As I look back on those first few weeks and months of being a new mom, there are so many thing I’d wish I’d known. My best friend is getting ready to have her first child and as I thought of all the things to tell her, this blog post was born.
1. Don’t expect to fit back into your pre-pregnancy clothes immediately.
I knew everyone said it would take time, but I seriously tried on my jeans two days after having my first baby just to “see” if they’d fit. They didn’t. It took 40 weeks (give or take a few) to develop your baby, don’t expect your body to undo all of that in a few days or weeks.
2. Drink lots of water.
Especially if you’re breast feeding. Your body needs water and keeping a water bottle next to you will help you remember to drink. Once the baby falls asleep in your lap, you won’t want to get up, so just have that bottle of water next to you before you sit down. (In fact, you should start your day with water, too.)
3. Have meals planned out or in the freezer.
Your time will be taken up healing from birth and taking care of your precious newborn. If you haven’t showered yet and suddenly realize that supper should be ready in 20 minutes, it’s all too easy to panic. Put together your favorite slow cooker and freezer meals before you have the baby so you’ve got something to fall back on. Here’s our favorite slow cooker cabbage rolls.
4. Make your food count.
With interrupted sleep, taking care of a baby, a whole new schedule, a recovering body, and all of your regular responsibilities it can be easy to reach for sugar or caffeine for energy. Resist. Instead go for fermented foods rich with probiotics, nourishing bone broth, and healthy fats. Here are our easy real food swaps to help makeover your recipes.
5. Let people help you.
If someone asks if they can help, let them. When I had my second child my mother-in-law asked if she could bring supper one night. It was a relief to know I didn’t have to come up with dinner and could relax and enjoy the company with our new baby. (I hadn’t planned ahead with those meals or freezer cooking…)
6. Don’t worry about how things look.
I knew people would want to come and see my new baby. I also knew it would be at my house. I worried if things were picked up, floors clean, windows smudge free. But my friends and family were there to celebrate the beautiful new life in our family, not the cleanliness of our home.
7. Turn your anxieties over to God.
As this new little life fills your heart like nothing you can imagine, you’ll worry. You’ll worry something will happen to them, you’ll worry you’ll fail as a parent, you’ll worry about anything and everything since you want nothing but happiness and goodness to touch your baby. You’ll stand there and watch them breathe, finding it the most fascinating thing you’ve ever witnessed. When worry starts (and it will), hand it over to God in prayer. He knew no one else was better equipped to be a mother to this baby and He doesn’t make mistakes. He’ll lead and guide you on this new road called motherhood.
Do you have any tips for new mothers?
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Great advice! Taking your freezer meal idea one step further we blessed my sister with a month’s worth of meals cooked and ready to reheat from the freezer as our baby gift for two of her children. This is especially helpful for moms who already have one or two children and don’t need big ticket items like crib or stroller, but do need the extra rest not having to cook will provide. Since they are frozen they will last for another time if church or family bring a meal ready to eat one night.
Love that idea, Lee! I will have to do that next time we have another baby niece or nephew born. 🙂
Great idea as a gift for families who already have children and thus, like you wrote, have all the big items!!! I hope to keep it in mind.
Love all of the advices, wish I had been prepared too, I am a new mom, for the fourth time!!! My latest is three months old.
So I would like to add some things if I may:
In 1. it is hard not to look great a couple of months after giving birth but if you are breastfeeding mind your milk supply, the baby is more important than how we look right now, and we will shed the extra width with time!!!
In 3. double or triple on the receipes you make in the last month or so before giving birth, eat one, freeze one or two.
What has worked for me is, if by noon, I don’t have anything ready for dinner I pull one out from the freezer and start it in the slowcooker to thaw on low or cook on high.
8. When you have older children and are homeschooling, just say you are in an intense social studies class all day long with some math tagging along, learn not to worry about what other people might think or might say (I’m learning to take this advice). It is just a few months when academics have to take the backstage and real life experiences are the top priority, these are not vacations just a shift in perspective.
In 7. do turn to God, He has just brought one of the most marvelous miracle to your life, enjoy every minute of it. It is a season that never comes back quite the same.
The asking for or letting others help. That’s a big one. I so not have children but iit about wrecked me to see my friends try and do it all. I always offer laundry or grocery services. My life might be busy but you just made a person and it needs you more than. The windows need cleaning.
When my oldest son was born, I really struggled with how much I missed my mom, who had passed away three years earlier. about a week after the birth, my mom’s best friend called me. What a gift! Her advice was two-fold: Take care of myself, even if the baby was crying. Taking a five minute shower can do wonders for oneself, whereas it won’t hurt a baby to lie in a crib alone for a few minutes. That was a revelation.
Secondly, she said simply to trust myself. Another revelation! I was the best person in the world (Alongside my husband) to care for and love that child. I knew instinctively how to mother, if I would just trust myself. Those pieces of advice carried me through those early weeks. I believe my mom would’ve said exactly the same things!