Hiding a Baby Bump — The Second Time Around
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What clothes best hide a baby bump — particularly if it’s your second child and you feel like you’re showing before you’d like to share the news? We’ve talked here about how to work through your first trimester — and over at Corporette we’ve talked about ways to hide a baby bump — but it’s been far too long in either place since we’ve talked about work outfits for the first trimester.
After all, revealing your pregnancy at work can get pretty complicated — not only might you not want to reveal in case of miscarriage, you may worry your boss won’t put you on projects with timelines that are too close to delivery/maternity leave — as well as other kinds of discrimination and inappropriate, nosy coworkers. Since we haven’t talked about it in quite a while, we realized we were due for a post on hiding a baby bump at work.
Kat’s picked a few pieces particularly for the early days of pregnancy (for example here, here, here, here) — but what are YOUR favorite pieces? We’ve rounded up a few tips that readers have shared in the past — what are your best tips for how to hide a baby bump?
{related: 7 tips to hide a baby bump at work}
The Best Tops to Help You Hide a Baby Bump
To hide a growing bust and belly, try wearing:
- Darker colors
- Unstructured pieces (with or without something structured on top)
- Non-clingy fabrics, e.g., jersey
- Button-front shirts (blouse them or wear them untucked)
- Looser-fitting jackets
- Cardigans with the top one or two buttons fastened
- Hip-length blouses, untucked
- Long cardigans, especially open-front
- Shells with interesting prints and/or detail at the top (ruffle, etc.) under blazers
Psst: some of our favorite pregnancy books for new working mothers:
The best pregnancy books for future working moms: pink / white / pink / multicolored — and here are all of the reader favorites!
Skirts/Dresses: What to Wear to Hide a Baby Bump
Even if you’re not showing yet, you may suddenly find that you don’t WANT to button or zip any of your pants because it feels like you’re bloated. Try wearing:
- Elastic-waistband skirts (for example)
- Non-maternity dresses that are loose around your midsection, such as A-line dresses or shift dresses
- Dresses/tops with ruching at the waist
- Faux-wrap dresses
- Dresses and skirts with pockets
General Tips on Hiding a Baby Bump
- Wear dark colors — black, brown, navy, gray, etc., for the main color of your outfits.
- Dress in layers so that your silhouette isn’t as obvious.
- Wear your regular non-maternity pants — either pants that can’t quite zip/button anymore (with a BellaBand), or pants with elastic waistbands.
- It’s probably best to steer clear of empire-waist dresses and tops, since they often make women who aren’t pregnant look like they’re expecting — although YMMV.
- Use accessories near your face to draw attention away from your growing belly. Wear larger earrings, statement necklaces, brighter makeup, etc. Use scarves for the same reason — and also to help hide your bump.
What are your tips for hiding a pregnancy before you’re ready to spread the news? For moms of more than one: did you start showing earlier with your second?
Psst: these are some of our favorite prenatal exercise DVDs and books:
Kat’s favorite prenatal exercise DVDs & books: one / two / three / four
Picture below via Stencil.
I’m hiding a slight bump/bulge in my 11th week. I find that solids and pencil shirts show it very well. Not sure why Kat would think a dress like that would hide anything. I am wearing patterned dresses and trying to avoid pencil skirts at all costs. I have a wrap dress, but they lay right on my so I haven’t felt comfortable wearing that again until I’m “out”.
It helps if you’re 50 pounds overweight from losing the baby weight from your 1st kid during nursing and then gaining weight slowly over the next few years while dealing with The Juggle and some minor depression and anxiety issues :) Wear layers, empire waist shirts and dresses with flare and don’t show off The Girls.
What does it mean to “blouse” a button down shirt? Leave it untucked?
Random “yikes!” today – had 19 week ultrasound, they saw a tiny “soft spot” on baby’s heart. Apparently this is something they they have only been able to even see in the last few years of better technology, and it is a “soft marker” for Down’s. My genetic testing and NT scan all came back negative, doc says 100% I should not be worrying, but it is a good excuse to go see the perinatologist and get a “fancy” high-res ultrasound.
My brain is not worrying. My doc is amazing and would tell me if it was something to worry about, but my hormones are stupid and I burst into tears on the way to work. Anyone else had this happen? Against my normal rules, I googled around a bit and it seems like this is pretty common and they almost always grow out of it.
Good news – heart beat good and strong, no cleft lip / palate (apparently they can tell that already!), spine and organs all look really good.
My daughter will be starting daycare at six months, and we are just now figuring out the details. For whatever reason, all the daycares we have looked at have openings when we would need them, so availability isn’t an issue. However:
If my husband and I combine our work benefits, we could probably eke out an initial 3-5 free months of “back-up” childcare at a Bright Horizons. Pro is that the care is free (although we will owe tax on the benefit, so really it is more like 50% off). Cons are that it won’t be the same kids every day (although presumably it will be the same teachers), that it won’t be all that convenient to our home so we will have to commute with her in the AM and PM, and that after 3-5 months, we would have to switch her to a permanent daycare – most likely, The Learning Experience, which is the cheaper chain in our neck of the woods. So she would have to transition to yet another daycare, and when she is more like 9-11 months old.
Alternatively, we could start her at The Learning Experience immediately. We would be waiving the discounted childcare through BH, but she would be able to transition just once, and at a younger age (and we as parents would only need to adjust to one daycare, not two).
What would you do?
Also, my one major concern about TLE is that babies sleep in the same noisy, brightly lit space as their peers play all day – no separate napping area, much less a totally different napping room. I assume this works for most kids, and perhaps they become great sleepers as a result, but I am a bit apprehensive nonetheless. Have any c-moms had experience with this, good or bad?
The J. Crew Maternity Pixie pant. I have 3 pairs (2 black, 1 blue) and pretty much wear them every day. In the first trimester my bella band made me feel ill, and with my 2nd the “bump” was visible early, so I switched to maternity pants right away. The maternity panels on these pants are easy to hide with longer tops. And I’ve been wearing them for 7 months now and they still fit well into the 3rd trimester. In the first trimester I paired it with the severely oversize sweaters that JCrew claimed were in style – of course it was winter so that worked fine – but in summer you could do flowy/unstructured pieces (long blouses, waterfall cardigans… the “boyfriend” sweater). With heels and on point jewelry, it counts as business casual, at least in my law firm. The Minnie pant is good too, but I had to go up a size and they’re not as comfy.
And a blazer.
And black-on-black. Black (Pixie) pants, black (untucked) top, black (unbottoned or better – no button) blazer.