a new way of looking at yourself and, hopefully, accepting yourself.

Stuck in Diet Culture Madness

Its really no wonder that you feel bad about your body, because like it or not, our life experiences have conditioned us to feel this way. Cultural standards have dictated what specific body types are the desirable ones and there’s not a lot of room for deviation here. When you’ve had a baby, there are lots of people lining up to help you (and ready to sell you) ways to fix your flaws and “bounce back.” What if you are fine just the way you are? What if this whole idea of “bouncing back” is really bullshit?

3. Dare to be different

The last tip is my favorite, but it’s really the one that ties this all together and creates the space for lasting change. I challenge my clients to question the cultural ideal of thinness.I work with my clients regularly to ask the tough questions, and the postpartum period is such a ripe opportunity for this.

What if there is more to health, to LIFE than losing weight and maintaining a thin body?

The honest, hard to swallow truth is that the 60+ billion dollar weight loss industry is not making money off of women feeling good about their bodies. Research has shown that 95% of weight loss attempts fail longterm and that pattern of dieting is not making people healthier, but rather sicker.

There are so many resources out there to introduce you to this way of thinking. To get started, you can learn about the Health at Every Size (HAES) movement, which advocates (with hard research to back it up), that our long-entrenched diet and weight-based approach to looking at health is totally flawed. An awesome complement to this is Intuitive Eating, an amazing book and a program that can help you ditch dieting forever, get back in touch with the innate cues your body is sending you, and give it what it needs. These are just some of the steps to start, but there are many more.

When my clients start to consider these other approaches to eating and health, which are certainly not the norm, it can be tough. There can be a lot to process around issues such as what it means to actually give up the dieting mentality and examine internalized weight stigma. It’s pretty difficult, even lonely, to challenge the norm. However, it’s also an opportunity to empower yourself to take hold of your physical and mental health, to learn from the information that’s out there, and to make your own decisions about how you want to live your life.

Challenging postpartum body shame and loving the body you’ve got is not an overnight fix. It’s a process of looking at where you’re at, understanding the internal and external forces that have led you to your current relationship with your body, and figuring out how to be at peace and move forward. As an eating disorder and body image therapist for nearly decade, I work with clients at my office in Agoura Hills and also online in California and New York.  Starting therapy will help you to begin this understanding and acquire the skills to beat body shame. Give me a call now or click on the button below to schedule your free 15-minute consultation and find out how I can help.