Having a new baby is intense. Especially when it’s your first child, there’s a need there that you’ve never experienced before. You’re needed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no end in sight. In the beginning, when you’re recovering from birth, you are very tired. You may be learning how to nurse your baby, and this may or may not go smoothly.
It can be a challenge to survive these first weeks of your baby’s life. How can you set up a system to catch you when it feels like too much to handle?
• Ask people to help with food. Have food in the house: freezer meals, healthy snacks, and lots of liquids, especially if you’re nursing. Give yourself permission to eat sandwiches for dinner for a while.
• Take a time out. When you’re alone with your baby and you feel like you are going to lose it, put your baby in a safe place like a crib and move to another room for a minute. Take a deep breath. Make a cup of tea. Call a friend or a relative for help if you feel you need it.
• Develop strategies to cope with your baby’s needs. If your baby has trouble getting to sleep or becoming calm, resources like Harvey Karp’s Happiest Baby on the Block may help.
• If you can, sleep when your baby sleeps. It is hard to function on very little and interrupted sleep, especially if you’re used to sleep eight to nine hours a night. Go to bed early.
• Go for walks around the neighbourhood, even if it is rainy. If it’s very cold outside and you’re stuck at home, open a window for a few minutes and use an exercise bike, mini trampoline, or an exercise video to get some aerobic exercise and fresh air.
• Find some quiet time in the day. Nurse your baby and watch television or read a book. Go out in the garden and pick some flowers or vegetables. Go for a walk in the woods. Don’t feel guilty about the house cleaning – in time, your house will be clean again, likely when your children move out of the house. Until then, relax your standards a little and gain some quiet time.
What do you do when life with a newborn feels like it’s too much?