Dressing the Bump!

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For just about as long as it was at all possible, I resisted making the switch to all maternity clothes, all the time. 

Here's me at 24 weeks, wearing my loosest pre-pregnancy shorts and trying to pretend that my sweater isn't threatening to expose the bottom of my belly any moment:

I was super resistant to maternity wear for a few reasons. 

We're only having one child, so I would feel silly spending a lot of money on maternity clothes. I'll only wear them for a few months and then never again. 

On top of that, I wasn't really finding too many styles that I even wanted to buy. A lot of the pieces looked super matronly and while I'm not exactly a spring chicken at 27 years old, I'm also not ready to trade in cute clothes for muumuus. I think you can be 67 years old and still too young to give up on cute fashion!

My bump didn't truly pop until probably around 24 weeks, so I could get away with sticking to the looser clothes in my pre-pregnancy wardrobe for a while. Once the bump bumped, though, that didn't really work anymore.

I got a little extra wear out of some basic (and stretchy waistband) pieces, like leggings, by pairing them with maternity shirts. Here's me at 26 weeks in pre-pregnancy leggings plus a H&M Maternity t-shirt that I bought when I was in Germany this summer.

But our baby is a 79th growth percentile chonker and even that wasn't going to hold me over all the way through the end of this pregnancy. I had to give in and order a maternity wardrobe. Fortunately, a few people recommended Shein to me.

This is not a sponsored post, but I'll share anyway that I was thrilled to find Shein's maternity section. Shein is definitely the definition of fast fashion - it's cheap, made in China, and designs are more trendy than classic. These aren't clothes you're going to be holding on to for years.

But pregnancy is exactly the use case for fast fashion, especially if you're one-and-done! I only need my maternity wardrobe to last a season or two, so it's fine if the clothes fall apart after that. 

For the price point (super cheap - I got 8 pieces for around $120) I was worried that the clothes wouldn't be comfortable. I was really pleasantly surprised to find that they are comfortable and so much softer than I expected! They're also true-to-size, which is a relief when ordering from a new-to-me online retailer.

Here's me at 27 weeks, wearing a Shein look that cost only $24 for the entire outfit:

I think this might be my husband's favorite of my Shein outfits, but I think they're all cute. 

It's fun to try out styles that I might not ordinarily wear, because I know that if I don't love them there's no need to rewear them again for more seasons. In that way, I think embracing maternity wear and dressing the bump may help me break out of my style comfort zone longer term and learn new styles that work for my body and my tastes. 

Moms, what were/are your favorite ways to dress the bump?

Have you ordered anything from Shein before?