The New Mothers Survival Guide

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Survive the 1st Year with a New Baby

INTRODUCTION
You did it: you made it through the pregnancy and now you have your beautiful baby. What now? Unless you are fortunate enough to have wise relatives and friends living nearby who are willing and able to guide you through your first year with a baby, you may spend a good portion of your time feeling as though you really don't know what you are doing. On the other hand, sometimes having people near you who want to give you advice can actually make things harder to deal with.

NO, YOU'RE NOT CRAZY
You may be one of the very few women who take to new motherhood with absolutely no problems. Maybe you are right back to filling your freezer with meals you made lovingly by hand and figure out how to knit while nursing your baby and singing lullabies. Then there are the rest of us. It is a bizarre right of passage among most new mothers to truly feel as though you have lost your mind. Many new mothers go through a period of time when they feel as though there cannot be another mother out there who feels as exhausted, as overwhelmed, and as inept as they do. The truth is that most moms spend a good portion of the first year second guessing themselves and feeling just a little bit crazy. The important thing to remember is that these feelings eventually do fade away as you get more and more comfortable with your role as a mother. Soon enough, the fun you have with your baby will outweigh the stressful moments.

ACKNOWLEDGE THE PHYSICAL CHANGES

Survive the 1st Year with a New Baby

how wacky you felt post-partum. Until then, try to cut yourself some slack and not be surprised by your emotions. As long as you aren't going over the deep end ­ such as having trouble caring for yourself or the baby, or having thoughts of hurting yourself or the baby ­ then everything you are feeling is probably normal. Just think of it as riding an interesting roller coaster, which you will eventually be able to get off of...just not quite yet. You need some rest. You'll be told to get rest right after you have your baby, but what about in the months following that initial post-partum period? Here is a fact about the first year of raising a baby: it is exhausting. You don't get to get the sleep you used to get, you are up until all hours of the evening when the baby is ill, and you are still trying to physically recover from the stress of having a baby for many months after the actual labor. You'll hear this time and time again from other mothers: nap when the baby naps. You may laugh and respond that the
baby's nap time is the only time you have to yourself, or maybe that it is the only time you have to get anything done. Here it is again, so pay attention: nap when the baby naps. In the beginning, your baby's naps will probably seem erratic and unpredictable, but a few months into it you may notice that there is a pattern to the baby's napping. Your baby will probably take anywhere from one nap to many naps throughout the day, so do your best to indulge in at least one nap at some point while your baby is snoozing. It's just easier to deal with things when you get enough rest, but since you probably aren't getting a full night's sleep, then you have to grab sleep when the opportunity arises. If that means catching a small cat nap at two o'clock in the afternoon, so be it. It's better than spending your day stumbling around like a sleep-deprived zombie and then passing out of sheer exhaustion when the baby finally does go to sleep for the night. You need rest...there is just no getting around it. You may be
surprised at the change in your body. Most women have an interesting story about how their bodies changed after having babies. You may hear women talk about developing certain allergies after the birth of their babies, for example. Or perhaps you will hear a story from a woman about how she used to have migraines but then after the birth of her baby she never experienced another headache. Changes to the body after pregnancy can be both good and bad, but they are usually interesting. Why should having a baby change a woman's allergies or tendencies toward headaches? Doctors will offer various explanations, but the best explanation is this: It just does. If you find that you have perplexing changes to your body after the birth of your baby, then take solace in the fact that you aren't alone. Alert your doctor of any alarming changes to your body, but you need to recognize that some changes just don't go away. In other words, some changes during pregnancy and after the delivery are permanent, even after your ba
by has headed off to college. Hopefully, any changes you experience are for the best, but if you find that your body just isn't what it used to be before you had babies, then you have just joined the ranks of many, many women all over the world.


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Survive the 1st Year with a New Baby

You truly are not the only mom going through this. When you see other women with their babies, they may make the whole thing seem effortless, while you feel as though it is more of an ordeal than anything else. What you may not realize is that these women have their bad days too, and they probably spend a good portion of their time feeling as though they have no idea what is going on just like you do. Don't feel as though you are the only new mom who feels as though you don't know what to do from moment to moment. In the first year of your baby's life you will inevitably feel inept, confused, and bewildered. Being a mom is truly a job that you learn as you go and learn from your mistakes. Whenever you catch yourself feeling as though you are the only new mom who doesn't know how to properly roll up a diaper, or how to suction out your baby's nose, or how to clip your baby's toenails, just understand that everyone has to learn sometime, and your time is now. Instead of feeling helpless, try to empower yoursel
f to learn things as you go and become the kind of mom who isn't afraid of anything. Does your baby have a splinter in her finger? No problem; grab the tweezers. Is the swing broken? No big deal; grab a screwdriver. You will feel much better about your skills as a mother when you jump right in and just do it regardless of your fears and apprehensions attached to tackling things that aren't familiar to you.

GET YOUR BODY BACK
Take it easy on the exercise initially. You may be really gung-ho to get your pre-pregnancy body shape back, but in the beginning you need to recognize that you are still recovering from having your baby. If you overdo it, you might wind up stifling your recovery or really hurting yourself. You should plan your exercise regimen around what your activity level was prior to getting pregnant, and also relative to how much exercise you got during the pregnancy as well. For example, if you ran marathons before getting pregnant and continued light jogs on the treadmill all the way up to your seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, then it seems completely reasonable that you might start attending aerobics classes once your doctor gives you the green light to work out. On the other hand, if you considered a light walk around the block to be all the exercise you needed before you got pregnant and then avoided any form of exercise whatsoever during your pregnancy, you are going to need to ease into an exercise routine
carefully. Sometimes it's difficult to take your time with something like this because there may be an urgency you feel about losing weight. Just know that taking it at a reasonable pace will ultimately help you lose the weight in a way that will allow you to make a permanent change. The alternative it is to do it too quickly and too dramatically and then wind up eventually gaining it all back and then some.


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