Look in the mirror.  Or just look down.

Look at your wonderful, amazing body.

Nope, no self-sabotage allowed.  I don’t want to hear another word about how your middle has gotten bigger and your hips have gotten wider.  That’s not to say that these things aren’t happening, or haven’t happened. OH THEY HAVE, if you’re a gestational parent!  Hell, even if you aren’t, parenthood changes you. It changes your soul, your mindset, and you body in myriad ways (and in other ways you’re exactly the same as you were).  

So right now, I want you to take a moment and thank that dang body of yours for doing what it needed to do.  

Or maybe it didn’t.

Maybe, you’re saying, you had trouble getting pregnant (*raises hand* me too).  Maybe you had trouble giving birth. Maybe you had trouble breastfeeding (*raises hand again* me too).  Maybe nothing seemed to go right, ever, and all you feel you have to show for it is a body that’s different and maybe not what you wanted it to be right now.  

Maybe everything seems like a huge dumpster fire, and all you wanted was to wear a cute swimsuit this summer.

Well.

Look in the mirror.  Or just look down.

And again — look at your wonderful amazing body, and this time, don’t eyeroll, don’t do any of that stuff that I KNOW comes naturally when you’re a self-down-talker like I am.  

I know it sounds silly, but thank your body for doing the best it can.  Maybe even better than it can! Maybe worse! Whatever the scene of your body is today, the best piece of postpartum advice I can offer is that loving yourself for where you’re at is so much better than refusing to love yourself until you reach some arbitrary milestone for where you think you should be at.  Pumping ounce goal? Don’t berate your body if you don’t meet it. Weight goal? Don’t berate your body if you don’t meet it. Wedding season coming up and not feeling your looks? Don’t berate your body if you don’t look like you once did — parenthood changes you. And life is short, darlin’. Better to spend it loving the body you have, than waiting to love one that only exists in your imagination.

And no matter what your body’s supposed successes and struggles have been, simply parenting a child is hard on a body.  Heck, have you stepped on a LEGO before? You know what I’m talking about. So go easy on your body as we come up on that season where bodies seem to go on display.  You’re doing amazing, and so is your body, every last part of it.