It's never that easy.
It seems the minute mums give birth to their little ones, they're hit with pressure to get back into their 'normal' shape... but what is normal after you've given birth?
On social media these days, all we see is side by side shots of before and after baby... but one mum wanted to show what her "real" postpartum body looks like.
Kristen Sullivan told
CafeMom that she wanted to embrace her body, but she looked completely different to what other mums on social media were like.
"I follow a lot of awesome moms on Instagram, but it just seems like lately the majority of postpartum posts have been all about the side-by-side shots, showing how flat their belly already is, less than a month after giving birth," she said.
"More power to them! But it's easy for new moms, with all their hormones, to get very upset seeing this. Society makes us think we need to be concerned with our appearance right away ... We just birthed life!"
So, Kristen took to Instagram to show her body, writing: "It took me 4 days to decide whether or not to share this. But recently there have been moms reaching out to me based on some things I've shared, so here goes. The left pic is 3 days before I delivered Gavin (my 2nd child), the right pic is 3 weeks postpartum.
"I'm sharing this to show moms that sometimes it doesn't matter if you're thin, ate right and exercised during pregnancy, sometimes your body grows in such a way that simply doesn't allow you to "bounce back" in friggen 3 weeks.
"I feel like all I've been seeing is new moms sharing their amazing postpartum bods, 11 days after birth, 2 weeks after birth, etc. And while that's wonderful for them, for many others, KNOW that it's not realistic!
"I'm giving my body a chance to breathe. Did you SEE how far my belly stretched?! There is no race to bounce back moms. We'll get there!"
