Awee...what a sweet down to earth person! I can relate the the not being able to go on a diet to shed those last few pounds while BFing. It's so hard, but worth it! She sounds like she has a great realistic and healthy plan to get back to pre-preggers body! Go MELissa!! ;)

She seems so sweet!!! i totally understand what she is going through. I HATED being pregnant. As thankful as I was, and trust me it was a true blessing....I hated what I saw in the mirror...the huge nose, the bloated face, the weight gain. I was so wrapped up in how horrible I looked, I didnt allow myself to enjoy the pregnancy. She looks amazing, and watching two children is difficult, so she should give herself some more credit. I'm glad to see she is doing it the right way.....it's refreshing, since some of these celeb. moms are back to their old self within a week or so. Good for you Melissa!

That is one of the millions of fantastic things about breast milk -- it is very adapting.
There is a big myth about "needing 500 extra calories per day", but that is completely false, as proved by world renound Dr. Jack Newman (breastfeeding guru!) -- he says --

"Women on even very low calorie diets usually make enough milk, at least until the mother's calorie intake becomes critically low for a prolonged period of time. Generally, the baby will get what he needs. Some women worry that if they eat poorly for a few days this also will affect their milk. There is no need for concern. Such variations will not affect milk supply or quality. It is commonly said that women need to eat 500 extra calories a day in order to breastfeed. This is not true. Some women do eat more when they breastfeed, but others do not, and some even eat less, without any harm done to the mother or baby or the milk supply. The mother should eat a balanced diet dictated by her appetite. Rules about eating just make breastfeeding unnecessarily complicated."

Melissa need not worry -- it is VERY hard indeed (with the exception of drugs and alcohol) to compromise your breast milk, or supply by your lifestyle and diet.

Breast milk works it's very hardest to stay the most PERFECT nourishment for a baby.

I personally like Mellissa updates, and think her two boys are cute, but I am really just super tired of reading about everyone's plan to get back in shape-whether it be healthy or not. I think we as a society in general should just stop focusing on this issue at all. Because it's not really about "getting in shape" anyway. The extra weight a pregnant women puts on is not unhealthy and while it may be important to try and tone some muscles to try and loose the weight is not a health issue, but is clearly more about body image and I for one am just tired of hearing about it really

I love Melissa and her sweet family!!! She is so cute, yet so human! She makes it feel like you actually know her. She shares so much and seems so grounded.

Hi Juliana. I understand how tiring it gets constantly seeing the unrealistic standard of beauty shoved down our throats. However, I personally feel better about myself when I am lookin' good, working out, not eating crap, drinking water, sleeping enough, all that stuff. It boosts my self-esteem, which I consider to indeed be a health issue. I mean, look at the photo of Melissa in the super sexy red dress in the recent OK magazine. She looks like she's really proud of herself, and she should be.

Melissa shouldn't feel too worried about their "chaotic" lives being the cause of Mason's love of routines. He is at that stage of development where kids want to start doing the same things over & over the same way. They like to read the same stories, sing the same songs, and have things "just so." The repetition makes them feel secure and helps them learn and remember things.

Breastfeeding just takes a balanced diet...not necessarily a high calorie one!! Drinking a lot of water helps as does Brewer's Yeast!! I took it while I was breastfeeding on the advice of a nutritionist...and it helped!! I produced about 8-16 ounces of milk every 2-3hours!!

she seems like a nice down to earth lady. Both her boys are adorable. I always pictured her with 3-4 kids, so I hope one day she gets to have a girl. I picture her with all boys though, like victoria beckham and pam anderson.

Sasha-
I certainly agree with maintaining a healthy lifestyle and I sometimes can even go overboard in that endeavor. It's just sometimes I just get tired of how there are so many articles and concern about what a women is going to do to get her "old" body back after pregnancy. The concern and obsession with that just doesn't promote healthy body issues even if the woman is planning to do it in a healthy way

I'm not surprised she wants four kids in total. Melissa herself comes from a big family, though some of them are still kids themselves.

She's a good mom, though I was surprised to read she only has just started potty training Mason now. I would have thought Melissa would have started long before Brady was born so she only had one baby in diapers.

Re: "world renound Dr. Jack Newman (breastfeeding guru!)"

The day Dr. Newman is awake at 3:00am with a Hoover clamped to one of his uber-sensitive and cracked nipples for 40-minutes is the day I'll take a man's advice on breastfeeding. :-)

Hey Juliana, oh I totally agree with you. The headlines blaring "she had a baby two weeks ago and she's ready to GET THAT WEIGHT OFF" are bizarre. And the amount of Photoshopping women's bodies (and faces even) in magazines now, it's complete fraud! Raising children is the most challenging work there is, and we don't need any extra pressure.

Rofl at 'Hoover'! Did that ever paint the picture!

DLR-

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR POST!! That guy needs to breast feed a baby before he says you don't need 500 extra calories!! You may not NEED them but the question is will you WANT them...and the answer is "YES PLEASE".
The hungriest I've ever been is when I'm breastfeeding, WAY more than when I'm pregnant - there's a reason! There's a baby living off of you! I eat ravenously when I'm breastfeeding...Don't know about others people..

Robin,
Either you aren't a mother or your children are potty superstars. Any mother of a typical toddler knows that you can't just potty train when YOU find it convenient to. There are many different variables to potty training.

Anyways, beautiful family.

Mom2boys: Actually you can just potty train a child when it's convenient if you are persistent enough about it. In the 80's and early 90's children were routinely potty trained between the ages of 1 1/2 and 2 years old, and despite the dire warnings some pediatricians give about how potty training that early will cause harm to the child, the kids who were potty trained that earlier are perfectly fine. It does not harm a child to be potty trained early, it just requires that the parents be patient, persistant, and accepting of the fact that even though a child doesn't grasp a concept within the first few minutes does not mean it's time to give up. Many parents claim their child isn't ready when really they're just not ready to do the amount of work it takes, so they wait until their kids can practically do the work themselves. So there's really no reason why Melissa couldn't have potty trained her child before the new baby was born - not that I'm saying she should have, because that is completely her choice, but it would have been possible if she had wanted that.

I love that Melissa is breastfeeding. I would like to weigh in on one issue that I heard Melissa say on a TV interview. She said she "couldn't drink caffeine because she was breastfeeding". My doc says a cup of coffee in the morning or a soda in the afternoon is perfectly ok! I just wouldn't want a woman to choose not to breastfeed because they heard something like that.