by Emma Stapleford

Created on: September 15, 2010   Last Updated: September 16, 2010

I'm now 5 months pregnant, which meant today was my first official trip to buy maternity clothes.  I bought a pair of jeans from Next around a month ago to help with the growth but today meant a few extra and decent bits to try and see me through.  For the temporarily rounded, I was soon to discover that this is no easy task!

I really don’t like shopping at the best of times.  I like to know what I want to buy and where I need to go to get said items.  By mid afternoon I was hating shopping even more than normal.  Everywhere I went, me and bump just couldn’t find anything we liked.  Any shop I walked into gave me one of 2 barriers - they either didn’t have a maternity section or the items were extremely limited in selection - mostly no more than 2 rails at best with a few crappy jeans and some tent like tops.  It was horrible and very confidence deflating!  I live in Nottingham so it’s not like the City Centre is a small place.  We have 2 huge shopping centres with a variety of shops as well as lots of shops in-between the 2.  I ended up walking around most of them getting tired and achier as the day went on.  At 5 months pregnant, it meant a few sit downs to gather some more energy. 

Now for the good news.  I ended up in H&M - not somewhere I normally shop as it’s huge and means looking through lots of rails to find something you like.  Well I gave it a try and was really glad I did.  They had a large baby section as well as a pretty big maternity bit.   I was really impressed by the various different styles of clothes and roughly 8-10 different types of jeans as well as combats, corduroys, work trousers and shorts! I actually felt like I belonged for the first time that day. There were lots of tops and in a variety of colours and they even had maternity leggings that didn’t make one look odd.  It was fab that I was able to choose what I wanted rather than make do from the limited selection other shops offered.  The problem that I’d found previously is I could either choose something boring from what was available or settle for something ill fitting and in an even bigger size from the normal sections.  It therefore meant H&M was a dream! Yes I’m still a 16, but a 16 in trousers that a have an actual bump section and a 14 in tops that hug me in the right places. 

I will definitely be recommending H&M to all mothers and their bumps as the prices are also brilliant too.  £20-£30 for jeans and anything from £8-£40 for tops.  Some of the prices are a little much but mostly, for things that will be worn before and after pregnancy (until the extra chunk has gone!) the items are definitely worth it. 

Good luck bump huggers!

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