My family, my kids, my husband come first and then it’s me! Right?
Did all of you say“ YES” in a chorus ? Then I might need to break it to you in a polite but unapologetic tone that “ NO”
They definitely are ones’ I love the most in the world, but there are times when I put myself ahead of all .It’s important to keep yourself sane.
Try to understand this” You can not pour from an empty cup”
So, all I wan to say is ” It’s alright to leave your baby for a while with anyone you can trust and have some time for your own.
You deserve some ” Me Time” After so many hours of sleepless nights, feeding and caring!
These are few things you can do:
Use their Nap time for yourself: The only happy hour we get to ourselves as new moms is their NAP time. Make a list of the things you wanted to do and utilise this time when your baby is sleeping.
Try getting earlier than your kid: I know it is little difficult if your baby keeps you awake at night. You can do it whenever you can. It will give you time to have your coffee when it’s actually hot (LOL). You can just relax and set a tone to a great day ahead.
Draw out from chores your partner can do: Things like keeping clothes in the washing machine, arranging the sofa, keeping away the plates etc. are very simple chores and can be done by your partner or any one of your family members as well. So withdraw from such chores, it will give you some time for yourself.
Batch meal plan, grocery list, online order etc : Try to get as much as possible done in one go. Start batching similar chores like making grocery list, meal plan or laundry, folding clothes etc.
Take your baby along if you need some outing: Stop staying indoors forever. Try going out whenever possible. You may go on a coffee with another mom and take your babies along.
Know what you really like doing/Have a me menu: Have an agenda or list of thing you love doing, food you love eating, people you love talking to, and hobbies at on place. As and when you get time, you should know what exactly you would like to do.
Start small: Taking out time for yourself might seem extremely overwhelming when you have a baby. Start with the smallest possible thing you can do for yourself, even if it is for couple of minutes.
You can do a lot better if you feel happy and content. Taking even fifteen minutes everyday can be very helpful.
Hope you found this article helpful, I would love if you share your Me time rituals or challenges. Please show some love to my article by leaving a comment ,liking and sharing it.
Your 20s is the time when you can experiment with your hair colour to your dressing sense. Eating junk to skipping meals to eating as many chocolates as you want. Once you hit your 30s, it’s time for you to stop experimenting and start settling to a healthier lifestyle.
This is my list of health care for women in their late 20s or 30s:
List out simple traditional home food that you totally love: Homemade food is a treat you can enjoy every day. Creating a list of your home food will help you to avoid eating out every other day. It is especially helpful if you are someone who stays away from family or have young kids at home.
Find out a work out you love: You must have been through experiences where you enrolled yourself to a gym class or aerobics classes but backed out as you could not enjoy it or were too lazy to go to the classes. If that is the case with you, please find out easy workout routine like simple walk in the park or even dancing every day to your favourite music.
Go for regular body checkups: Make it a habit to go for regular checkups. Know a doctor you trust. Do regular breast examination yourself. Ensure you take the supplements prescribed on time. Maintain healthy routine as advised by your doctor.
Say no to chemicals: Say NO to chemical base skin care products. Start using natural products as much as possible. Ditch costly chemicals based facial products and use homemade facials products like besan ubtan, alovera pack, multani mitti .It will not only save you money but also keep your skin healthier forever.
Move More: Develop a habit to avoid sitting as much as possible. Stand up and move whenever you can. Sitting is terrible for your health. Be mindful to make a move if you have been sitting for long. Get up from your office desk, walk across the floor, to the water station or even to your friend’s desk.
Learn from your family’s health History: Understand your family’s health history and maintain your lifestyle accordingly. If your family has a history of diabetes, lower down sugar intake. If there had been weight issues, work out. Being little aware can make a huge difference.
Deal with stress: Ignoring stress can affect you adversely on your quality of sleep can cause depression and can lead to several diseases in turn. Seek help from friend and family. If your job or particular thing is causing you stress, leave it, don’t be scared of not getting any other job, you will find something better.
Take calcium supplements: In your 30s, you lose more bone and muscles than you produce. Take proper supplement for calcium. It will save you from any unwanted bone conditions. Your doctor can suggest you the right quantity of supplements required.
Get yourself some sunlight: Getting enough of sunlight will ensure that you get right amount of Vitamin D and it will also keep your hormone in check. Sunlight is known to activate happiness quotient your body and make you more active and energetic.
Drink a lot of Water: Start your day with a glass of lukewarm water. Water will keep your skin, your digestive system healthy. It will flush out toxins from your body. It will reduce unwanted hunger and maintain your weight. Make your water bottle your best friend.
Take care of your teeth: No matter how you have been treating your teeth in your 20s, it’s time that you start taking care of your teeth.Say no to excess sweets and candies. Visit your dentist regularly, brush twice and floss regularly.
Reduce your screen time: Life today is occupied with screen time ranging from laptop at work to TV to mobile phone. Please unplug and start enjoying the real life. Reducing screen time will help you to save your ideas and your brain.
Stop binge watching: Eat mindfully. Quit the habit of eating while you watch Netflix or check Facebook. You need to know what and how much you are eating. So now that you are in your 30s, how about actually sitting down on your dining table and eating your food.
Value your relationships: I am sure you have now realised that the most valuable possession you have are your relationships. Please take care of people who really matter to you. Make them your priority. Take out time and spend quality time with your parents, partner and kinds.
Start taking care of yourself as much as possible, even small steps goes a long way. What are your favourite Health Care tips or rituals? Please show some love to my post by Liking, Sharing and Commenting.
Every year gives us an opportunity to write a fresh chapter of our life.This is the time when we try to learn a new skill, start a healthy eating habit, start going to gym or start getting up early.Its almost everyone’s’ thing to buy a new notebook , make a long list of changes we want to bring in. keep it somewhere safe and never touch it again.
Its time again and I am going to find out my favourite notebook and clean up the dust from it.
I know its little early to be announcing my new year resolution.This was required as I have made new year resolutions every year but failed being consistent with it.
So even before I started making a list I wanted to make a difference this year by finding the actual reasons I failed in implementing my goals every year.
I brain stormed and found a few reason due to which I wan not able to implement my new year goals.
Lets see what they are:
I forgot what my goals were: The biggest reason I could not achieve my goals was I never remembered what they were.I would write them but never get back to them. This year my goals will be always in front of my eyes. I am going to display it on a place its visible to me.I will ensure I check it first thing in the morning every day. Something like a vision board will be great.
There were too many to do’s on my list: I had too much on my plate.I made such a long list that got overwhelming for me.Its confusing to prioritise which one is important and which one is not. Moreover, it’s a human tendency to give up if thing to do looks so complicated.So this year I am going to keep my list very short.
My yearly goals were not leading me to actual goals:Most of the things on my list were leading me nowhere.They were not aligned to my goals or who I wanted to be. It was not really helping me in achieving anything that could improve my life.So this year , I will first analyse my vision for life and then make a list which gets me closer to my ultimate goal.
I was never emotionally invested in my list: A lot of thing in the list were not important for me.I was not emotionally attached to them.If you do not feel for your goals , you will not feel bad in missing them. This year my list will have things which really matter to me.It will be something that I really want to achieve.
I wanted it easily: I always assumed that once I have created a list , I will start doing them all without any effort. I forgot, a change is never going to be easy. I have to be little tough on myself. So this year I will just get up and do it. It’s important to be tough on yourself sometimes.This year,I will keep my goals realistic and be little tough on myself.
Hope this is the year of your dreams! Please show some love for my article by liking ,sharing and commenting on it. I would love to hear what your New Year Resolutions are and how you are planning to achieve them.
“Your child fills that empty place in your heart, which you never knew existed.” If you are a mom, you know what I mean. So now that we are deeply in love this new wonder we have created, we dread leaving them even for a few hours. Even before you are aware the so called maternity leaves will be over. It is not easy to be back to work after baby .
I know you are sad and low and really scared of leaving your baby and working after baby is born. I hear you! I feel You!
I have been exactly where you are right now.
Scene 2 months back:
My extended maternity leaves were over and I was sad, low and unsure about things going on. I didn’t have any idea about how my baby will adjust with my mother in law as she was used to my mom. I didn’t know, how will she stay when I am not around.
I was upset and top of that people around my commented sarcastically about my choice of working after my baby that too when she was so young.
Ladies, this is all going to happen but first of all you have to start being logical.
Please know that god forbid but if things don’t work as you expect” you can leave your job at any point of time” So relax.
These are few of the things which helped me overcome going back to work after baby anxiety. This can improve the tone of any mom’s first day back to work.
List out your reasons of work: Please take out a notebook and a pen. Yes please! Literally get yourself a pen and paper and list out your reasons to work. For example for me the reasons were: Being Sane and productive, being able to support my family, having an aim every day. I know yours might be different. My mom told me something that really helped. She said that babies are very adjusting, they adjust very quickly. Trust me it’s absolutely true.
Overcome your idea to quit: I know you have real big reasons to quit but hear me out before you make your mind. Your baby must be 6 months now and in 18 months she will be big enough to start going out to a play school. That means just in 18 months which is not too far, she will be away from you for 3 plus hours every day. If you consider sleeping hours of a child, she will be alright without you for another 2 hours. If you have an early shift, she will be on her own for another hour. Babies need some outdoor time, may be one hour. So over all a baby of 2 years and above needs 5 hours plus time away from you already. Ok so, how many hours of away time do you have now? May be 4 hours. They can easily spend those 4 hours with their grandparents or in some activity.
Start going out at least a month before joining back: I was extremely emotion, a month before going back. I could not sleep with the idea of leaving my baby. I was literally forced by mom and my sisters to go out for shopping or parlour. Sounds familiar? But that’s a bad idea, Go out. Going out for couple hours will help you gaining the confidence that your baby will be fine while you are way. Most important of all, your baby will get used to other faces as well. So start this drill a month before you are planning to be back to work.
Ask your family for baby care: I know every, then you one in your family have their own lives and they cannot leave everything for you. If you have your family in the same city, you must be smiling at this one but for me, who has her family in a far city it was a challenge. So all of you, who have your family away, just make an alternate arrangements for you and your spouse parents to stay at home for a few years. Even if they stay with you for 6 months each, baby will be 2 even before you realise.
Introduce your baby to the person taking care of the baby: Once you have decided, who is staying. Please take some time to help the baby adjust with this new person in your presence. This will not only help the person understand the habits of baby but also help you understand if you can trust the person, baby is going to be with. This transition will be smooth in your presence
Try moving near office: I was staying in a rented accommodation so moving near was easy for me. If you have your own house, I am not sure if it is possible. My husband and I stayed in an area which was equally distant from both of our offices. For me moving near my office has been the best decision ever. Hear out the way it has worked for me. Amy travel time has reduce by 3 hours every day. That means I am at home, for these extra 3 hours with my baby and I am not tiered. I can go to home and feed my baby during lunch break. So that gives me one more hour of time with my baby.
Find a job which has employee friendly environment: For major time in my career I have worked with offices with very un-adjusting schedules where taking leaves was considered a crime. If you have a similar work culture, I would request you, please walk out of it.Extend your leaves and look for a better place to work. I am so grateful about the support I got from my work place, my boss and colleagues. I am blessed. I can take leaves. I have my working hours as per my convenience and can take early day off when and where ever required. Please don’t worry if you don’t have one, right now, keep trying, you will get one.
Consider work from home: If your work permits, talk about working from home for a few days before or after returning to work. If your organization is friendly, it should not be a problem. I have learned one very important thing in a few years of my work experience that “ Asking for help is very important” You need to let people around know what suits you best as a new mom. Think and plan a schedule that works best for you.
Talk about flexible hours: Discuss the possibility of flexible working hours, for example, I have opted to work from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm. I have also discussed one hour of time with my baby during lunch. You can work in late or earlier hours if that works better for you. Talk about time out to feed your baby if your house in nearby or pumping if required.
Return to work slowly: You must start working slowly, once you have joined, try working for 4 day or 3 days a week and stay with your baby or work from home other days. This will help you and your baby to understand and get used to this all. It might be a matter for a day or two for your baby to adjust but it’s a lot more difficult for you.
It’s ok to slow down at work: Slowdown in terms of responsibility at work. Take time for relearning the process. Request some mentor time as you have been away from work for long. Please do not accept a lot of work initially. Set realistic expectations. If you are finding it difficult to be focused initially, it’s alright. If someone is judging your work, accept the feedback. It’s all matter of time. Be vocal about your challenges.
Bring your baby to work once: If possible, introduce your baby to your collegues. It will give them a real idea of what your challenges you have as a mom. It will develop an emotional connect of your collegues with your baby. ( And you know how your baby can spell a charm on everyone)
Keep it calm at work: It’s alright to talk about your baby at work or think about them .You only have to avoid taking too much about them. If you feel stressed or angry then just pause and count 10 before you react. It’s a great way of controlling your emotions at work. If you end up reacting someday, move on.
Start back mid-week: I started working on Thursday that gave me 2 days of off after joining and helped me and my baby warm up for the next week. Staying away from your baby all of a sudden will be too much of away time from your baby suddenly. Also if possible take a day of in the next week or may be a work from home.
Hang in there: There will be good days and not so good days. Live your day as it comes. Know it at back of your mind that your baby is your priority. The days when your baby needs you, let there be no reason or no responsibility that stops you from being with her. The days when it’s alright give your complete focus at work. Set your expectations from day one, and people will start respecting it.
Set time aside for mommy time: Once you are back from office dedicate your complete time ton your baby. Outsource cooks and workers if possible. If it is not possible, seek support from your spouse, keep the chores waiting but not your baby.
Find support in working moms: As unnecessary as it sounds, it has proved out to be the best steps I have taken for my baby. Reach out to real moms going through same phase or someone who is doing well at their work. Stay in company of happy moms. Please avoid people talking negative about working after baby. Read related articles like returning to work after maternity leave blog.
Take a LOP or sabbatical if you are getting second thoughts: If you still don’t have any support yet or you are not yet comfortable. Please don’t yet leave your job. You can talk about extended leaves like I did for 2 months. You can take it for 3-6 months. If that is a job you don’t want to return to, use this time in skill building and job searching. Return late but return well.
Steal some me time: Try taking out some time exclusively for yourself. Being a mom can be completely exhausting and draining. Your me time can be sitting quietly to sip your coffee, meditation time, sleep time or quality time with hubby. Do it once in a while. If you are not well and happy nothing can work well.
Eat well and take care of yourself: The new role you are in is not going to be easy. It will take a lot of your mental and physical strength. Don’t expect to be a super woman. Let things be imperfect at times. Take good rest, call your friends at home. Have all your post- natal supplements. Soak in some vitamin D as it can help against going back to work after baby depression. Enjoy the moments with your little one.
Bonus :Make a to do list of unavoidable baby related stuff- Set alarm if you have to, to check your diary of to dos .Please make a note of medicines, vaccination dates. Note recipes, find some home remedies for the baby. This will prevent you from missing anything essential for the baby.
I hope you found this article helpful. Let me know what were or are your challenges in getting back to work. I would love to know what worked for moms who are already back to work. Let’s help each other by sharing ideas. It might be just an article for you, but for some it’s a medium to overcome their most stressful time of their life as mom.
Please show some love for my first blog. It will not only make my day but my entire year. Leave your comments, like ,follow and share with everyone who needs to read this.
What is Maternity Law?
