Give yourself a daily routine from day 1 with the baby at home
This is so important, and will help you feel so much more in control during a time where you may feel like everything is spinning out of control! Establishing a routine for yourself (and sticking to it) is a way for you to feel like a human and not just a milk machine. Now, we don’t expect you to be running errands and doing unnecessary things, but creating a simple routine like waking up, enjoying coffee outside for some fresh air, taking a shower and putting on clothes (other than your pajamas) when you wake up will make you feel so much better, we promise!
Then, take 10 minutes to tidy up your place. You don’t have to start cleaning baseboards, but you can put away dishes, maybe make your bed, open up the windows to get some fresh air flowing through the house and clear away any clutter from the day before. Even better, you can review anything you need for the home, yourself or baby and write it down in your planner that we mentioned above. Set a timer for 10 minutes and once the timer is up, you’re done! Easy peasy!
Give yourself a set time for lunch and dinner so that you know you’re eating and taking care of yourself throughout the day. Noon for lunch is perfect and whenever your hubby gets home from work is great for dinner!
In the evenings, take a walk to make sure you’ve gotten outside at least once in a day to prevent cabin fever. This is a great time to get some fresh air and bond with your hubby without any screens in front of you.
Commit to Visiting Hours
This is a biggie! Listen up – once the baby is born you will have an influx of visitors who want to all come and see you and the new baby (more the new baby and not you but we’ll pretend). This can be so overwhelming for new parents, especially if you’re tired and hormonal. At that point, the last thing you’ll want to do is entertain all day long. So, during those first few weeks, we suggest having solid visiting hours and stick to them.
A good example is allowing visitors to come in the mornings between 9 – 12 PM and then again from 4-6 PM. This gives you some alone time during the middle of the day to recover and nap. Not having any visitors past dinner time allows you to get into your nighttime routine uninterrupted and also allows you and your hubby to have alone time during those first few weeks. Also, during the first two weeks, we suggest telling everyone to keep the visits to about an hour so you can establish breastfeeding and also have a break in between visitors so you don’t always have a full house.
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