And don’t be so hard on yourself…you look great! But I do know what you mean, I felt better about my body 3 weeks postpartum than I do now (16 weeks postpartum).

Also, babies tend to have a “fussy time” & it’s usually at night. Not fun & not what you want to hear, but take heart, it does pass.

1. Other people here have said this, but those first weeks are REALLY, REALLY HARD and your little guy sounds a lot like how mine was, i.e., not the quiet, pleasant little sack of goo that, during pregnancy, you picture yourself snuggling in your lap while you get all kinds of work done. Yeah, no. I was e-x-h-a-u-s-t-e-d from simply trying to keep up with his needs, let alone finding time to cram a bran muffin and a piece of fruit down my throat and use the toilet before he needed me again. Productivity in other areas was non-existent.

He also had those “evening fussies” where both my husband and I found ourselves pacing, rocking, swinging, bouncing, shushing, swaying, holding, sitting, jiggling, wearing, carrying our son with little clue as to exactly what combination of actions would satisfy the little dinosaur. Sometimes he liked the paci, sometimes he didn’t, sometimes he only slept in the carseat, sometimes only in the swing, etc. You just keep trying things until something works.

I think I’ve blocked out a lot of those early-newborn memories for the sake of my sanity :), but if I remember correctly, we eventually found that swing + sometimes paci + shushing + fan on for white noise + swaddle had a fairly decent rate of success for a few weeks. Then it was on to finding the next combination.

Babies are constantly changing, so just when you find something that works, it will suddenly stop working. However, the opposite is also true…just when you feel like NOTHING is working, suddenly something will work.

2. I had very intense tailbone pain after my son was born. It made breastfeeding and sitting at all very, very difficult for weeks. Around 6 weeks pp, I started seeing a reputable chiro in my area and that helped a lot. He thought my tailbone was probably broken due to the fact that I felt it “shifting” sometimes when I sat. You can’t do anything directly to the tailbone to heal it but you can make sure the structures around it are aligned to keep the pressure off to let it heal. My pelvis was out of place in a couple of directions, so he adjusts my pelvis and that takes the pressure off my tailbone, allowing it to heal. I’m 6.5 months out and still seeing him periodically and would say that I’m about 85%-90% back to normal. So much better than where I was. Unfortunately, tailbones just take a long time to heal.

3. I returned to my pre-pg weight pretty quickly as well (5,6″, 128 lbs.) and was able to fit into size 6 jeans after a month or two, but it took a few months for my hips to go down more so that I was able to fit into my “normal” jeans, size 4 skinnies. However, I did get there. My belly was also doughy despite my not having gained much excess weight. The rest of me looked pretty normal. The belly doughiness very, very slowly goes down as the months pass. As you start exercising again, you will also see that core and abs work significantly speeds that process up.

My belly is not completely flat and tight right now like it used to be, but when I’m wearing normal clothes you wouldn’t know I had been pregnant. It looks flat.

Without clothes on, I will tell you that it is still very obvious I was pregnant. I only gained 28 lbs. during the pg, and lost 20 of them in the first two weeks pp, but I got bad stretch marks on my tummy thanks to genetics. They have faded in color, but are still evident due to the trauma to the skin. I still have a linea negra due to hormones that remain in the body while breastfeeding, but that will probably fade after he weans. My tummy skin that got stretched out is still loose, although, as I said, my underlying muscles are slowly tightening up so while the skin itself is still loose, my belly pooch is almost gone and my tummy looks pretty flat. My hips, which used to be basically nonexistent as I was very slender and non-curvy, are now a little wider although my husband says he can’t really tell.

Pregnancy has changed my body and I’m still figuring out what I can fix and what I can’t. Either way, I consider myself still recovering so try to keep that in mind as you look for your pre-baby-body in there somewhere. You WILL eventually find it and the doughiness will go down; it will probably just take a couple more months. Exercise as you can but don’t fret if you can’t find the time for a while. You will get there.

Oh, and, yes, it gets better. The newborn stage frankly just sucks. My son is still higher-maintenance than all of my friends’ babies – still more demanding and more active and more alert. However, he rarely cries now (he outgrew the evening fussies after a couple of months), he started sleeping much longer periods once he reached about 10 lbs., and when babies start smiling & laughing, that makes it all a lot more manageable. He is super smiley and sweet and funny now. We have found that he is simply more sensitive to and particular about his surroundings and circumstances than a lot of babies. He always has a reason for his cries and has a lot going on in his head, which is probably a big reason why he was so grumpy in the beginning. He had no way to express it other than through crying. They say very alert, curious, expressive babies are often very intelligent and so far we have found this to be true.

Hopefully you will find that to be the case as well. Hang in there. It definitely gets better! Feel free to email me if you have any questions about our experiences or just want to talk/vent. Cullen’s behavior and temperament really do sound a lot like my son’s. It is challenging…especially if your friends/family all had easy, relatively complacent babies and don’t really get what you’re going through.