From One Mom to Another: Tips for a Smoother Postpartum!
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by Rosey Mathis
My first postpartum was quite challenging. I felt like I had a difficult transition to motherhood. The second time, I was determined to have a better experience! And I did! We do not have a lot of family available to help so I was limited in that area. These are things I did to help myself through my second postpartum:
Stock your freezer with easy to prepare meals and stock the pantry with quick snacks for yourself and younger kids, if you have them. (I loved energy balls during this time. My daughter loved them and they were a great lactation friendly snack.) For quick meal options, I love Trader Joe’s and Costco. We also tried a grocery/meal delivery service (Hello Fresh). I personally found this to be way too much work for early postpartum though. Plan to grab takeout here and there if it is in your budget!
Keep snacks near your nursing station. I am not a nighttime snacker, but having a snack I really enjoyed gave me something to look forward to when baby was waking up frequently at night! I loved having a treat for myself and it motivated me to get up with baby when I was super tired. I loved Aloha protein bars during this time! I would eat one or half a bar with water or an electrolyte drink when baby woke to nurse.
Minimize light in the bedroom when you get up to feed baby to make it easier for you and baby to go back to sleep. I avoided using my phone at all at night. I kept a notepad and pen on my bedside table in case I wanted to record feeding times, etc. and would enter them into my phone later. I used a Himalayan Salt Lamp and a red light bulb which I placed into the lamp on my nightstand. The minimal bright light helped me and baby get back to sleep quicker once the feeding was over. I did keep a book for reading nearby in case I felt I needed to “do something” while feeding baby.
Keep going back to sleep until you get a combined decent amount of sleep (6-8+ hours). The sleep will be broken, but it makes a huge difference in how you feel if you can prioritize this. You might need to go to bed very early like 7-8pm when baby goes to sleep, but just continue going back to sleep (when baby is sleeping) overnight until you get that total amount of 6-8 hours. I understand this isn’t always possible with younger children. A lot of nights I would roughly record when I slept on my bedside table notebook. This helped me mentally too because I could either say “I barely slept last night” and feel awful all day, or, I could see what I recorded and that I actually slept 7 broken hours in total. Seeing that truly made me feel better and less anxious about my sleep… and made me feel better physically.
Taking Cara Babies Newborn Class! Being consistent with this really helped my baby start sleeping very, very well by 3 months old.
Support yourself with supplements postpartum! To support my mood I went with flaxseed oil, turmeric, vitamin D, a postnatal vitamin, Magnesium Glycinate, Reishi Mushroom, and the homeopathic remedy Ignatia Amara 200 (this is only taken a few times per week). I later incorporated L-Theanine 200mg three times per day to help with anxiety. I also loved homeopathy for helping me return to sleep in the middle of the night if I was having trouble. I like Calms Forte, Coffea Cruda, Nux Vom, or Bach’s Rescue Remedy but there are a lot of options! I worked with a few homeopaths during pregnancy and postpartum for specific recommendations. You should always clear any supplement you plan on taking with your own doctor before starting a regimen.
Get outside, take walks, and do things with or without your baby as much as you can. Even for five minutes. Doing this and making it a priority really helped me feel “normal” postpartum.
I hired a postnatal psychologist to work with postpartum. She used the app Voxer and I could connect with her Monday-Friday during business hours. It really helped to have someone to talk to almost daily! I know this isn’t always financially accessible for everyone. I do know other options, that are covered by insurance, exist.
Connect with a lactation consultant and do not be shy about asking for help. Breastfeeding can be challenging and we all need support to get through the tough times that come with it.
I didn’t have a perfect postpartum the second time, but everything was so so much better! I look back on that time very fondly now one year later.
Bonus tip: If people offer to help/bring food/watch baby—-say yes! This one was hard for me, but I made myself say yes when help was offered. My first postpartum I wanted to “do it all”. This time I knew that was NOT possible. So I had a goal to take any help offered that I could!