You expected it postpartum. You expected the baby screams, the dirty diapers, and the messy house. You had friends warn you about the postpartum sweats and how challenging nursing could be. What you might not have expected is how motherhood would hit.
Maybe you are transitioning back to work, or you just thought you’d have the hang of this by now. But you’re months into motherhood, and you can’t seem to get a hold on things.
Deep breaths. You aren’t alone.
I sit with women in my office every day who ask me the same thing on repeat: “Am I doing it wrong?”.
The answer is “no” btw. You’re still postpartum up to 2 years after baby, and keeping all the balls in the air can be really freaking hard. What I worry about, and I think what most of my clients are worried about, is that they are missing a really beautiful season of life because they are weighed down by a million small things that add up to motherhood feeling unmanageable.
I can’t take away the sheer amount of responsibility that comes with being a mom. But I can offer you this tool that is saving my life right now: ruthlessly eliminate what isn’t working.
Seriously. Take out a sheet or paper or the notes app on your phone and go through the areas of your life. What systems are not working. Here are some questions and examples from my own life to get you started:
- food – how are we feeding ourselves? is it simple enough? do we have enough time for it? do we have enough energy? what could we do differently that we’ve done that might feel better? Personally, I love to eat. What wasn’t working was complicated recipes from bloggers I loved in another season of life. In this season of life, I tell my husband that I’m eating for performance. This means that I’m focused on eating simple foods that fuel my body, help me product milk for my nursing baby, and can be made fast. This means lots of raw fruits and veggies, nuts, and bars. I eat peanut butter or almond whole wheat toast for breakfast every day. For dinner, we opt for simple recipes that we know how to cook, and repeat them every few weeks. Bonus points for the crock pot or double batch.
- laundry – what are we doing now and is it driving us crazy? is there a better way? What wasn’t working for me was spending an entire weekend naptime folding and putting away laundry. It took forever, when I could have had a moment to myself, and because I couldn’t put my kids clothes away during naptime, it felt like it followed me into the week. I decided that now I do a small load of laundry every single day. There’s never a ton to put away, so I squeeze it in when I’m putting my kids down or waking them up in the morning.
- childcare – why did we create any systems we currently have with family, daycare, nannies, etc. and are they creating the support we need in our family? My oldest was in preschool and we pulled her last month because it wasn’t working. We had been sick for 5 months straight, largely because of preschool. And now, we haven’t been sick in 5 weeks. It wasn’t working. We had a nanny home with my 2 youngest, so now she stays with them while I work. We cut our nannies hours to be able to pay her more for the additional child. It wasn’t working, and now it does.
- cleaning – who does what, on what cadence? is it enough? what mess can we live with? who could we ask for help? In our house, we have two working parents, and no local grandparents. When it comes to managing the house, we had a very sweet woman coming every other week for the last 6 months. We worked hard and budgeted to make it happen. It was a dream come true. Except, it wasn’t working. She needed 4.5 hours to clean the house, and I have 3 little kids at home. The morning I have off to spend with them, I was stressed, trying to find a way to kill too many hours. It wasn’t worth it. We were paying a lot of money for that stress. So now, we have a cleaning team coming 1x a month. They are 2x as expensive, but they can clean my house in 1.5 hours. Boom. It’s working again.
Being human means that we get into routines, and we forget the agency we have to change what isn’t working. Many of us resort to complaining about it instead of finding ways to fix it, and in doing so, improve our lives.
I’m hopeful that this post helps you review what’s working and what’s not working in your own life, and take steps to change it. If you do, please comment below! I want to know what you updated!
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