What is a great gift for a new mom that helps her get in control of her new life, find a little self-care, and stay connected to the people around her who can keep her grounded in the transition? Life hacks for new moms are at the core of New Mama Deck® -- a tool designed to help make the shift from one phase of life to another a little more manageable. Life has changed, and two people need TLC after a baby arrives: the baby, and mom. New Mama Deck® keeps both in the picture.
I have read a lot about what happens when a mom brings her baby home from the hospital. She takes on the responsibility of a new life, and often she quietly sets aside her own needs and self-care in the process. That is understandable, and also something worth gently pushing back against from the start.
Nothing is more important than bonding with baby right away. But that bonding does not happen well when the mother is running on empty. Some new moms struggle with postpartum depression. Others struggle with sleep. Many struggle to strike the balance between time with baby and time for themselves. And most struggle, at some point, with keeping their relationship alive and finding "me" space in a life that suddenly feels like it belongs to someone else entirely.
Life Hacks for New Moms: What New Mama Deck® Offers
New Mama Deck® is a tool to help outsource decision-making and make life a little easier when you are trying to figure out a schedule or a new way of being with baby. Having the experience of others who have gone before you matters. It helps you see a light and aim for it. It is the kind of guidance that reduces stress and gives you a path forward when you do not know where to start.
Life Hack Decks® are full of small ideas -- little tweaks to the way a new mother does life. Society puts a lot of expectations on new moms, and much of the focus lands on the baby. Because of this, new mothers can feel overwhelmed and isolated, and that is not a character flaw. It is a predictable result of an impossible standard.
The reason many moms feel isolated is that so much of the early parenting falls on the mother. Feeding especially -- whether breastfeeding or formula feeding, it is time-consuming, physically demanding, and constant. Breastfeeding is a wonderful bonding experience and great for mom and baby, but it takes real commitment. And mothers who cannot breastfeed often carry guilt on top of everything else, which is a hard additional weight to carry home from the hospital.
You Cannot Go It Alone
New Mama Deck® is a way to put some space and time back into a new mother's life. In addition to tips and tricks for taking care of baby, the prompts include personal TLC and connection to self. Many new mothers feel isolated after giving birth. That is completely normal and does not mean anything is wrong with them.
I have seen what postpartum depression does to a new mom, and it is hard to watch. There is guilt about not feeling the way they are "supposed" to feel. They feel like something is wrong with them, like it is their fault. It is not. It is a hormone imbalance that has nothing to do with fault and everything to do with getting appropriate support so the new mom feels better.
Staying Connected to Yourself
New Mama Deck® prompts are about staying connected to yourself while everything else is shifting. They show how to reach out for help when you need it. They address tips for taking care of baby, but also staying in touch with yourself and others. Asking for help when you need it rather than going the distance alone. Knowing when you need personal space and having permission to ask for it. Not being supermom. Caring for yourself and your newborn simultaneously, because with the expectations placed on new moms, it is easy to take yourself completely out of the equation.
Idealized Expectations of New Moms
Some stages of life get idealized, and the image we are sold rarely fits reality. Motherhood is one of them. How many times have I heard from friends that it was not what they expected? People show their best side on social media, or some fantasy version of what a societal norm should look like. They post with their perfect nursery and their blissfully sleeping newborn, and the rest of us compare our real, exhausted, messy version of new motherhood against that image.
Sites like The Knot sell an idealized version of marriage and weddings. Instagram does the same for motherhood. Neither is the whole truth. The whole truth includes the 2am feedings, the crying you cannot figure out, the days where you wonder how you are going to make it to bedtime. That is real life, and it is okay.
Breathe
From yoga, I have learned that the best thing we can do is breathe through it. Take it in stride. Put away the Instagram feeds of other new mothers, ignore the rules made up by someone whose life is not yours, and listen to your own cues. Take it slowly. Ask for help. Know that your life right now is both a gift and genuinely hard. It is okay not to feel like roses and butterflies are swirling around you. This is real life, and it is a tough go at the beginning. Acceptance -- especially self-acceptance -- is the most useful life hack for new moms there is.
New Mama Deck® -- A Great Life Hack for the Fourth Trimester
New Mama Deck® was designed by moms who have gone the distance. It is not advice from someone standing over your shoulder telling you what to do. It is advice in the form of prompts -- small, easy-to-manage ideas that help make the transition to motherhood easier, one card at a time. Give it to yourself, or gift it to a new mom you know. In the process of reading and acting on the prompts, you will find ways to reduce the stress of the first months, stay connected to yourself and others, and remember that you matter in this picture too.
And if the mental load of new motherhood is making it hard to know where to start, our guide to reducing decision fatigue is worth reading on the first quiet afternoon you get.
