The lessons you want to learn now before it’s too late. Learn her best pregnancy advice from an experienced mom of 4.
In honor of celebrating my 4th year of blogging and my 4 baby girls, I want to share with you the 4 lessons I learned after being pregnant 4 different times.
Oh, I could write a whole book of lessons learned during pregnancy, but I narrowed it down to my top 4.
I hope you take my word for it when I tell you what NOT to do because what I did wasn’t worth it. Trust me, save yourself the headache, the worry and the stress and learn from my mistakes. Let’s dive right in.
1. You don’t need to work out the first trimester
You don’t need to work out the first trimester if you are deathly ill.
You can start your pregnancy fitness journey in the second trimester and it will make the third trimester and childbirth so much easier. Give yourself some grace when it comes to the first trimester.
I was vomiting non-stop with each pregnancy and with each pregnancy it just got worse and worse. I felt the tug and urge to work out because that’s what I do.
I didn’t want to lose the habit, the routine that I had been so committed to for years. But at this point, with the severe sickness, something’s gotta give and it should have been my workouts.
Resting and recovering should have been my priority during this time of struggle, after going through it several times with each pregnancy, I finally learned to give myself some grace and some space to rest. Workouts can be saved for the second trimester.
2. Don’t listen to what others tell you
Don’t listen to what others tell you when it comes to childbirth and postpartum recovery because most of it is negative talk.
Those thoughts will live inside you forever if you let them. Surround yourself with positive, uplifting and motivating mama’s who encourage you to live the healthy lifestyle you want to as a new mom.
And if you have this picture perfect childbirth imagined up in your head, go with it, keep dreaming about it and keep revisiting your visions for a successful childbirth.
If you let fear and resistance fill your thoughts because that’s what you are hearing from the doctors, nurses, co-workers and random strangers, try your hardest to get that fear out of your mind and put inspirational messages, scripture and passages back into it.
You have control of your mind so put every effort into steering your thoughts in the right direction.
3. You don’t need to go back to work right away
You don’t need to go back to work right after your 6 week check-up. You can go back to work whenever you want. First figure out what is driving you to go back to work. Is it money and the need to financially support your family?
Is it your boss telling you that you can only have so much time off for maternity leave? Is it your conscience telling you that this is the norm and you have to do what everyone else is doing?
Whatever the reason might be, the reason to return to work as quickly as possible after having a baby, I recommend you take a day, or more, to figure out if it’s really necessary.
Do you really need to return to work right after your doctor gives you clearance? Do you really need to take the maternity leave that your boss says you have or can you take a longer one?
I recommend taking the extra time to plan out ways to earn more money during pregnancy so that you can spend more time adjusting to motherhood after baby comes home. I rushed back to work right after having my first baby and it was hard, stressful, overwhelming and just sad.
Sad to leave my baby, hard to teach my breastfed baby how to bottle feed, stressful to get myself ready in the morning with little to no sleep and overwhelming to think about taking care of my baby while also thinking about my work duties.
Give yourself as much time as you need to recover and return back to work when you know it’s time, rather than when someone else tells you it’s time.
4. Batching frozen meals shouldn’t be overlooked
Batching frozen meals is actually a huge game-changer when it comes to having an enjoyable postpartum recovery.
I overlooked the importance of having freezer meals ready in the basement freezer ahead of time with each pregnancy.
I think I planned out maybe 3 freezer meals when I was pregnant with my first baby but didn’t take the time or effort to plan out, shop and prep/cook freezer meals before my due date with my 3 other pregnancies.
Yep, I was just slacking. I was busy; I thought I had other more important things to do, I thought, “I’m a pro at this so I’ll be able to make dinner with my 2nd baby because my toddler is pretty self sufficient at this point.”
I was so wrong. I 100% could have used those freezer meals, especially when I was busy doing extra laundry for 2 kinds instead of just one. And potty training snuck up on me really quickly when it came to having a toddler who was at that prime time for potty training when my second was born.
And wouldn’t you know it, with my 3rd and 4th babies, I always had a toddler who was being potty trained.
So I spent most of my days breastfeeding in the bathroom instead of cooking and cleaning the dirty dishes in the kitchen.
Life throws curve balls, be prepared for them and just have those freezer meals ready to go. If you don’t know how to get started with postpartum freezer meals, you can get this eBook all about freezer meals from Birth Eat Love.
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**It is important to always consult your doctor before beginning any exercise program and get medical clearance. Always warm up thoroughly and stretch after all workouts. LiveCoreStrong.com and Jena Bradley will be not be responsible or liable for any injury sustained while exercising at home, gym or elsewhere. Perform exercises at your own risk.
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