Baby Blues Advice

Since I’ve had one child and am extremely qualified to give all the parenting advice in the world, here’s the much anticipated follow up to my experience with the baby blues period of being home with a newborn. If you missed that, click here to read it first, duh!

So. You are extremely overheated and underslept and possibly undernourished– what do you do.

1. Know that what you’re going through is normal* and it will get better. This is absolutely the shittiest advice to get because WHEN will it get better and HOW will it get better would be much more helpful, but just know that it will. *People far more well-versed in postpartum depression, anxiety & psychosis will thankfully give information and warning signs on that before you leave the hospital. I’m using “normal” as a relative term; if you’re ever scaring yourself with your thoughts, PLEASE say them aloud to your partner or a medical professional. Do not keep it inside and assume “it’s hormones, it’ll pass.”
2. Give yourself all of the grace in the world. This is the time to strip everything in your life down to the basics. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you are starting from the bottom. You get to accept all of the help you need and turn away all of the extraneous people and to-do’s that you want. If you post a picture of baby on Facebook and receive a record number of congratulatory comments, you don’t have to respond to a single one. It’s more than ok to not respond to texts, or to tell people “No, we’re not receiving visitors any time soon.” If it’s going to give you a blip of joy to fall down a TikTok rabbit hole, don’t feel guilty doing it. The first few weeks home are the wild west of doing or not doing whatever most benefits you and your baby.
3. Communicate. Mind reading wasn’t something your partner could do before baby came; it sure as hell isn’t something either of you can do now. Saying “come take the baby” to your partner when you’re done nursing, or texting your mom “bring orange juice at 12:30 and put the load of clean clothes in the dryer when you get here” is so much more helpful to you and your helpers than them trying to guess what you might be needing right now.
4. When baby is sleeping during the day, ask yourself, “What will I be most upset I didn’t get done if baby wakes up early?” and then go do that thing. If the answer is take a nap yourself, attempt it. If the mess in the kitchen is absolutely driving you bonkers, load that dishwasher (or communicate to someone else to do it!) If you need to pump, this is your time. My answer was usually to take a shower. It was the one thing I definitely couldn’t do while holding baby. You will absolutely astound yourself with the amount of things you’ll figure out how to do one-handed, but showering is never one of them. And since you’re always weirdly hot and sweaty, a daily shower will generally be warranted!
5. Don’t rush “normal.” I was hell bent on proving to the world (and myself? why??) that I hadn’t fundamentally changed as a person after becoming a mother. I wanted to do All The Things and get back to my old routine, hobbies and habits to prove having a kid wasn’t a major disruptor. Reader, I am an idiot. Having a kid is a major disruptor to your physical body as well as your brain (and your relationships, but that is a whole separate post for a later time.) Six days after baby was born, my mom came to watch him while my husband and I went grocery shopping. We were in the canned foods section when I had to tell him, “I’ll push the cart, but I need you to make all the decisions,” because my brain could NOT focus on the task at hand. I should not have been making pantry choices at that moment. I wanted to get back on my feet and be in the world, but my brain sat my ass back down.
6. Don’t overthink it. When you’re crying, just let it happen. Wondering why you’re crying is probably moot, and it will pass. Don’t worry your gorgeous brain one second beyond the moment that’s happening in front of you. At some point you will have the thought, “I could never do this again,” regarding any subsequent children, and honey, this is NOT the time to be thinking about that. Getting pre-sad about when they start daycare or wondering what color they’ll want to paint their room when it’s no longer a nursery is a waste of this current moment when you can be staring at their squishy face that everyone assures you doesn’t look like an alien but you’ll look back on in a couple months and realize that actually it totally did. All newborns look like (cute) aliens.