LaTonya Yvette is a multi-hyphenate mama who makes work-at-home motherhood look incredibly stylish. As a stylist, blogger, and the author of the new book Woman of Color, Yvette is inspiring other women and mothers as she tackles all kinds of topics.

A blog that started out as a way to document her journey as a young millennial mom has grown with Yvette and is a reflection of the fact that mothers are multifaceted people and that the lifestyle space, which is so often minimized by those outside it, is also a space for very important conversations.

During the third episode of the second season of The Motherly Podcast , Sponsored by Prudential, Yvette tells Motherly co-founder Liz Tenety about her transition from a 21-year-old new mom trying to figure out how to dress her new body to an author who is impacting the lives of so many other mothers.

On style as self-care

The stereotype of a mom in yoga pants could never be used to describe Yvette. For her, yoga pants all day isn’t going to make her feel like her best self, something she wants every mom to be able to feel like.

From her early days as a stylist, when she dressed new moms who weren’t sure what to wear after their bodies had changed, to the present day as she had a huge platform as an influencer and author, Yvette wants women to to make time to take care of their style. Because if it is important to you, you don’t have to give it up just because you are a mother.

“We feel like our best like selves when we’re actually taking care of our mental health. And you know that’s style for me,” she tells Tenety. “It’s so much about self-care and a lot of it has to do with just like putting myself forward so that I then can give to my children.”

For Yvette, this means that when she puts her kids clothes out at night she makes time to put her own clothes out, too. It’s a little thing, but it’s a time saver and a simple act that reinforces that she is a priority in her own life.

On finding your style after motherhood

For so many moms, getting dressed after having a baby is more challenging than expected. Our bodies change, what we need our clothes to do for us on a practical level changes, and the whole relationship with our closet can become a lot more complicated. Yvette suggests that moms who are feeling uninspired or stuck in a style rut take an inventory of their clothes, because sometimes the clothes we’ve collected aren’t a fit for our current lives.

“I always say first things first is like look at your closet right. Like, look at what you have in there because it might not even be you. It might just be inspired by the things that are in there. You’re not inspired. It’s not just a time thing. It’s like actually things that you have that no longer speak to you and speak to who you are or who you want to be,” Yvette says.

When it comes to figuring out what you’re going to wear once you’re out of your maternity jeans (and don’t worry if that takes a few months, mama, baby bumps don’t disappear over night), Yvette suggests moms put away their old jeans rather than think about getting back into them. It’s totally okay to just get new jeans.

“I think you know false expectations are really dangerous, and so I think that like putting up the jeans that you wore before and literally not looking at them unless like you somehow know you’ve lost all your weight you know. Like it’s not worth it,” she explains.

To hear more from Woman of Color author LaTonya Yvette about style, motherhood, race and writing, listen to The Motherly Podcast , sponsored by Prudential, for the full interview.

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