Taking Care Of Yourself After Childbirth
Childbirth is a very intense time. It is also a wonderful time, and likely the best time of your life. However, the wonder and sheer miracle of having a child is not without its work. It’s likely you understand this already. However, when the time comes, the entire experience can seem to happen simultaneously so fast and so slow that you may forget the most important part of the aftercare - ensuring you heal well.
This is, unfortunately, the time where it’s easy to feel lethargic. Your body has been through the ringer, and now you have a small infant to take care of every waking moment. This is an absolute privilege, but it’s important to ensure you’re up to the task.
Luckily, there are a few tips you can use to ensure you take care of yourself during this period. This is not selfish if you find the right time to do it. After all, your baby cannot be looked after well if you’re not feeling yourself or feel energized enough to take care of it. With the following tips, you can be sure to work well.
Prepare Your Home
Preparing your home for the inevitable birth of your child is worthwhile to do. You might be at your most pregnant a few weeks before, so it might pay to ask a partner or friend to help you with this. We’d recommend getting in a good clean (as much as you can,) in order to ensure you come home to a fresh, beautiful and tidied home. Of course, this is not absolutely essential, but it can help tremendously. We’d also recommend organizing the items you need. For example, arranging your baby changing station in a configuration that allows you to find all necessary items and complete the task in a matter of moments.
This also might mean indexing how you keep your baby help resources, or simply ensuring that the baby monitors work ahead of time, and having them ready your bedside tables. It might mean ensuring towels are never too far off, and medication you might need in post-care is nestled safely in your bedside draw in a pill days container.
Inspect & Check
Your body often goes through the ringer during pregnancy. This can be a great time to try and get back in shape, as long as you don’t overdo it. You might consider eating a more nutritious meal, or supplement better with vitamin and minerals, fish oil and vitamin D. You might also consider post-pregnancy care, such as rejuvenating loose skin after pregnancy with the right healthcare product. This can help you build up your confidence one step at a time, and begin feeling like the attractive and body confident woman you deserve to be!
Get Sleep Where You Can
Sleep is one of the most golden resources you can find for yourself right now. Hopefully, you have maternity leave at this point. This means that you have the time in the day to focus on your sleep and ensure you get enough hours. At night, this might seem like a very difficult task. Night time is very long and very dark from the perspective of a new child, and it’s easy for them to get overwhelmed. Remember how as a child you never wanted to go to sleep in the evening, only to regret those decisions in adulthood by a million percent? An infant has that feeling of complete worry at night, especially if you’re not to be found. Sometimes they want to feed, sometimes they feel scared, sometimes they are uncomfortable, and sometimes they just want you around.
For this reason, it always pays to take this time in turns with your partner. That will allow you to stay focused on attending to your child and also ensuring you share the load equally. However, during the day, when your child enjoys a nap (or a few as recommended,) this can be your golden hour of sleeping. Get adept at grabbing hours of rest when you can. Your sleep cycle may suffer, but at least you won’t be crawling around your house with fatigue.
Share The Load
Sharing the load of taking care of your child can work in the early days. Also, be sure to ensure your partner pulls their weight. This might mean forcing them to do their share of the diaper changes despite however much bargaining they try and give you. Parenting is a job for two, and sometimes this needs to be enforced. For single parents, enlisting the help of a grandmother/father or close friend can mean the world to you and your sanity at this point. If this is not an option, you might find that asking for support could help you. For example, you may be able to gain excess government support in the materials you are lent, or have priority booking when it comes to parental post care therapy.
Sharing the load is fine, acceptable, and does not impact your standing as a quality parent. It can mean the world for keeping you energized, ensuring the home is kept up with, and to ensure your infant is protected. This might be as simple as paying a friend some money or another form of value in order to clean your house once a week. Small helpful additions like this can lead to big improvements down the road, and that can do wonders for the entire parental experience.
Allow For Nights Off
If you can, schedule nights off. This might be a night once a fortnight where your own parent takes the reigns and looks after your child for an evening. Here you might simply catch up on sleep, enjoy a glass of wine with a movie, or go to dinner with your friends. A little time to break away from the pace of life can help you both reflect on your privilege as a parent, and come back feeling refreshed.
This might not be a common thing, and sometimes you might not even want to go. But having that option open for infrequent recreation can only be a good thing, and help you push forward as a wonderful parent.
Play
So far the tone of our article has been interested in either giving you a mental break or worrying about the load of responsibility you have for your child. However, this is not all a child is. A child can be a wonderful bundle of joy to experience. For example, playing with them can usually melt away all of your anxieties. This might be limited to begin with - from simply playing with their cradle mobile to letting their little hand hold your finger. It might be gently rocking them and singing to them at night, or tickling them a little when they’re old enough to understand and react to it favorably.
This will show you the magic of a child, and give you time to appreciate their presence all the more. Remember, they grow up very quickly, and you’ll only have one childhood to experience with them. With the right attitude here, you can experience some fantastic moments that are irreplaceable.
With these tips, you are sure to enjoy the process of motherhood with nothing but joy and a sense of belonging. This will likely be the best time of your life, and your journey only starts here. As the days go by you will become a loving and competent parent, and forge memories to share for the rest of your life. Be sure to stay present, and the wonderful role of a parent is yours to experience!