The moment your pregnancy test gave a positive result, you likely started planning how your future would revolve around your child. Kids need their parent’s full attention, especially when they’re still infants. Knowing how you’ll best care for your baby is essential, but don’t miss the opportunity to learn these self-care postpartum tips that help new moms enjoy motherhood even more.
Why Is Postpartum Self-Care Important?
Worrying about your infant’s well-being is normal for a new mom. The stakes are high when you’re caring for a newborn and you’re in charge of needs you’ve never handled before. It’s why new moms commonly neglect their own needs, increasing their risk of depression due to burnout.
Postpartum self-care will help you enjoy every moment of your newborn’s life even more. You’ll support your mental and physical health with simple changes to your daily routine. The resulting burst of energy will help you give more attention to your child without feeling your identity fade away.
6 Best Self-Care Postpartum Tips
Use these self-care postpartum tips to plan a better life with your infant or improve your well-being today. They’re essential ways to fortify your mental and physical health so you can show up for your child with as much energy as possible.
1. Find Ways to Rest
Your body exerts energy every moment you’re awake. Your brain uses it to think, you need energy to walk around and your postpartum body needs extra energy to heal or produce breast milk. Every postpartum self-care routine should include recurring opportunities to rest.
This might mean asking for help occasionally, as your baby will need you throughout each day and night. Get some sleep while a loved one watches your child or recline with a book during one of your baby’s many power naps. You’ll immediately exert less energy, allowing your mind and body to recuperate.
While you rest, you can always daydream about what self-care means to you. It’s helpful to have active and passive forms of self-care to avoid setting high expectations for your personal journey. Rest as passive self-care and daydream about active forms you can try later. You might enjoy revitalizing your skin cells with spa treatments when you have more time or scheduling a dinner with friends while a loved one watches your baby.
2. Follow a Nutrition Plan
Everyone should get a well-rounded nutrition plan that includes proteins, fats, carbs and vitamins in each meal. New mothers need additional nutritional support. Your body is healing and producing breast milk, so you’ll need extra nutrients like protein, vitamin B and vitamin D to give yourself and your baby as much strength as possible.
Talk with your doctor or a nutritionist to form a general meal plan that doesn’t rely on processed foods. Even if it means asking for help with meal prepping or cooking, your postpartum experience will be much easier when your body gets the nutrients it requires to help you and your infant thrive.
3. Save Five Minutes for Yourself
Although spending every moment with your newborn is a gift, many new moms feel their identities slipping away when they don’t reserve time for themselves. If your life revolves exclusively around your child, you might feel frustrated at losing touch with your sense of self.
Remember to save at least five minutes each day for self-care activities that don’t relate to motherhood. You could turn on your favorite streaming show to decrease your stimulation while your baby breastfeeds. Get up five minutes before your baby wakes to eat breakfast and watch the news. The best self-care postpartum tips always include moments that fortify your identity so you feel more empowered in this new phase of life.
4. Exercise With Your Doctor’s Approval
New moms endure an onslaught of advertisements for workout routines to get their previous bodies back. Even if you want to just get back to the gym routine you enjoyed before getting pregnant, avoiding strenuous exercise is crucial until you get your doctor’s approval. Exercising too intensely could injure your healing abdominal muscles or result in uterine prolapse and corrective surgery.
Talk with your doctor if you’re interested in exercising after giving birth. They’ll recommend gentle exercises that are best for your body, given your health history and birth experience.
5. Let Go of Expectations
Sometimes, new moms have conscious or subconscious expectations for their postpartum journey. They might imagine they should never feel stressed or easily have every answer to their baby’s needs. It’s better to avoid holding yourself to high expectations so you don’t miss out on self-care opportunities that help long-term.
You might think you need to do something big to minimize your stress, like committing to an exercise class three times a week. Releasing that expectation opens new possibilities. You could more comfortably reduce your stress with meditative breathing exercises through at-home yoga or breathing videos.
Journaling is an excellent way to recognize your expectations. Speak them into a note on your phone if you don’t have the energy to write. Reflecting will help you identify patterns in self-expectations and more effectively let go of them in favor of realistic goals.
6. Start a Shared Hobby
Hobbies are an essential form of postpartum self-care. They minimize daily stress, boost a person’s self-confidence and strengthen the social connections you need with friends and family members.
Consider who you might enjoy spending time with regularly. You could play a conversational card game once a week with your partner to retain your romantic connection even while you’re both exhausted.
If you don’t have a partner, start a hobby with a friend. That could mean a ten-minute phone call once a week, playing a two-person game on your phone while you breastfeed or using an app to watch the same show together while you care for your infant. The smallest hobbies preserve the relationships that make life extra meaningful in addition to your identity as a new mom.
Care for Yourself as You Heal
Remember these self-care postpartum tips as you prepare for your birthing experience or care for your newborn at home. You’ll fortify your mind and body without compromising the attention your infant needs. Every effort will make life even more enjoyable as you shift into your new role as a mother.
