First off, let me start of by saying saying thank you.
THANK YOU.
Sincerely. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I will forever be grateful for the wonderful responses I received from you on my last capsule post. Your comments were nothing but encouraging. At a time in which I let myself be completely vulnerable + opened up to share with you that this smooth sailing capsule journey has hit some turbulence, that I may potentially prove to be a capsule failure, dropout… *insert negative descriptor here* — you simply said…
“Lady, it’s okay!”
And to be perfectly honest? It is!
After some further reflection on my own thoughts + the thoughts you so graciously shared with me I realized something I should have realized a while ago. My capsule/wardrobe funk? Directly correlated to my body funk. And my body funk? Well I’m afraid to admit that it is simply the land of postpartum.
Prior to implementing a capsule wardrobe I was highly susceptible to emotional clothing purchases — I know many can relate. Practicing a capsule wardrobe (via Unfancy) gave me enough structure to curb those bad habits, reignite my creativity and solidify my sense of style. All contributing to a huge confidence boost. Then I gave birth to my second baby and was riding on all of those highs for about the last six months.
Of course, as I approached the 6 month mark I began to acknowledge that I hadn’t achieved my superficial weight/body goals and began to talk down to myself. Something I honestly haven’t done in a long time.
All of these emotions: feelings of inadequacy, failure, self-doubt resulted in me wanting to resort to old habits for a quick band-aid fix…
I keep saying/writing these words: Dressing a postpartum body isn’t easy.
But mamas, if we’re being really honest with ourselves — has it ever been easy to dress any body we’ve ever lived in? Have we ever been good enough for ourselves?
I’m not so sure. But I am sure that it has to stop.
So, six months into my postpartum season with my second baby, I’m starting a postpartum style series. I’m shooting to do one of these posts a week for as long as feel there is valuable information to be shared + conversation to be had. It may only be for the next six weeks, or it may be for the next six months — time will tell. :)
Just to be clear, I won’t be giving tips on how to best hide a waning baby bump, how to dress to look thinner or any of that crap — I’ve never bought into the dressing for your body type mumbo jumbo.
BUT I will be giving advice on: pieces I have found to be versatile for nursing + rapid body changes (growth + loss), lessons learned and truths that we seem to always forget. I hope you’ll stick around for it all and help guide the dialogue a long the way.
Here are my extremely abbreviated dos and don’ts of dressing a postpartum body:
DO
Love yourself and your body. It’s the only self + vessel you’ve got — and it’s freaking awesome.
Remember that you’ve always been hard on yourself, and had at least a tiny streak of perfectionism.
Place yourself around positive, motivating, supportive and loving people. Don’t have any? I’m your gal.
DON’T
Fixate on superficial goals. Trust your body. Give it time. Choose to not buy into the hype + world projected ideals.
Compare yourself to every other mother (and their body) out there. It truly will rob you of the joys you could otherwise experience.
Find yourself company to body shame-rs. As much as you can, stay away from this type of dialogue. Or even better, work to reverse it. We speak life with the things we say.
Have any suggestions to kick off our ‘dressing a postpartum body’ dialogue?
Hat: Forever 21 (old), similar
Top: Old Navy maternity (refashioned by me), similar
Bottoms: American Eagle
Shoes: Madewell (old), similar
Bag: c/o Lily Jade