Post-Baby Beauty: Pressure On New Mothers To instantly Ping Back?

Himself's sister and her two kids visited us for a few days over the Easter break. We had a brilliant time with them, but I have to admit that I was completely taken aback by how time- and mind-consuming a 4- and 7-year-old who aren't particularly demanding could be. Despite a more than healthy 3:2 adult:child ratio, I felt like I didn't have a minute to myself during their stay. My beauty regimen pretty much went out the window and one night I collapsed into bed with my make-up on for the first time this year.

I was a bit shell-shocked by the disruption to my routine, but it got me wondering how the hell new mothers in general (and first timers in particular) cope. The coverage that's afforded to the impossibly fast post-baby bounce-back of celebs like Beyoncé would suggest that adjusting to life with a new baba is no biggie, really, but then I suspect that B herself won't be scrubbing pureed mush off that £10,000 Swarovski-encrusted highchair.

There's a lot of talk about the pressure that column inches devoted to how amazing A-listers look just weeks after giving birth puts on Normal Women, but most of us, I think, recognise that access to a squadron of home help, personal trainers, dieticians, chefs, and elective C-tucks (all-in-one C-section and tummy tuck) gives celebrity moms something of an advantage over the great unpapped. Without a substantial Lotto win, their strategies and results are impossible to duplicate at home.

A friend once confided that Real Life Alpha Moms, those women who seem to sail unflustered through motherhood while demonstrating their incredible mom-bilities in skinny jeans and babyspit-free tops at the school gate or in the endless “candid” photos they share on social networking sites, are far more likely to give her sneaking feelings of inadequacy than celebs.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that having a baby necessarily results in some degree of upheaval, regardless of how shiny or happy anyone appears to be about it on Facebook. Even so, there seems to be a bizarre stigma attached to admitting that you're having a hard time adjusting to the often difficult reality of your new body or lifestyle, though, as if to do so is to suggest that you're self-centred or a bad mother or ungrateful for the new addition.

No, I have no news
Now before anyone asks, no, I have no “news”, nor do I plan to have any “news” in the near future. Even so, I'd be really interested to hear what kind of pressure, if any, you felt to get back to your pre-baby shape, and I'd also love to know whether you were able to maintain some semblance of your pre-baby routine, beauty or otherwise – and how the feck you managed it!

image via fanpop.com