Maternity Monday - The Perfect Jeans

I'm entering my third trimester this week, which means I'm about to get even more uncomfortable than I already am. All of my pants are way too tight, giving me awesome lovehandles and putting tons of pressure on my bladder. So this week, I finally splurged and bought myself some jeans. I really didn't want to since I only have 3 months left, but it became necessary. And now that I have some great fitting jeans, I wish I would have bought them months ago!

Maternity jeans/pants come in several varieties. The type you pick is completely a personal choice. You have to do what works best with your body. There are two main things to think about.

1. Panel Preference
2. Cut

1. Panel Preference
With my first pregnancy, I wore my normal jeans right up until the end. (I know, I want to punch me, too.) I just used an elastic hair band to hold the jeans together when they got too tight to zip up. Soooo fashion-y. Then with my second pregnancy, I needed comfort and the cheap-o elastic band trick wasn't cutting it. I bought what was, at the time, the perfect pair of demi-panel/under belly panel jeans. They were so comfortable and I wanted to wear them everyday. I hated the feeling of anything touching my belly, so having the panel right under my belly was perfect. And now in pregnancy number 3, I HATE THOSE JEANS. Since I'm carrying ridiculously low this time, the under belly panel makes me feel like I need to pee all. day. long. I took Jenna's advice and checked out full panel jeans, and guess what? I loooove them.

Okay, enough rambling. Here are your options.

No panel. These are meant to go under the belly. They don't have a visible panel, but the waistband is elastic and will stretch with your growing bump.

The Demi-Panel/ Under Belly PanelThis is the type of panel I used to love. It hugs the bottom of your belly. If you carry high, this might be comfortable for you.

The Full Panel

AKA, heaven. I love the full panel! But like I said, in my last pregnancy, I wouldn't have been able to stand the feeling of the elastic panel on my belly. It really is completely a matter of preference. Go by what makes you feel the most comfortable.

2. Cut

For maternity jeans, my favorite cuts are skinny: boot cut:

and straight leg/wide leg/ (wide leg not pictured):Okay, so the boot cut jeans I found look more like a flare, and the straight leg looks boot cut-ish, but I'm too lazy to go look for more. It's late and I spent the past two days remodeling two bedrooms. Sorry.

Whatever panel and cut you pick, just make sure they have a lot of stretch in them. Strrrretchy pants = comfort.

Now another thing to think about is what to pair those jeans with. My general preggo fashion rule is this: If you're going to wear something loose fitting on top, pair it with something tight fitting on the bottom. And vice versa. If you wear something loose on top and bottom, you're going to make yourself look bigger than you are. And if you wear tight on tight, you'll probably be showing more curvage than anyone wants to see. Unless you're a skinny terd and have supermodel pregnancies.

So if you're going to wear a straight leg, wide leg, or trouser leg jean, I suggest you pair it with a form fitting top. A top like this one is super snug, but also has ruching on the side to hide imperfections. I want it.If you're going to go with a skinny jean or boot cut jean, you can handle more volume up top like so: (All jeans from Gap and all tops from Motherhood Maternity)

Now I want to go get some cute tops.