Change your idea of exercise.<\/strong><\/p>\nI saw a good workout, before kids, as one that had my full attention and lasted for at least an hour. Now, if I do 20 minutes of Pilates, a few yogic sun salutations or press out a few sets with my free weights, I see my exercise as a success.<\/p>\n
I’ve realized\u00a0that something is better than nothing, and that it takes only a little bit of movement to get my endorphins going to help\u00a0me feel better; recharged.<\/p>\n
Become okay with doing a little bit every day.<\/p>\n
More, when I do make it to the yoga studio for a 75-minute, hot Baptiste-style session, I find that my daily 15 to 20 minutes of yoga practice must be doing the job of keeping me strong and limber, because longer sessions still feel glorious.<\/p>\n
If you have the ability to take more time more often than I do, then good for you, but for the rest of the mom population out there, stop making excuses and just move your body for a few minutes each day.<\/p>\n
Stick with breastfeeding.<\/strong><\/p>\nThis is likely the most personalized one on this list. Breastfeeding does not work for all moms and each mom out there should always do what works best for her and her family. That said, nearly all of my friends—myself included, and with both of my children—had a difficult introduction into\u00a0nursing. \u00a0Those first couple of weeks are\u00a0typically\u00a0a challenge. However, sticking with it is, in my experience, easier in the long run, at least for those first few weeks and months of motherhood.<\/p>\n
Breastfeeding means easy, portable food, no bottle washing\u00a0or\u00a0sterilizing, and it’s free.<\/p>\n
So free the nipple.<\/p>\n
Let your house look like Toys “R” Us<\/em> barfed all over it.<\/strong><\/p>\nI also swore that I would not be one of those people with kids’ toys all over. You should see my house.<\/p>\n
Regardless of how often I pick up, it’s nearly always littered with a stuffed Olaf from Frozen<\/em>—that’s bigger than my baby is; with random Little People; with toy trucks—and I stopped caring.<\/p>\nDo I sometimes care, when I just picked up Every. Single. Toy, only to turn around from using\u00a0the bathroom to find that each object\u00a0has already been dragged back out? A little. But then I look at my smiling kids playing together and acknowledge that I did get to dash to the bathroom alone because the girls were entranced with putting miniature dolls onto a pink, plastic school bus.<\/p>\n
Eat.<\/strong><\/p>\nLet me elaborate.<\/p>\n
I’ve heard so many new moms say that they don’t eat well, or even often, throughout the day because—and it is—difficult to do so with small children.<\/p>\n
But—big but<\/em> here—eating healthy, unprocessed foods as often as possible makes\u00a0my body feel better, which, in turn, makes my moods more stable and, basically, just helps me deal with the frustration that often is mothering.<\/p>\nSure, I sometimes—okay usually—eat faster than I’d like to. Yes, sometimes eating healthy means planning ahead (like how I love to keep a dozen boiled eggs ready to go in the refrigerator). But it’s worth it. Especially if we are breastfeeding, our own nutrition counts—and our self-care sets a healthy example for our children.<\/p>\n
Stop wearing dangly earrings.<\/strong><\/p>\nAt least for the first year. More likely two. If you want to keep your ear lobes attached. ‘Nuff said.<\/p>\n
Keep random toys and books stashed in the bathroom.<\/strong><\/p>\nFor your soon-to-be frequent bathroom companions. Trust me on this one. Moving on.<\/p>\n
Keep the toilet paper out of reach.<\/strong><\/p>\nI remember the first time I had company over, after I finally admitted that toilet paper holders were for masochists.<\/p>\n
At first, I felt embarrassed that the cute little metal contraption connected to\u00a0the adjoining wall was empty, and that all of our t.p. sat perched in a nice stack,\u00a0high enough to make it slightly uncomfortable to actually grab when needed. But then I let go of that embarrassment because the rest of my life, when company is not visiting, no longer involves cleaning up chewed up or unrolled toilet tissue.<\/p>\n
Occasionally abide by “it’s five o’clock somewhere.”<\/strong><\/p>\nNow, I’m the first mother out there to admit that I’ll do a short yoga practice if I feel like I need a drink.<\/p>\n
For one, I don’t want to neeeed a drink—I want to enjoy one when I have it.<\/p>\n
That said, every living mother out there will, from time to time, be best served by looking at the clock, seeing that it reads only four p.m.<\/em>, and still go ahead and pour that glass of wine.<\/p>\nThrow out “should’s.”<\/strong><\/p>\nThe biggest piece of advice that I would love to go back in time and give to my new-mother self five years ago is this: let go of expectations.<\/p>\n
By all means, have ideals and goals, but also recognize that our visions of who we will be as a parent\u00a0are not real.<\/p>\n
What is real is the bathroom partner who goes through the phase of pulling off the toilet paper from its holder—and then eating it.<\/p>\n
What is real is turning on the T.V. in the middle of the day so that our\u00a0oldest child doesn’t have to hear the baby scream her head off while falling\u00a0asleep.<\/p>\n
What is real, too, is the love—and that’s waaaaay better than we could have imagined.<\/p>\n
Still, even love doesn’t always help out when we’re exhausted, and dealing with tantrums, and a spouse who is coming home late from work, after the baby had diarrhea all day (made up example).<\/p>\n
What does help, though, is loving ourselves enough to stop expecting perfection and, alternately, embrace the reality that it doesn’t get more real than motherhood—thank goodness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every mother out there looks back at how she thought she would parent,\u00a0before she actually became one—and then laughs her butt off. The following are lifehacks that all new moms should be taking advantage...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,245],"tags":[685,142],"class_list":["post-4243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-happenings","category-pregnancy-and-motherhood","tag-lifehacks","tag-motherhood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/m.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4dYEp-16r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4243"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4267,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243\/revisions\/4267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a><\/h3>\n