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Maggie Mason is a hot mama, originally uploaded by superhero.
So. Remember sixteen months ago when I was super, duper pregnant? Barely, right? It seems like a looong time ago. Especially when Hank strolls into the room and says something like, “Mummy, I have a few questions about the mortgage crisis.”
Well ladies, this is how long it took me to take off all the baby weight. Sixteen months. I did not wear my jeans out of the hospital, I did not lose the “fat face” the minute I gave birth, I was not able to eat whatever I wanted just because I was breast feeding, and I could not climb back on a tread mill right after Hank was born. I needed quite a while to heal.
Are you listening? Sixteen months. For me, that’s how long it took. Sixteen months and quite a bit of help from Weight Watchers online. It’s not true for everybody, but it is true for lots of folks. So put down the issue of People magazine, and turn away from all the moms on E! who got their bodies back a month later. If you’re feeling bummed about your gut, get yourself some flattering dresses, and give yourself a little time.
Good job making that baby, girl.
Mighty Girl 
Great post. Let’s hear it for reality! (Love the photo.)
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Can I tell you how amazing your post just made me feel? AH-MAY-ZING. I have a nine-month old and I was just crying this morning because my spring pants don’t fit yet.
Yes, I was crying over capris.
Anyway, Thanks.
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You are so great! Today I am super frustrated about my post third baby body. My oldest turned 6 yrs old last week, I have a 3 yr. old and my youngest will be 9 months on the 1st of June. What a reality check! This just proves the awesomeness of the internet! Thanks for making my day. LOVE THE PICTURE!
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Sigh. Have not lost all the baby weight at 16 months. Was not as on the ball as you were, did not do Weight Watchers.
Very proud of you, and inspired to attack that last five pounds. So I can start on the 10 that somehow crept onto me in the months just before I conceived.
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YOU ARE MIGHTY.
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Hey, is that photo on the roof of the Chron?
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Bravo! and AMEN!
Sixteen months, I would say, is a shorter time span than most mommies. It took me far longer.
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I’m making out with you in my brain.
I’ve not been blessed with a full term baby (yet), but have myriad strong, beautiful women around me who need to hear these words.
Absolutely – let’s hear it for reality.
Speaking of which – any great suggestions for on-line (or widely available off-line) retailers with figure flattering wrap dresses, etc? I love your taste and am in a bit of a rut.
Mighty Spring Shop, perhaps?
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Thank you, thank you!! 🙂
My son is four months old and I already feel like a failure for having not lost any weight yet…
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FAB post, Maggie!!!!!! it took me almost 2 years to loose the weight I put on, but I did it. Of course, I’ve got some lines and rolls that won’t go away now, but I also have the most rocking baby girl on Earth. I beat myself up a lot the first year after her birth because of how I looked and how magazines showed other new moms looking – but then I stopped feelign sorry for myself, spent a little money on some clothes that made me feel liek ME again, and before I knew it I was feeling so much better about myself and eventually lost the last of the pregnancy weight. Listen to Maggie, Ladies – get yourself a few things that make you feel awesome and look even better – you won’t regret it.
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I also have a 4 month son, and am at a point where I have to go out and buy some larger jeans because I didn’t loose the weight like I had hoped I would. I do fit in all my old clothes, but barely, and am constantly pulling at my shirts to try and hide the belly. I also feel bad that I would rather sleep in until 7 instead of working out in the mornings. Thank you for your post! It’s giving me patience and the knowledge that one day I can have my body back =)
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Oh no, say it isn’t so. You mean, I can’t look like Angelina 2 weeks post-partum (uh, what with her twins currently, I could probably look just like her, two weeks post my partum)?
No, really. This whole weight-gain thing is freaking me out, and the thought of losing it after my easter bunny gets here? Very scary.
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Lady, I love you. I’ve been very, very down on myself lately on this very subject. Thank you.
(ps – that’s a fabulous pregnancy picture.)
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aaahh. It is SO awesome to know that someone is putting this kind of thing out there–someone who may not be a “celebrity mom” in the press, but who at least has lots of exposure and lots of people reading. Because I have a two-year-old, and for me it took 18 months. I had doctors tell me over and over that it can take women UP TO 2 years for their hormones to go back to how they were before pregnancy, which means it can take your body that long to be like it used to be (ish). Which felt extremely depressing, until I hit that 18 month point and suddenly my proportions were back to what they used to be. So nice to know this for next time, so that I won’t spend 18 months beating myself up. I’ll work hard, again, but I’ll have a little more peace of mind that it WILL come back.
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this post qualifies you for sainthood. kelly rippa crushed my self esteem in one of her manicured and impossibly skinny hands, and you have helped put another piece back into my elmer glued second attempt at self worth.
(i’m on month 11 and just getting back to my “fat” jeans from my pre-pregnancy days.)
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Thank you. I needed to read that. So many women need to read that. I love my baby and I wouldn’t trade what she did to my body for anything. However, it gets really difficult to not beat myself up when I need to buy a new pair of pants and I have to search for a new style to disguise some of my new features.
Once again, thank you.
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Seriously, THIS IS THE REASON THAT I READ BLOGS. Thank you so much for your honesty about this issue and most of all, for your ability to be human. I really appreciate that. It also makes me feel like I may someday be able to have children. Maybe.
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Bless you, Maggie. I’m 8 months pregnant right now, and while I’ve got all these terrific pants with bands that fall below my belly, my butt is sad, flat and shapeless, and I can’t keep any of the “really, you’re not a sausage” pants up. With one more month to go, I’m just going to punt. That and covet your fine derriere.
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That is why you have a huge fanbase:) You are awesome. Really!
Now teach me how to get my kids to put the bleeping toys up when they are done..
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I’m 34 weeks pregnant today and I can’t tell you how good that made me feel. I have the inverse problem as jenn – every calorie seems to be trying to offset my new balance problems by loading onto the back and knowing that my body will actually respond if I am not too lazy – even if it does take 16 months is a relief.
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I’m new around these here parts – Hi!
This is perfect. I have had three babies, and magazines make me furious. Everyone is different, and not everyone can pay people to make them skinny 🙂
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THANK YOU! I’m SO tired of hearing from all the breastfeeding mothers who “the weight just falls off of.” I breastfed and had no such experience, with either child. It’s like my body held on to every fat cell that it could. Even since being done breastfeeding, it is a slow (glacial??) process.
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Every woman who has had or is ever planning on having children needs to read this post … often.
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Amen! I’m so sick to death of twig-looking actresses being applauded for taking off baby weight. As if all of us have personal chefs, loads of time and an army of personal trainers. Besides, what’s wrong with looking like you just had a baby when you just had a baby?
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Amen to that! I gained 125 pounds with my daughter and it took me 13 months to lose it. I was so naive that I actually brought my size 4 jeans with me to hospital to change into after the birth.
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sixteen months! awesome. but… girl, that’s like no time at all. it took me SIX YEARS! and working for a cleaning agency where if i actually wanted to make money, i, LITERALLY, worked my ass off. no time for food, no money to stop and get anything, no energy left at the end of the day to make more than i would need to get me to the next day. you look fabulous though darling.
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It’s good for their husbands to hear it as well.
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Thanks, I needed that.
I have a just turned 3 month old and spent the afternoon at my neighborhood pool. (I was fully clothed, thank-you-very-much!) Sadly, my 3 month old is already wearing 6-9 month clothes, and everyone assumes he’s older. So… everyone assumes my spare baby flab is 3+ months older than it is too. Sigh…
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Oh crap. Zeghsy has me beat. I was all excited to comment about how it took me 4 years to get the weight off with my first child only to get pregnant 2 months later. Three children later and I bet my stomach has all of them beat. It’s disgusting. Not just stretch marks either. Stretch marks going both ways and lots of extra flappy skin. Ahhh…battle wounds of motherhood.
Moxie
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My baby will be two in less than month, and I just lost the last of my baby weight. However, I finally lost it because I’m pregnant again and have the worst morning sickness, and can hardly keep anything down. So, a bit bittersweet, that. Hopefully I can enjoy a couple months of wearing my pre-baby clothes before I have to bust out my maternity stuff.
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Maggie, I love you forever for this post. I am still in the process of losing the weight.
My mother in law wore her pre-pregnancy jeans out of the hospital and she never lets me forget it. Of course she is 13 inches taller than me, and had a baby that weighed two pounds less than mine, and only gained 15 pounds during pregnancy. Not that I am reminded of that at every opportunity.
Rock on!
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Great post! And for the record, it took me less time because I turned out to be the amazing milk machine, but as soon as I quit nursing…it all came back in the form of an enormous muffin top. And this time, it’s going to take real effort in the form of self restraint and exercise before I can claim to have any kind of victory over the pregnancy poundage.
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Your preggo photo makes me want to take some fabulous photos of my lovely fertile (albeit stretchmarked) belly and not worry about the fact that I’m 36 weeks pregnant and feel slightly larger than a beached whale. For me, the worst moment was realizing that, yes, I do in fact weigh more than my husband. And he’s a good five inches taller than me. Oh, and male. Right. It’s a good thing he’s both smart and loving, and keeps calling me “tiny,” or I might start slipping him real sugar and non-diet soda.
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This post sums up most of why I like you.
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Kudos for keeping it real!
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Thanks for the reality check. Nice to see that people that don’t have access to a personal trainer and an a dietician have much more realistic results. I have a 6 month old and now can fit back into my normal clothes but only due to a horrendous 3 day bout of gastroenteritis that ended me in emergency in the middle of the night because I was so dehydrated I couldn’t breastfeed! Congratulations on sticking at it and doing it the healthy way.
P.S. Wash your hands EVERYTIME you get back to the car after being out in public. I got my case from the local supermarket checkout girl.
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I am glad a lot of people read your website. Everyone needs to hear this, as most of us don’t have the resources that all those women in the tabloids have, and if we did, we’d look like that too.
Congratulations on losing the weight! And on getting your pre pregnancy wardrobe back! And on getting to buy a new wardrobe! You are an inspiration. It took me, well, I never lost all the weight from my first son, but I’m taking it a little more seriously the second time around. Only two pounds to go!
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Reality rocks! You rock!
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Thank you for that. Just what I needed. I honestly didn’t bother after kiddo #1 because I knew we’d be having another. After kiddo #2 I worked my ASS off to lose the weight…and got preggo again. Needless to say that 14 months after kiddo #3, I still haven’t got down to my pre-pre-pre preggo weight, which in all honesty baffles me as I chase these kids around all day long!
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Thanks. After only two and a half months since the birth of baby Gus, I’m struggling to figure out where my body went and how to get it back. It’s nice to hear that not everyone fits into those jeans right away.
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I so needed this today! Thank you so much.
And congratulations to you for losing the weight.
Now go have a piece of cheesecake for me.
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Damn straight! Now put on your favorite jeans and go have an espresso and a pastry.
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I thought for certain you were going to tell us you were pregnant again. Good for you for sticking it out and losing it. So many women don’t and gain with the next one and again. Congratulations girl!
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NIcely friggin said.
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It’s so sweet of you to post this because I’m sure there are a lot of ladies out there feeling bad because they can’t lose the baby weight in one month like those idiotic celebrities can.
I’m pregnant with my 2nd baby right now and I know that having two babies back-to-back means it’ll be all that much harder to lose weight and get back in shape. And that’s OK.
And congrats to you on working hard and losing weight the healthy way.
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Amen to that sister! I am 15 months in and just now taking off the last little bit of weight, and it’s coming off only because of serious exercise and watching what I eat. Thank you so much for speaking for all of us women, a majority I think, who were not able to magically lose the weight immediately upon giving birth.
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Get out of my head!!!
Just had my 2nd baby 6 months ago. Aside from the day the kid came into this world, I have lost 1 (one) pound since. I am trying not to give up and this was just the thing I needed to hear right now.
FYI, your body does not take into consideration that you still have 10 lbs left from the first baby. Your body will go right ahead and plop another 10 right on top.
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16 months is not a long time.If only we could all have personal trainers,home gyms,personal chefs,and our own lap pool, then we could loose our baby fat like movie stars.
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Thank you for that dose of reality! I am so sick of hearing “nine months up, nine months down” I am about to scream. Plus my little guy is eight months today and I’m still many pounds (and a few shape-shifts) away from anything remotely resembling my pre-pregnancy body.
You have *always* looked lovely, by the way.
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Hell yes. 13 months postpartum with 5 pounds to go, although I know my body will never look the same. No worries, I wasn’t that sold on the original model.
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