Bringing your baby home is when life gets really real.This is a time of huge adjustment, a steep learning curve, minimal sleep, and tons of love. The postpartum time can be riddled with emotion –sadness like the baby blues, frustration, fear, overwhelm, exhaustion, doubt. But the postpartum period can be full of wonderful emotions, too, like joy, excitement, wonder, happiness, and even confidence.
There is so much to consider about the postpartum period, and yet it’s often the forgotten piece of what it’s like to have a baby. “We’ll just wing it!” or “My mom will be around to help,” are common sentiments with the best of intentions. But winging it in postpartum can be the biggest detriment to your confidence as a parent, whether it’s your first baby or your fifth. It can lead to that first set of emotions listed above and prevent you from fully enjoying the early days with your baby.
The memories you make during the first few weeks and months of your baby’s life are ones that will stay with you forever, and we want them to be amazing. Having a blueprint for this special time can help you feel great about it. Understand that, like your birth plan, your postpartum plan is a flexible, fluid document. What you expect to do may not be what ends up working best for your family. That’s perfectly okay! But having a plan to serve as your guidelines will be a tool you appreciate for those first six weeks and beyond.
Everyone’s postpartum plan will look a little different, but there’s three main areas to cover. Begin by talking with your partner and your immediate support circle (your family, friends, and postpartum doula) about how you’re hoping postpartum will feel, what your wishes are, and how they can best support you. Here’s where to start.
How to Build Your Postpartum Plan
1. Plan for how you’ll take care of yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally.
It may sound crazy, but when you’re immersed in learning how to care for a newborn, caring for yourself often gets pushed down the priority list. It’s normal for self-care to look different once you are a parent- and at first, you might not even know how to take care of yourself anymore. Both parents should make a plan for this ahead of time. When making these plans, ask yourself:
- How will you make sure that you get enough rest? In the early weeks, the parent that gives birth needs to prioritize sleep, rest, and healing as they recover from birth. Both parents need at least a few (5 is a great goal) hours of uninterrupted sleep. How can you make this happen?
- How will you make sure you’re eating healthy, nourishing meals instead of nightly take-out? Can you arrange for a pre-planned weekly grocery delivery? Who can you rely on to bring you meals every night for the first few weeks?
- How will you make sure both parents have time to themselves to recharge and be alone? Discuss when, how, and where this will happen to make sure that you follow through on your plan.
2. Plan for what your support network will look like.
If you’re lucky enough to be surrounding by supportive friends and family, this area might be easy for you. What they say is true: it takes a village to raise a child- or, more specifically, it takes a village to help the parents raise a child. You truly can’t do this whole gig alone, so make a plan now for who you’ll lean on.
- Who is in your family support bubble? What will their jobs be? Don’t be vague with this one- everyone who’s around you should be helping in some way. Sign up your helpers for jobs like meal delivery, laundry duty, dog walking, or caring for your older kids for a few hours every afternoon.
- What are my boundaries? This is a big one! Get on the same page as your partner about what your boundaries for friends and family are. Do you want to have everyone meet the baby right away? Do you want their help with caring for baby, or caring for the house, etc? How will you communicate this to your team? Talk it out!
- Who will I turn to for help when things get hard? Gather your resources for things like breastfeeding help, healthy take-out options, housecleaning services, etc ahead of time so that if you end up needing them, you’ll already know who to call.
3. Plan for how you’ll take care of your relationship
Babies are pretty good at taking over as the star of the show once they arrive on the scene. You and your partner will both fall head-over-heels in love with your new baby, and that will probably change how you relate to one another. Though romance might not be at the top of your list at first, you should make some plans for how you and your partner will stay connected as your relationship changes.
- How do you and your partner prefer to express your love for each other? If you don’t already know, now is a great time to figure out what your Love Languages are so you can communicate with your partner even more effectively.
- How will you find a few minutes to spend together each day? Whenever you can, make it a priority to connect for at least 10 minutes every day. Put your phones- and the baby- down, and spend some time talking, cuddling, or just holding hands in the silence. As soon as you’re ready, getting out for alone time together- even if it’s just a walk around the block- will feel even better.
- What are little things that your partner does that make you feel loved? What small gestures mean the most to you? Communicate about these, so that you both know what works for each other!
It’s impossible to plan for everything- and remember, your postpartum plan should be flexible and include lots of room to change your mind and go with the flow. Your future self will be so thankful for a bit of foresight and planning to make things easier in the early days of parenting!
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