Calling All Postpartum Wisdom
The things you couldn’t live without and the things you wish someone had told you.
Friends, hi!
Last week I shared the news that I’m expecting my first baby this spring — a sentence that still feels a little wild and miraculous to type. Your kindness, encouragement, and generosity in the comments truly meant the world to me. Thank you for holding so much joy and tenderness with me!
Now I’m entering the stage where I look around my house with a deep need to clean the pantry and the baseboards, my calendar (what is time?), my freezer (that literally can’t be stocked with enough popsicles), my swelling ankles, and I think… ok, what exactly happens next?
I’ve read the books (lol, a book - singular). I’ve Googled the lists (can report there are an overwhelming amount). We’ve purchased a Pack n’ Play that looks suspiciously like camping equipment. I know enough to know that I’m about to have my world rocked (and that’s probably an understatement?).
I suspect the real wisdom lives with people who have actually done this.
So I’m turning to you. (Please help!)
Many of you have walked the road into postpartum already, and I would love to gather your wisdom. The practical things, the emotional things, the standing in your kitchen at 3am holding a baby and wondering what you can eat with the other hand. I hear one-handed foods become essential. Is this true?
If you’re willing, tell me in the comments:
What’s one thing that truly saved you during postpartum?
I’m talking mind, body, and spirit.
I’ll take any words you have for me! Maybe it’s a robe, a snack, a particular kind of pillow essential after a C-section?
Maybe it was something that helped you emotionally. Wait, did someone tell me about an app that creates a little glow of light on a map of mom’s awake breastfeeding? My brain is squishy, but I think this is a thing.
Maybe it was something someone did for you that made all the difference.
Your answers will help me prepare for this next season, and I suspect they’ll help other readers here who are walking the same road.
Thank you for sharing, friends! I can’t wait to read what you have to say!
xo Joy
Congratulations! I am a nurse for first time moms and a mom of twins. Postpartum nonnegotiable is….Shower daily. It won’t the the same time every day, it maybe at night mid day or in the morning (anytime someone can sit with the baby bc you always hear a baby crying in the shower; it’s weird) but it can save your sanity. Give yourself a break; your job in the beginning is feed baby, clean baby, hold baby and feed yourself be clean and have someone give you a hug if you can lol.
Oh and remember “crying doesn’t mean dying” that’s how babes talk to say absolutely everything so take a breath and you got this 👏😊
Things that truly saved me postpartum:
- getting off of social media!!! I didn’t do this until my third baby but my god, did it save me mentally in so many ways.
- finding a good book to listen to or read on my kindle app so I always had it on hand and could read during feedings.
- I picked a comfort show to binge watch during late night feedings. Mine was Gilmore Girls. Also helped to have a snack I’d eat during that time. And truthfully, mine was Ghirardelli chocolate chips because no one tells you that breastfeeding / postpartum cravings are also a very real thing!!
- having more than one nursing pillow around the house so I wasn’t always trying to track it down
- having a friend set up a meal train so friends could bring me meals or send me gift cards for take out
- being very honest with my husband and talking to him all about how I was feeling/not holding any of it in.
- getting outside with my baby at least once a day.
- a baby carrier / wrap — allowed me to have babies contact nap and still have my hands free and the ability to move around the house
- with my first two I put them in their own room by the time they were 3 weeks old 😬 with my third he was in our room for like 6 months. Do what works for YOU. If you can’t stand the baby grunts in the middle of the night, it’s okay for the baby to be in his or her own room!
Lastly, the biggest thing I wish someone had told me after my first baby is that it is okay to not love every second of becoming a mom and motherhood. In fact, you won’t love every second. However, this in no way makes you a bad mom or means you love your baby any less. It just means you’re human, and you too are learning a new way of being in the world. 🫶🏼
Truly so excited for you, can’t wait to see you become a mama! This baby is already luckier than he or she knows!