I once heard a friend describe the first month of new motherhood as much like being at the bottom of a deep well. Of course, this phase of life is amazing. You’re adapting to a completely new role, and your child is adapting to a whole new world! But it can also be scary, exhausting, and astoundingly isolating.
During this time, every minute is consumed with caring for your child. For the first time, you’ll experience what it means for someone else to literally depend on you for their survival from one moment to the next. But it’s important during this time to also take time out to care for yourself.
Listen to my Podcast Episode on Balancing Life As A Mom
Go Easy On Yourself
This is the first and most important thing that I wish I could share with more new mothers. If you thought, before you had your child, that people had a lot of opinions about what you should and should not do with your life, it’s nothing to what you get after you have a child. It seems that there are a million things that you could do wrong, somehow managing to completely ruin your child’s whole future! You’ll find people (who really have no say in the matter) telling you that bottle-feeding instead of breast-feeding will give your child lifelong psychological issues. Some will tell you that you need to pick up your child every time he or she whimpers, and others will say that your child needs to learn to self-soothe sooner rather than later.
Guess what: if you’re managing to keep your child alive and your sanity intact, you’re doing great! Sometimes, that’s enough. When you’re able to actually take a breath, then you can start thinking about getting the house clean, or making yourself healthy homemade meals.
This post has some great words of comfort about what’s expected of you these first moments.
Talk to Friends
Remember that visual of being at the bottom of a well? Part of that effect happens because you’re so consumed in your new role, that you neglect other aspects of your life and yourself that used to be important. It’s true that there are other things on your mind and in your heart right now, and if that means doing less things with your friends, then that’s okay. But all the same, remember that soon you’ll crave some adult, intelligent conversation. Feeling connected with friends, family, and loved ones outside of the intense, insular bond of mother and child will actually help you to keep your mood and energy up. Spend time talking things out with your partner, or just phone a friend in one of those 5-minute pockets that you can snatch for yourself. Feel free to unload your feelings, but keep yourself open to listening to others too. Remembering that there’s a world beyond the nursery can be amazingly refreshing.
Ask for Help
The isolation, and the burden of expectations to be a certain kind of mother, can lead us to keep certain concerns to ourselves. It’s important to remember that as much as it feels like it, you are not alone! Whether you’re stressed that your child is having health complications, or you’re experiencing postpartum depression, or that you’re just so tired that you want to tear out your hair… there’s help out there! Join a helpful mother’s forum online. Utilize a nurse’s health line to ask medical questions (most insurance services have this available.) And if you’re lucky enough to have friends, family, and a partner to help you out with this colossal task, ask them to help! It takes a village to raise a child, right?
Here’s some real talk from some of the funniest moms out there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5TbKOTZcWY
Do Something for You
Now that your life is consumed with taking care of another, it can make you feel suddenly guilty just taking a few hours for yourself. Well stop! Stop those feelings of guilt. True self-care is also about being empowered to better serve others. Taking out some time to care for your health (snatching some more hours of sleep, or maybe getting a massage) is important. You’re a better mother when you’re able to do what you must to take care of your mental, spiritual, and physical wellbeing.
During these early days of parenthood, it might be wise to take some time to determine what coping techniques will help you deal with the stresses of this role. Set some habits of self-care like these ones. Determine those things that make you feel happy, and restored. It might feel scary to allow someone else to take care of your child for a few hours, but you’ll have to get used to it at some point, and for your own health, you might need to do so sooner rather than later.
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