How My Daughter Helped Me Love My Post Baby Body

Before having children I was always slender, with a perky body and confident in my own skin. I hadn’t really given much thought to what my body would look like after birth.

I presumed I would just "ping back." My breasts would return to something near their former glory after breastfeeding and that afterwards I would just look like me again.

Fast forward six years and three babies later, the reality was a different story. I would stand in front of the mirror and look in disbelief at the body in front of me.

I would grab a little pouch of mum-tum that never seemed to go away and sigh at the criss-cross lines that covered my tummy like the lines on a map.

You never see naked post partum bodies really. It’s not as if your group of mum friends whisk up their tops and show you their C-section scars, stretch marks, and loose tummies.

The only post baby bodies I’d seen were those of celebrities with firm, flat tummies, posing in their size 6 jeans again only 12 weeks after birth.

I think that’s one reason why my post baby body came as such a shock.

I actually did go back to my pre-baby weight after a few months. It was just that my whole body seemed to have kind of slipped and rearranged itself. The scales told one story; the mirror another.

My boobs had dropped down and never returned to their former perkiness.

My tummy was flat but with a little pouch of skin left behind that wouldn’t shift. The skin at the bottom was lined and crepey like an old woman’s neck. And to highlight it all, dark lines crossed from my sides to my belly button in crazy patterns.

No amount of creams or exercise would shift the lines and loose skin. I used to grab it in my hands and grimace. This was my body. But it didn’t look like me.

One day, my three year old daughter pulled up my pyjama top and peered at the dark stretch marks on my tummy.

With her straight talking innocence and childish inquisitiveness she asked me,

"Why is your tummy covered in funny lines, Mummy?"

Looking at myself in a new light

Having three girls, one thing I always wanted to teach them is to feel confident about their bodies, no matter what shape or size they are. And I knew that one of the most important ways I could share this would be by never negating my own body—however despondent I felt.

So when my little girl asked me about the stretch marks running across my tummy, I told her that they were magical marks left by every one of my babies.

I explained that both she and her two sisters had left these special marks on my tummy to remind me of how they had grown and developed inside me.

They were like little footprints or little kisses so that whenever I looked down and saw them, I would never forget how they grew in my tummy before they were born. And I would smile because they are now here with me to make my world so sweet.

She traced her little fingers down the lines and tried to guess which ones she had left behind. And as her little eyes grew with wonder, I started to believe the story I had told her.

I began to stop seeing my stretch marks as ugly and chose to see them through her eyes—as beautiful mementos from the three beautiful babies I grew and gave birth to.

I wish I could truly own my new body and be brave enough to rock a bikini on my summer holidays and proudly show off my Mama stripes to the world. I’m not there yet. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever get there.

But when I pass the mirror after a shower, I try to no longer sigh but smile as I look down on the special marks each of my beautiful babies left on my body.

Stretch marks, tiger stripes, battle scars... call them what you will. They’re the proof left on my body by the three babies I carried within me.

The marks left by the babies who made me a mama. Lines that are forever there to remind me of how strong and powerful my body was and is to create three miracles of life.

This piece was written by Clare Lewis at Mas & Pas, a modern parenting website and community, offering helpful parenting insights and hacks, fun crafts, and quick recipes.

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