Should you buy Maternity Clothes? Tips that won't break the bank!

When I first discovered I was pregnant, I was so excited, nervous, emotional, worried, shocked and a million other feelings going on inside me. It was surreal that I was going to become a Mummy. I like to plan things ahead so I mentally created a checklist of the things I would be needing in the months to come, such as maternity clothes, essential oils and creams for my belly. I was excited that I would be getting a baby bump and wondering how my pregnancy would go. I was so happy that my baby would grow inside my tummy, but at the same time I was concerned about gaining weight. I know, I know, you’re creating a miracle, as long as the baby is healthy, blah blah. In my eyes, women just seem to let themselves go after having kids. I was worried I would get fat, be unattractive and be letting myself go. Honestly, I had an image complex for many many years before I learned self-love and released trapped emotions. I’m sure many women feel the same way pre-baby let alone when they’re pregnant.

You, Pre-Baby:

Pre-Baby, you are most important on your priority list. You may have concerns about how you’re looking if you were anything like me. If you’re not, then great! If you were like me, you may be feeling overwhelmed with everything that is and will be changing in your life, the crazy amount of advice you are receiving from mothers and non-mothers, and how suddenly your pregnancy, your belly and the way you look is now everybody’s business. If you’re feeling touchy and reacting to other’s comments, then it’s time for you to self-reflect. Are your insecurities making you react to others? Do you worry that you’re not developing normally? etc etc. Comparing yourself to others will not make you feel good at all. Everyone develops differently, so don’t compare and just accept your body the way it is.

All I can say, looking back at my pre-baby pregnant self, is that all those concerns leads back to a lack of self-love. If we truly love and accept ourselves as how we are, we would truly be content with ourselves. Then nothing external could ever hurt our feelings or make us insecure. I realised that after I had my kids, these kind of concerns seem to matter less and less. Looking back now, it seems so minor, so trivial to be worrying about ridiculous things when taking care of my kids in comparison, is much much more important. You will see, once you’ve had kids : )

Why I recommend Maternity clothes:

YOU DESERVE IT!! I hear a lot of “I don’t want to waste money on maternity clothes”, “maternity clothes are expensive”, “I can get by without maternity clothes” etc etc. Ok, here’s what I think. You are going to get VERY uncomfortable. You are going to gain weight. You may feel unattractive. Your hormones are raging! You are making a miracle baby! Your shirts will get too short, your pants will get too tight, your shoes will be too small (don’t even think of wearing laces) and don’t even bother squeezing your boobs into that tiny bra!

If your partner/boyfriend/girlfriend/husband tells you not to waste money, then you can tell them to get stuffed or have a baby themselves! My point is, sometimes you just get so uncomfortable and there isn’t much you can do. You can check out my post for remedies during pregnancy. What you can do, is have comfortable clothes! Comfortable clothes doesn’t mean you have to wear a moo moo dress and look like a cow. You can still look cute and trendy, without breaking the bank!

What first time Mumma’s don’t realise, is that sometimes, it takes a really long time to bounce back to your original size after giving birth. Many people don’t think about what happens to you afterwards because they’re so focused on their new baby. Some people take from a few months to a year and even then, there are women who don’t lose all their baby weight. I don’t want to speak for others, but for myself, the first time it took 4-5 months to get back to my original size and the second time around 10 months to slim down. So, not only did I wear maternity clothes for both my pregnancies, I wore it after I gave birth for months and months. Basically, you’ll be wearing it for roughly a year and a half, times how many kids you’re having. To me, it was definitely worth buying.

** This post contains some affiliate links. Your clicks and purchases helps support this website without any additional costs to you!

Now that your Belly is starting to grow…

Now you must have walked in some maternity stores and browsed around to see if it was worth buying. Personally, I was horrified at what I saw. I saw disgusting looking jeans that cost $200 and shirts that look like a tent! I hoped that wasn’t my only option!

For me, in my skinny jeans, and tight clothes, my belly had no room to move. I liked to dress with tight-fitting clothes and my belly liked to grow outward as early as 2 months into my pregnancy. So unfortunately for me, I couldn’t really just make-do with what I had.

From 1-3 months, I would call this the awkward stage, when many women would struggle with fitting into their original clothes and you don’t fill out the maternity clothes yet.

Tips on wearing your regular clothes

Buy a 2-pack maternity singlet (tank top) or a larger sized, long length, stretchy singlet. ASOS sells this for $16 AUD. This can go under all your regular tops and even maternity tops when they get shorter as your belly grows. You can still wear your regular tops over it, until it gets too tight!

Leave your pants/shorts unzipped. Get an elastic band that you use to tie your hair with, loop it onto the button, put the other end through the button hole and loop the other end over the button. This will help keep your pants on and leave room for your belly to grow. Cover it up with your long singlet.

Wear leggings. Regular leggings were fine for me for the first 4 months, but they started digging into my belly after that. Some women manage to wear tights throughout their pregnancies, but as my butt and belly grew, my waistline could not handle regular sized pants. Maternity leggings are available on ASOS for $44 AUD for a pack of 2. These leggings goes over your belly to help it stay up.

When you really need to buy new clothes..

For me, I needed maternity clothes from 3 months onwards. I just LOVED buying my maternity clothes from ASOS. They have such a large range of clothes, from petite to tall and from cheap to expensive. If you’re looking to get some basic clothes that will get you through your pregnancy, then this is what I recommend:

2 Maternity singlets and 2 pairs of leggings as I mentioned above. This will allow you to wear blouses/jackets unbuttoned or oversized tops over the top.
A pair of jeans. You don’t really want to wear leggings to every occasion : ) You might, but its nice to wear jeans as well. I’m a pants kind of girl so I had 2 or 3 pairs of skinny jeans in different colours. They were super comfy and the waist is partially elastic and can be adjusted as you grow.
A pair of maternity shorts or skirt. For me, shorts were much more comfortable as it gets harder to keep your legs together once your belly drops lower. With shorts you can comfortably cross your legs without worry! Sitting in a skirt with your legs wide open just doesn’t look appropriate don’t you think? Haha
2 basic maternity short-sleeved or long-sleeved shirts (depending on the weather during your pregnancy).
A long casual dress and/or formal dress for parties. I do not recommend short dresses as it only gets shorter the bigger you get!
Buy a couple of packs of hipster underwear in a larger size than your usual. Low-cut underwear sits nicely under the belly. You can just get cheap ones from the supermarket or Kmart/Target so that you can use and throw away afterwards. After giving birth you usually bleed quite a bit as your body gets rid of all the lining inside your uterus, so black underwear is the way to go!
If you’re planning to breastfeed, I would really recommend buying a few maternity singlets that have built-in bras that can unclip for easy breastfeeding. I practically lived in these for the first few months when you’re constantly feeding and you have huge swollen, sensitive breasts that are much too uncomfortable in bras. You can get these from Target or Bonds.
If you work in the corporate world like I did, you can buy some business pants and skirts too.
Buy some slip-on shoes. Most women’s feet swell a bit so your normal shoes may be too tight. Some flat shoes look nice but if they’re not cushioning, it may hurt your feet with all the extra weight you’re carrying. Make sure the soles have some grip because you really don’t want to have a fall! And lose the laces! Soon you won’t even be able to see your feet and some even lose their flexibility to reach their laces! I put shoes on by lifting my feet back towards my butt and using my fingers to slip my shoes on.

There are two types of pants/shorts; under the belly, or over the belly.

I liked under the belly during the first half of the pregnancy because it still felt like I was wearing normal pants but with extra elasticity. If your belly isn’t quite big yet, then you won’t fill out the material that goes over the belly, so you’ll be left with an open ‘waist’. Another reason is because I found, as my belly started growing, the skin was stretching out and it felt itchy a lot. I preferred less material over it especially if the weather was warm. However, I found at the end of my pregnancy, the waistband was so wide, I was constantly pulling my pants up after I stand/sit. The button sometimes dug into my tummy when I sat down towards the end.

I liked over the belly pants towards the end of the pregnancy because it was seamless all the way to the top of my belly. I didn’t need to adjust my pants because the material over the belly helped keep my pants up. It was nice during the colder weather as my jackets would not cover my belly.

What size should I buy?

It really all depends on how much you are growing. I gained a lot of weight in comparison to my size though it was a gradual growth. At the beginning, I wanted to wear something straight away so I bought a pair of jeans that was one size smaller than my usual size. For example, I would have been able to squeeze into a size 6 pre-baby, so I bought a size 6 maternity after I was 2 months pregnant. I was able to wear that for about 3 months.

I then started to buy size 8 jeans which I wore from 3 months onwards and wore for the main duration of the pregnancy. This would be your USUAL size that you wear. If you’re not that big and your waist/thighs haven’t gotten bigger, then you would likely be able to just stick to your regular size.

Dress sizes should also be your regular size as they are made to fit you as you were, with extra stretching room for your belly.

Tops should be your regular size, but you can buy a size up if you don’t mind it looking a little loose at the beginning.

If you gained a lot of weight towards the end, or if your belly sticks out a lot like mine did, your clothes may not fit you in the last couple of months. You can continue wearing your casual dresses and leggings with your oversized tops : ) Or you can get pants another size up!

Ok lets reverse it now……

After giving birth, you won’t magically go back the way you were or the size you were. In fact, your belly just gets a little bit deflated and is softer than when your bun was still in the oven. It can be a little bit of a shock to your system so make sure to diffuse some Bergamot oil and Geranium oil to help you love yourself and your body.

You’ll still want to wear the maternity clothes you were wearing most recently for the first few months. Then, when you start to lose more weight, you’ll go back to wearing the maternity clothes you wore early on for a while until you get back to your new “normal”.

Maternity Bras

Ok this is a hard one. It all depends on if you’re planning to breast feed or not. Some women may grow half a cup size and others can grow 3 or 4 cup sizes bigger. The important thing is, you should not be wearing underwire bras and this can block milk ducts and can cause mastitis which can be a very painful infection in the breasts.

If you’re planning to breastfeed, you can start buying maternity bras as you’re growing. At the end of your pregnancy and after giving birth, your breasts may grow even bigger. So you can buy a couple of bras every few months. Later on, as you slowly decrease your milk and wean your baby, you will use your smaller bras in reverse. The important thing is, you do not want to squash your breasts into bras that are too small for you, it is not worth the risk of mastitis. You’ll also want to make sure it is easy to flip the bra open with one hand and that it flips down all the way. It gets real annoying when the bra keeps poking your baby’s face when it doesn’t open enough and you find yourself leaking onto your bra. I love the Bonds bras because they’re so soft and open easily. The only downside is they’re a little thin, so if you have hard nipple issues, you may not like them as much as I do! Haha I also like Lovable maternity bras but not the Chloe and Lola bras as they were a bit stiff, itchy and didn’t open fully.

If you’re not planning to breastfeed, you don’t have to be as picky with your bras, but you still need to make sure your buy wireless bras. Bonds and Lovable have wireless and comfortable bras available.

It was kind of hard to find pictures of me during pregnancy, so this was what I found : ) These clothes are all from ASOS and each item I purchased was under $60. My baby pink dress was $55 AUD and was the most expensive item I purchased. Jeans were about $40-50 each. T-shirts I bought on sale were like $10. The long sleeve shirts were only around $18. You can easily find dresses under $50. You can find anything in your budget on ASOS. The shipping is fast and free. Returns are free too! It’s so easy to return if you don’t like it or if the size is wrong. You just fill out the form inside the bag for the reason why you’re returning it. Stick the sticker from the form on the outside of the bag. Login in online to register the return and leave it somewhere on your property for them to pick it up! It’s so easy!

Check out ASOS maternity wear. They make maternity clothes that are so affordable, comfortable and trendy! Comment below if you have any questions about maternity clothes and what to wear.

Get Your Clothes from ASOS (AUS/NZ)

Get Your Clothes from ASOS (USA)

Boost Your Fertility Naturally!

Sacrificing our health for Beauty? Choose toxin-free Makeup!