Finding out that you will be a mother is one of the most exciting news to any woman. Within no time, you find yourself planning for your unborn child, doing extensive research to prepare yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically. However, most mothers will tell you that the information available is quite extensive. So, here is a quick guide you can use to ensure you’re on track.
Tips For Before Birth
- Practice Breathing Exercises
It is pretty helpful if you learn and practice breathing exercises. Breathing exercises train your mind and body on how to mitigate the pain. However, the strategy can only be successful if you practice it early enough during pregnancy. The trick is not letting any negative thoughts influence your mind and breathing exercises to calm you.
- Eat Well
You have a little life growing inside you, which results in many changes in your metabolism. For example, your body is working to serve the energy needs of two people. Similarly, the amount of toxic products in your body increases due to the high metabolism activities to help your baby’s growth.
The indicative signs of such activity include increased appetite, frequent visits to the washrooms, and feelings of fatigue. You might also notice that your skin begins to become dry due to the toxic waste leaving your body through sweat. It would help if you considered treating and preventing dry skin during pregnancy by washing in lukewarm water, exfoliating dry skin and using moisturizers.
- Exercise
Yoga and exercise are great ways to take care of yourself. It is a great way to get your mind off the anxieties of becoming a mother by keeping your mind busy. Yoga focuses on achieving mental clarity and helps you feel good about yourself.
It would be best to not push yourself too hard during exercise. Instead, you can make your exercise sessions fun by focusing on more innovative approaches such as dance and light cardio exercises.
- Get Enough Sleep
Any mother can tell you that you get pretty exhausted when you are a mother. As your child grows, it becomes more and more challenging to walk and even perform household chores. However, it is pretty standard and nothing to be worried about.
You are advised to have enough sleep at around 8 hours. This is because your body’s working overtime to meet the energy needs of two people, and you should therefore give yourself enough time to rest.
One of the ways you can help yourself is by ditching the high heels. Instead, it is much more comfortable to wear flat shoes and slippers as the stress on your feet is significantly reduced.
- Control Your Emotions.
When a woman is pregnant, her biological, emotional and psychological needs change. You become alert to any information concerning children and pregnancy. You begin to notice that the news you read becomes solely focused on children’s topics.
As a mother, you want your child to have the best experience in the world. However, it comes with a fear of inadequacy of knowledge and a disconnect with the information you receive. Such uncomfortable emotions are a natural experience.
If you feel overwhelmed by your emotions, you can turn to your spouse, friends, family or community through therapy, peer-to-peer counseling to help you compose yourself.
- You Can’t Plan the Birth Experience
Every child is a gift to their parents. However, how this gift is delivered to you might or might not go according to your plan. For example, you might be focused on having a natural birth only to receive news that you will have a c-section. These are natural events, and nobody gets to their child’s delivery method. All you can do is to be prepared for all occasions.
Tips For After Birth
- Feeling Unheard
The gift of motherhood is the best gift any woman who desires to have her children can have. However, as you will soon realize, most people who visit you tell you it is all worth it. Your friends, family, and community will all come to congratulate you without fully realizing what you might have gone through.
It is essential to recognize that human beings try to sympathize with your situation as an evolutionary way to create a social connection. Therefore, you should not feel offended that your neighbor’s friend at the grocery store sympathizes with the complicated surgery you managed to pull through.
- Attachment Issues
It is astonishing how fast mothers get attached to their children. The early phase of motherhood creates a strong bond between you and your child that you may become anxious about other people holding your baby. However, this is just the beginning of your new phase as a mother, and therefore you should embrace the growth, development and feelings towards your child.
- Social Media
The advent of social media allows us to share our moments, and it can be quite attractive as you are the new mother in town. While you want to document the growth of your new bundle of joy, it would be best to consider the role of social media. People out there will congratulate you, troll you and offer you advice. First, however, you must choose your way as either an aspirational mother or a celebrity mother.
- Guilt
You have successfully managed to take care of your child for the first few months. But here is a new challenge, your maternity leave is coming to an end, and you have to resume your daily job. Mothers worldwide confirm that it is okay to feel guilty for leaving your child in the first couple of weeks.
The best advice for you is to adjust and be present in whatever activities you are doing. It will allow you to work efficiently both at work and when you return home to your child.
- Talk About Your Experience
Every baby is a bundle of joy and the source of great nuisance. It is incredible how individuals who cannot even talk can demand so much from their parents. The secret to perfecting motherhood is to talk about it.
You can share your problems and concerns with other mothers who have been through them before. Talking it out with someone you trust makes your insecurities and anxieties less of a worry.
Conclusion
Becoming a mother is taking a new role in life. It means preparing to take care of an individual, which is exciting and challenging. How you prepare yourself for motherhood contributes to how successful you will pull it off. As with any journey, this article contributes to offering you a roadmap to parenthood, and it is upon you to apply it.