How to Rediscover Your Confidence After Having a Baby, with Personal Stylist Bekah Kraakman
How to Rediscover Your Confidence After Having a Baby: A Conversation with Personal Stylist Bekah Kraakman
Understanding why postpartum moms lose confidence and practical steps to feel like yourself again
“I just want to feel like myself again.”
“I don’t recognize myself anymore.”
These are the two most common things I hear from postnatal mothers. And honestly, I said them myself after having my twins.
When my twins turned two, I decided to celebrate by treating myself to something fun and different: a colour consultation with Bekah Kraakman. But what started as a session about finding my best colours turned into something much deeper.
Fears and insecurities I didn’t even realize I was carrying from those postpartum days came to the surface. Things that were actually being represented in what I wore and how I wore it.
So I knew I had to bring Bekah onto the Yoga Bellies and Babies Podcast to share her wisdom with all of you.
Who is Bekah Kraakman?
Bekah is a personal stylist and confidence coach who also holds a degree in psychology from Stanford University. She started her company as a postnatal mom herself, which is why she has such a special understanding of what new mothers are going through.
As she puts it: “Style isn’t superficial. It’s deeply tied to identity, self-perception, and confidence.”
And in our conversation, she explained exactly why that’s true.
Why Postpartum Moms Lose Confidence
When I asked Bekah what she sees when a postnatal mom comes to her, she said something that really resonated:
“What you see is a lack of confidence. Because for most moms, the focus has not been on you for a long time. And by the time they come to me, they’re starting to flirt with the idea of putting some more emphasis back on themselves. But a lot of them aren’t there yet.”
This is so true. As moms, we often feel like we can’t put the focus on ourselves. There’s this pervasive mom guilt that says we should be doing everything for our baby
There’s this pervasive mom guilt that says we should be doing everything for our baby, not ourselves.
But Bekah points out something crucial: “By putting more focus on ourselves, we’re actually benefiting everyone.”
The Psychology of “Look Good, Feel Good”
One of the most fascinating parts of our conversation was when Bekah explained the psychology behind why looking good makes us feel good.
With her background in psychology from Stanford, she explained it using the “fake it till you make it” principle:
“When you look in the mirror and feel like you look good, you get dopamine in the brain. You get these feel-good feelings. And that one thought of looking in the mirror and being like ‘I look good today’ can change how you look at the whole day.”
She explained it like this: Say you’re having a bad day. The milk spilled, something happened with the baby, and then you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see. It just spirals and adds to the negative self-talk.
But even if bad things happen, if you catch a glance at yourself and think “Actually, I do look really good today,” you can reframe your whole mindset. It stops the negative spiral and gives you something positive to focus on.
And this isn’t about vanity. As Bekah says: “It’s not about caring what you look like to please others. It’s literally just a you thing. It’s so that when you look in the mirror, you like what you see.”
Living in “House Clothes” During Postpartum
I shared with Bekah something I think many of you can relate to: during postpartum, I was living in house clothes. Clothes with stains. Things with holes. I’d wash them, but I’d keep them for the house.
And Bekah’s response was simple but powerful: “Even if you’re at home, when you look good, you feel good.”
She explained that getting dressed is one thing you CAN control in motherhood. There’s so much you can’t control with a baby, but you can control the clothes you put on yourself.
“While you can’t control what happens, you can control how you feel and what you see when you look in the mirror. And that can give you such a boost for the rest of the day.”
Buy Clothes That Fit Your Body NOW
One of the most practical pieces of advice Bekah gave was this: Buy clothes that fit the body you have now, not the body you had before or the body you hope to have later.
She compared it to buying baby clothes: “You don’t buy your baby size 12 months and make them just make it work. You buy clothes for where their body is at right now. And we should do the same for ourselves.”
You don’t need to spend a lot of money. Buy second hand. Go somewhere cheaper. But clothe your body in a way that makes you feel good NOW, even if it’s a temporary body.
“Treat yourself good now and make yourself feel confident now. And that will help you get back to where you want to be sooner than if you’re squeezing into things that don’t fit.”
The Connection Between Birth Stories and Motherhood Expectations
We also talked about how the culture around motherhood expects suffering. Just like with birth stories (people want to hear the dramatic, difficult ones), motherhood is supposed to be a struggle.
Bekah explained: “If you make it look like it’s not hard, you feel bad or feel like you’re going to put people off. But it’s not bad to be the most dressed up person at school pickup.”
The expectation that mothers should look dishevelled, that we should suffer to prove we’re good mothers, is something we both push back against.
Taking five minutes to get dressed in something you love doesn’t make you a bad mother. It makes you a mother who’s taking care of herself so she can take care of her family.
Practical Advice for Postpartum Moms
Bekah’s final advice for new moms struggling with confidence:
“You don’t need to dress up for the outside world, even for your husband, for your baby. Dress up for you.”
Here are her practical steps:
Give yourself five minutes in the morning. Have your partner hold the baby while you pick an outfit you feel great in. Put on accessories. Put on makeup if you want. Just put on things that make you feel good.
It affects your whole day. Starting your day in something you love changes everything. You’re more likely to say yes when a friend calls. You’re more likely to go for a walk. You don’t have to change if an opportunity comes up.
Set out clothes the night before if mornings are too hectic. Once the kids are in bed, stand in front of your closet and put together an outfit that will make you feel ready for anything the next day.
Don’t worry about it getting dirty. There are washers and dryers for a reason. Baby throw up comes out. Don’t let the fear of stains keep you in clothes you don’t love.
Remember: It’s not about the trends or wearing “over the top” clothes. It’s about looking in the mirror and loving what you see. You could look great in the most basic clothes, as long as YOU feel great.
The Bottom Line
As Bekah says: “Don’t underestimate the power of faking it till you make it. And don’t underestimate how much it’ll do for you to love what you see in the mirror every day.”
This isn’t superficial. This is about identity, self-perception, and confidence.
You deserve to feel like yourself again. You deserve to look in the mirror and love what you see. And taking five minutes to get dressed in something you love isn’t selfish, it’s essential.
About Bekah Kraakman: Bekah is a personal stylist and confidence coach with a psychology degree from Stanford University. She specializes in working with mums to help them rediscover their style and confidence after having children. You can find her at www.clothesandconfidence.nl and on Instagram @clothesandconfidence
Thank you for listening!
