Reply to Best Tips for Surviving 4th Trimester

Forum Index » Expectant and Postpartum Moms

Reply to "Best Tips for Surviving 4th Trimester"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]1. Set a schedule for overnight feedings with your spouse or partner, if you have one, so you each can rely on getting a solid 4-hour sleep block per night. My DH would do the 11pm feed and 1am feed, and I’d take the 3am and 5am ones. We switch based on how each of us felt, but we realized it was much easier to do two in a row than every other when it came to getting more solid sleep.

2. If you have friends or family who volunteer to stop by to see you and “help out” let them! This was a hard one for me because I would go into entertaining mode when people came over, but if somebody says to let them hold the baby so you can do XYZ, take them up on it. It can be hard to accept help, so may be out of your comfort zone, but do it.

3. I wanted to feel as back to normal as possible the first few months. For me that meant showering and putting on fresh clothes and a little makeup every morning. I’d watch the baby while my spouse got ready for work, then he would hang with her while I took 20 minutes to get myself clean and dressed. Even if I was just putting on leggings and a comfy top, knowing I was clean and wearing fresh clothing versus dirty pajamas made me feel great and ready to tackle the day by myself.

4. Everyone says “sleep when the baby sleeps” and if that works for you, do it. But if you are type A like me, you will feel much more calm if you use the time to do what you want. For me that was light cleaning, food prep, laundry. Maybe I had less sleep than if I had snoozed when the baby was sleeping, but I felt much more productive and accomplished, which did more for my mental well-being than a cat nap could do. So what works for you!

5. Don’t be afraid to leave the house. It sounds silly, but I was nervous driving the baby by myself the first couple of weeks or taking her out on errands. I got over that quickly and realized how much happier I was if I kept us both on a schedule. I had a summer baby so the weather worked out well, but for me I scheduled a morning stroller walk, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. I do one outing a day, I run to the post office or to the grocery store. This was before Covid, so I felt a lot safer than it does this last year! but, it meant a lot to me to get us both out of the house, and really helped break up the day also.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics