I know it takes several months to look “pregnant” but man I’m ready to have a bump.

I don’t know about others but I was immediately bloated, not uncomfortable bloated, just looked that way. My stomach would fluctuate in size throughout the day, even now halfway in.

And my pants quickly became uncomfortable. Some are fine in the morning, but by the end of the day I want to take a pair of scissors to them.

So, today I wanted to talk about that weird limbo between your current pants not being comfortable anymore but not being “big” enough to fit into maternity pants.

The first trick is going for your stretchy pants. These are going to become your best friend. At the beginning leggings were great because they were flexible enough. Now I’m down to one pair that still fits comfortably for most of the day.

The next trick is the hairband on the jeans one. You take a hairband/rubberband and loop it through the button hole of your pants attaching it to the button to give you several inches of belly room.

I didn’t love that trick for long for some reason.

But an alternative to that that I did enjoy was a belly band. You wear it over the top of your jeans, covering the button and zipper area and it’s tight enough to hold your pants up and together without being too tight to where its digging into your stomach.

This allowed me to wear my jeans again, but I did find that it looked lumpy so you just can’t wear tight fitting tops with the belly band and rubber band tricks.

And finally I made my first transition into maternity wear, starting with maternity leggings. The kind that have the stretchy waistband (like you see with a lot of maternity jeans) didn’t fit my bump yet, and looked really baggy.

What I found were these normal looking high waisted leggings that had a fitted, but super flexible waistband that were tight enough to stay up but stretch enough for my bump. These are still loose some days, but it’s totally manageable.

And finally try out a few different brands of maternity wear, because while you might not fit into the Target brands maternity leggings and jeans you may fit into another.

I went shopping with my sister at the end of February, and found a second pair of maternity leggings for literally 1/6 of the price of my first that I bought at a big store. And I found a pair of maternity jeans that not only fit my bump with room to grow but were $8, both a steal of a deal compared to full price. And this made me feel better about getting a few maternity pieces without worrying that I was breaking the bank getting things that I wouldn’t wear all the time.

Now, if you’re pregnant in the summer months this opens up a whole different world of possibilities.

I cannot wait until it’s warm enough to wear my overall shorts and my flowy summer dresses. Not to mention stretchy skirts, dresses, you name it.

I’m very grateful that the second half of my pregnancy is in the warmer months, when my normal wardrobe will work perfectly!

What did you do for this in between stage to stay comfortable?