Skin Care ~LuxxyLux

Many people underestimate just what’s involved in caring for a new baby. It’s a demanding and exhausting job that can turn your lives upside down. You’ll probably find yourself wondering whether you and your partner will ever be able to spend time together again. Fitting in all the demands on your time and energy can be difficult, but if you approach the situation sensibly and make plans together before the birth, you should be able to cope with the disruption and manage to spend some time alone. It takes planning, but it’s possible.

Keeping on Top of It All

Taking care of your newborn baby will probably be much harder than you ever expected. For one thing, labor and birth are physically and emotionally draining; for another, you’ll find that in the first days, there always seems to be one job after another, almost without a break.

Getting enough rest is vital. It’s rare for a new baby to allow you more than four hours’ sleep at a time at night, so it helps if you can catnap during the day. You need to eat well, too, especially if you’re breastfeeding. Keep eating as well as you did throughout your pregnancy, and drink plenty of fluid.

Taking shortcuts, such as occasionally buying convenience foods, at least for the first few months, will help you manage, as will getting your priorities right-getting enough rest, for example, is far more important than cleaning the house.

Avoid guilt Feeling guilty seems to be a burden carried by most new parents and quite a few well-established parents. Remember that you can only do your best, and that it’s important to put yourself and your own health high on your list of priorities. Bear in mind, too, that it takes about a year for your body to get back to its pre-pregnancy state. Don’t expect too much of yourself at first, because just after delivery you’ll find that you have very little stamina and you’ll get exhausted easily.

Find a routine This doesn’t mean training your baby to eat, sleep, and play according to your timetable but following his lead and fitting your life around his daily routine. You won’t necessarily have to rearrange your entire lives to accommodate him; much of your routine and lifestyle can continue as before.

Appreciate Your New Roles

At first, it may be more difficult than you’d thought to settle into your new roles as parents. If you’re on maternity leave and at home for while while your partner’s gone back to work, you may find yourself resenting his relatively free and independent lifestyle. Your partner, on the other hand, may feel shut out from your intimate relationship with your baby. He may also feel envious of your being at home, especially if he doesn’t appreciate how demanding a baby can be.

These different experiences can leave you wondering where the closeness and intimacy of pregnancy went, and also whether you will ever get back to the easy understanding you had before you became pregnant. You will, but you need to keep talking to each other. Explain your thoughts and feelings, and try not to let little misunderstandings alienate you from each other. When your partner is at home, don’t cut him off from your baby. Let him take over some of the care and give you a break.

Making Time For Yourselves

One of the most difficult changes to manage is lack of time. Most of your waking and sleeping hours will be devoted to the care of your new baby at first. This can be frustrating and might make you feel resentful. If you can keep up some of your contacts with friends, continue with as much of your usual lifestyle as you can, and keep the lines of communication open between you and your partner, it’ll go a long way toward helping you cope with the various conflicting demands on your time and energy.

Sharing Doing things together is especially important once you have a baby. Your infant is easy to take with you, so don’t hesitate to include him in your plans. He can come along when you visit friends, and you may be surprised at how easy it is to keep up your social life in the first few months of his life.

You also need time together alone and, although it may seem odd having to make a formal appointment to spend time with your partner, it really can help you to keep up a healthy relationship. One of the problems you’ll have following the birth of your first child is that the spontaneity you had as a free and easy couple tends to get lost, so planning to spend time together becomes even more important. It needn’t be elaborate-it could be something as simple as always having a cup of decaf and a chat together at the end of the day, or planning to go swimming, jogging, or walking together for an hour or two every Sunday while a friend or relative cares for your baby.

Time alone We all need time and space to recharge our batteries. When you have a baby it’s very easy to get so caught up in the never-ending round of babycare that you lose sight of this need.

It’s important to have at least a few hours every week when you can just please yourself-whether on a special outing, seeing a friend, or doing something you enjoy. Make an arrangement with someone you trust to babysit for you-your partner, a close friend, or a relative. You’ll be all the better for it, and your baby will also benefit from social contact with other people.