Pregnancy weight gain (and subsequent loss)

So here's a topic not that openly discussed, and which causes plenty of grief for lots of us. I'm getting to the end of my battle with weight for this pregnancy, so I've been thinking about it a bit.

The recommended weight gain for a normal pregnancy is 11-16kg. I'm curious though - I haven't been able to find any source for this ideal (if you can point me to info on this please do!), though it sounds reasonable... But most people I've spoken to about it have gained well over this number. I'd love to know what is normal or average!

In the interest of full disclosure, and despite staying very fit and active through my pregnancy, I gained 30kg. Yup, that's double what I should have laid down. I started strong on the hot chips in the first trimester (when you're not supposed to be gaining weight at all because the baby is the size of a poppy seed/lentil/grape), and just kept amping it all the way through.

I knew I was gaining too much, but didn't seem to be able to slow it down - but here's the thing; I've lost almost all of it (29kg - so close!) already. I've been working at it, sure, but I wonder if physiologically I'm just set up this way - it seems easier than it should be. Or maybe it's the breastfeeding. So hard to know. Especially because I haven't been able to find much info on how the ideal range was defined.

I switched midwives mid-pregnancy, mainly because of how my first midwife spoke to me about my weight gain. After telling me early on to relax and not worry about it (I had flagged it as a concern), she suddenly noticed at my 26 week check up that I had gained quite a bit, and gave me a hard time and made me feel pretty awful about it. She also told me (after grilling me on my exercise habits) that I shouldn't be lifting weights anymore and should be easing back on other exercise. At the time I believed her about my weight, but her comments on exercise opposed what I had read at the start of pregnancy (because, unsurprisingly, I didn't want to compromise my baby's health!) and I lost my trust in her.

Emily Oster covered weight gain in her excellent book, Expecting Better - from the data she found her conclusion was that you're probably better to gain too much than too little (complications for little babies are usually more serious than those for big babies).

There are definitely compelling reasons to try to keep the gain to a minimum - gestational diabetes is worth avoiding if you can, and gaining too much is likely to result in your baby being a bit bigger than average. If you're healthy you'll probably have an easier time bouncing back from the birth - not to mention the less you gain the quicker you'll be able to wear your old clothes again!

But overall I can't help but feel that, much as I would have liked to have had a compact little bump and jumped back into my pre-pregnancy jeans, it all seems to have worked out, that there was no need for drama, and perhaps we all need to give ourselves a bit of a break.

What do you think - did you gain more than you would have liked, were you a small-bump person, or do you have another experience you'd like to share? Do you agree with me or am I just trying to justify my chip habit? ;-)

Work/Life Balance (i.e. rejoining the workforce)

I've been a bit quiet for the last couple of weeks, largely due to my much anticipated return to work. Sorry 'bout that! Thanks for bearing with me while I get my stride.

I think working out the ideal work/life balance for your family is one of those things that is both reasonably unpredictable and also prone to change over time. I guessed that I would relish my full year of parental leave, so had put in leave until June. But once Young Sir was reliably sleeping through the night (don't get me wrong, there are no guarantees, but most of the time he does) it didn't take me long to get itchy feet - I couldn't wait to get back to work.

I still wasn't keen to work full time and have been able to negotiate (until June - then we'll see what happens) to work 20 hours a week, spread over three days. Right now, this seems pretty much perfect to me - I'm really enjoying being back in the working world, but I still get two weekdays at home with my baby, and finish work mid-afternoon on the other days.

I know I'm lucky in the flexibility I have at the moment - though I think employers who refuse flexible working arrangements probably lose out on some great employees... But at the same time I recognise that it's hard for employers to juggle part timers in roles where most folk are full time.

Of course, the ideal for me right now is probably different from your ideal right now - and indeed from my ideal six months from now.

Have you found a balance that works for you and your family? Did it take some tweaking or did you instinctively know what would work? Or do you just make it work?