I’ve had a few people ask me recently about time management during the newborn baby phase. Here are my random tips – take them or leave them!
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Full Transcript
Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally.
Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.
Hey. Hey. All right, so today we’re gonna talk about something that again, is mom focused, and it’s a little bit close in time to the last mom focused one I did, which I don’t normally like to do, but I got a couple people asking about time management with a newborn, and so I figured I would share my random thoughts with you about that on the time management front.
Life with a newborn obviously has a lot of joy and awesome in it, but it also has some time management adjustments that are required that can be really challenging, especially I would say for like really high achieving women who are used to go, go, go, go going, especially if this is your first. It can just be such a jolting change of the pace of life.
And so I wanna talk about that today. To try and help set expectations, help manage that challenge, and then also add some practical strategies to this to help you still feel. As on top of it as you would like to in a realistic way, given the realities of what life is right now, it’s not going to, I don’t think any time management strategy is gonna make it feel like it was before ’cause so much has changed.
But I hope that some of these things can help you just have some ownership and ease when it comes to life. Now in this newborn phase. The first tip I wanna share is that all kids are so different, and so I say that to just give context to any advice you’re getting from anyone. Just understand that it might not work for you, partly ’cause you might be different, but also very much because your kid could be very different than their kid or kids have been.
I think that I had heard that a lot, but until I had my second kid who was just so different than my first, it’s hard to convey how accurate that information is. And I guess not even the accuracy of it, the impact that it can have. The things that I could do with my second daughter, I could not have done with my first, and I’m sure there are things vice versa as well.
And so if you get some advice that resonates with you, that sounds great. It worked for your first perhaps, and it doesn’t work for your second, it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with your baby or anything like that. It just, it’s a different kid. And so just really take that to heart.
’cause I think sometimes I. We just assume we’re doing something wrong when it doesn’t work, when we apply it. And I just think that I’m skeptical a lot of a parent of parenting advice now, just having two so different children. I just, I’m like, this person who’s giving me this advice has raised, you know, let’s say even say three or four kids like, but those three or four kids and not my kids.
And so just. Trust yourself a little bit more there and it’s all an experiment and some things are gonna work for you and some don’t. And it’s no judgment on the advice or the advice giver or your ability or anything like that. Just understand that kids are all so different. I also think that’s something very important to keep in mind when you are having a subsequent kid, because I think there can be a understandable thought of.
It’s gonna work kind of like it worked last time and it might, it very much might again, my experience with different kids could be different than yours. You might have two similar kids, but just also be prepared and not, I mean, I think you’re gonna be surprised if it’s very different than your first time anyway.
There’s really no getting around that, but just don’t go in holding tight to what worked the first time. My first child. In some ways I, I think I had the easier sequence of things. My first kiddo. Awesome kid, but challenging first couple years, she did not take a bottle until about 10 to 12 months in there.
She only nursed in a dark nursery. I cannot tell you how many times we tried to nurse at a park, nurse at a restaurant nurse somewhere else, and. Her stubbornness will serve her very well, and it was from day one, and so, you know, things like that happen. She did not sleep through the night until the first year either, and my second.
All those things. Easy, easy peasy. Obviously the bottle. I was so scarred from the first time that I really pushed the bottle from the get go. So like that was something I changed. But beyond that, I really think it was just a personality difference. And so I just share all of that with you that I think I got lucky in that sequence, like I was.
So, the zero to one was a very jolting time for me. One to two is relatively easy transition, but I have plenty of friends who had, I, I hate using these words, but like, just for shorthand, being able to say like, they’re easier kid first, and they assumed the second or the third would be like that. And then it was, I.
Very challenging and jolting and maybe even more so because they thought they knew what raising a baby was like and then they were having a different experience a later time. And it can be kind of confusing. And so I just share all of that. Not to put anything down, but just to like hold expectations lightly.
I think with babies, it’s one of those things that you realize like how little you control and just hold that a little bit looser and lighter, and I think. As with anything, having lower expectations can always serve as well, and then we can be delighted on the other side versus having a very clear expectations of how things are gonna go, and then feeling confused and lost and disappointed and upset when things don’t go to that plan.
Okay, so when you’re thinking about. Managing your time with a baby. Just the first point is just understand all kids are different and that advice giving in your own previous experience might not dictate going forward and use that. I know it sounds like maybe not time management and maybe it’s not fully, but I.
It has such an impact on how we manage our time through that phase that I wanted to share that. This next point is not really time management, but it’s something, it’s something that I believe in very strongly, so I figured I’d throw it in is do not sweat the rules so much. I think that probably as someone who’s very much a rule follower, very much like.
High achieving success. I want people to know and like think of me as a success, like especially earlier in my life, I was like, okay, I’m gonna follow all these rules. I’m gonna breastfeed, I’m gonna not use a swing. People were like, don’t use a swing. Like all these kind of things. I. Candidly, they led to a lot of misery that first year.
And what’s hard I find in that first year, especially if you have a baby who’s not taking a bottle, so you’re tethered to the house and not sleeping through the night, so you’re exhausted. I didn’t fully appreciate how my decision making capabilities and executive functioning skills and just critical thinking skills, that’s really what I was going for.
They weren’t. They did not exist. It was like later that I realized people had been like, do not use a swing for your baby. And you just need to train them to like go to sleep on their own still and all this kind of stuff. And I just realized a year later, like I was the swing. Like I was the swing for 45 minutes before every single nap.
And I’m not saying from a safety standpoint, I don’t know. I mean the rules change so frequently. I’m not sure what the rules are. I’m not advocating using a swing and letting your baby sleep in one. My bigger point is you’re going to hear these rules, you’re going to hold them. Just objectively as true fact in your head and just challenge that.
Really, really challenge that because with my second baby, I got a swing and things were delightful. And a related point I wanted to say is I am a big believer that a happy mom is best for the baby and everybody else in the family. My experiences. My first and my second, my second. I prioritized my own happiness and everybody else, including the baby, including my oldest, were all happier because of that, and definitely for my marriage too.
And so I just wanted to share that. It kind of relates to. You know when you’re going into all of this, you’re going to hear a lot of opinions that you’re going to take as true sometimes as fact sometimes, and just challenge that a bit and don’t sweat those rules so much and prioritize your own happiness in here a lot as well, because it really will have ripple effects that have an bearing on your kiddo.
Okay, turning more to maybe the time management tips you came here for. The first one is take advantage of technology. I want you to really make peace with the fact, I mean, I believe this at baseline about all of us, but definitely during the newborn phase where your sleep is more interrupted than it normally is.
Hopefully not as bad as mine was, but still it’s interrupted to a degree. There’s a lot going on. Your focus is on this baby, and less about some other things, like really just to embrace the fact that your brain cannot and will not remember all the things that you wanna do on its own, and that that is okay.
It’s completely fine. It’s completely normal. It is completely expected. Just embrace that because once you make peace with that, and again, I believe this baseline even outside of newborn life, but definitely a newborn life, once you make peace with the fact that your brain will not remember all the things, then you can look outside of yourself for systems to still help you remember the things that you want to do without your brain having to do it.
You know me, I love calendaring and everything. If you are not a fan of that, at least rely on phone alarms for some of this stuff. I really, really think it will help, you know, just alleviate that mental load. The guilt or self blame when we forget things. Inevitably, things like that. Oh, and just, you know, when it comes to the tech, this is actually where I think I started using Cal Alarm.
It is a app that you can use on iPhone. I still use it, but I really fell in love with it in my newborn faces. And the main one is it. One is it’s very naggy. A lot of my clients do not like it. I would say maybe 50% of my clients like it. 50% don’t. That’s okay, but it’s very naggy. You can set it so that it’s like tapping you on the shoulder every minute to remind you to do the thing, which I really needed in my newborn phase of life.
The real reason I loved it though is because it lets you snooze for a variety of different times. So think of it like an outlook. When you get a calendar look alert and you can say, you know, remind me in five minutes, remind me in 15 minutes, remind me in 30 minutes. It has that functionality, which I love because as we all know in newborn life or you know, those who’ve been moms and def and you will soon learn if you haven’t yet had a newborn, is.
Things don’t happen when you plan on them, and that’s what I really want you to hear is even though I use my calendar, I use it very flexibly, and then the phone alert would hit and I would have an awake baby when I thought I’d have a sleepy baby. I think I’ll be free in about 45 minutes or an hour, and I could snooze it for that period of time.
That was really, really nice. Or even like maybe I had an alert to call a friend, but the baby was still awake and we hadn’t started walking yet, and so I could snooze it for 15 minutes. Turn back to getting the baby ready and then get the alert in 15 minutes and you might think, well remember to call in 15 minutes.
You might not. Again, I don at baseline, but definitely not when I had a newborn. And so just using the alerts in this way and using Cal alarm to snooze in that with that specificity is really, really nice. So just some examples of why I love this, or I should say of what I used this for, I remember from my newborn days is.
To schedule a reminder, like I would calendar a reminder to call the doctor when the office opened on Monday at 8:00 AM. I would have a weekly reminder to restock the diaper bag and the changing table once a week because it is the worst when you hire, are dealing with a blowout and there are no more di no more wipes in one of those places.
It really, really stinks. So just having a weekly reminder to replenish those things was really, really, really helpful. I also had like daily reminders to give the baby those DDR things, um, and things like that. Like really as you’re going through this, and especially if there’s anything new, but also just like any of the things you’re like, why can’t I remember this?
Just anytime you catch yourself having self-blame on any of these things, just be like, how do I solve this going forward? Calendar? Lemme calendar. And it really, really helps. Oh, another one is if you have to go to the pediatrician calendaring 30 minutes before that to, or. 30 minutes before you would leave to put that like immunization paper thing, if that’s what you have to do and your like health insurance card in the backpack or whatever that you bring.
I didn’t have to do that with my second, the system I was in was more electronic, but at my first, I did have to carry that like paper immunization card around and I also would calendar after each time to scan a copy in because it’s just one I. Me invisible things, I might lose ’em, but also you tend to like have to show that to people.
Like if you just start doing take care, things like that. And so having that version digitally is really, really nice. Just also for the backup if you lose it. Okay, so that point is take advantage of the tech. Don’t rely on your brain for me. Use your calendar, maybe use phone alarms if you want, and really just help future.
You do the things you wanna do and assume she will not remember. And so just help her out in that way. Next tip is embrace help. I mean, I think this is a struggle for a lot of us and it’s something that I really, really wish that I had done in some ways earlier with my first, I very much did it with my second, but I really wish I had embraced help earlier.
Now, taking a step back of just like some examples of what I mean, ’cause this can look different to different people. One thing that I did that that’s a little bit tangential was we actually did the first two weeks on our own. We didn’t have visitors. I think my in-laws came in for like a couple days, but on the whole, those first two weeks were really.
My husband, me and the baby, and that was a really sweet, like our little new family time. And then two weeks in, I think it was around when my husband went back to work, my mom came out for two weeks and that was a really nice cadence. I know that, again, there’s no right or wrong and it depends on preferences and things like that, but I just share that.
That was really nice for us. You are also in those first two weeks on this like high of invincibility and you’re like, I got this. I can do this. Like this is fine. And then I don’t know what it is, like two weeks in, I don’t know what the adrenaline chills out and suddenly you’re like, and having my mom come in at that phase was really, really nice.
So I just throw that out there for you that if you have family help with my first, we did not have any local family, but my mom came in to help for those two weeks and that was really, really nice. Starting from day one, embrace whatever outsourcing you can and that you feel comfortable with. I think we canceled our cleaners for a while, just ’cause we were around all the time and it was just, I, I find it kind of awkward to be in the house if other people are there and I feel like I’m in their way and I can’t, they might wake the baby up and it was kind of stuff.
So we just canceled cleaning for a long time. But I did really rely on like Instacart. And also, by the way, if you keep your clean, go for it. I know we’re all different and. That cleaning element would’ve been really nice to have. It just was hard for me to envision someone being in the house. We were living in this like 1100 square foot, awesome, adorable little house in San Diego, but small.
So it was pretty unavoidable if we were like all there together. And so I canceled where I don’t think we did the same with my second, partly ’cause we moved to the Midwest and had a much more spacious home. Things like Instacart were amazing. I just, that’s when I really fell in love with Instacart because I could be like, I can order this while my baby is asleep.
And then it shows up after the baby goes to bed at night and I can put my groceries away and I didn’t have to leave the house. And I get to spend the sleeping time that she has, like doing things that I actually love doing. And that was really, really nice. So whatever it looks like for you, um, if you don’t wanna swing Instacart or you don’t like it, even just taking advantage of like target pickup orders.
It’s pre and probably saves money ’cause you’re not going into the target. Anything like that can be really, really nice. If you enjoy going into Target with your baby, awesome do it. But if it’s kind of more of a hassle for you to get the baby in and out and all that kind of stuff, like all the time, then that might be something that you really can take advantage of.
The thing that I wish I had when it comes to outsourcing, done much earlier with my first was get more childcare help earlier. I didn’t get any childcare help until like hired, like I didn’t hire any childcare help, so I had no consistent childcare unless family was in town until she was six months old.
And I really like looking back on that. I really wish that I had done that earlier once I did around six months. I went back to starting this business and like building that. I also got to run errands on my own. I got to sleep, like after a bad night of sleep, the, our sitter would show up and I would just go back to bed sometimes.
Any of those things that I did, I just felt like a new person again, and I wish I had done that earlier and I’m just, will always bang that drum that if you’re on maternity leave, do whatever you wanna do, but don’t feel like. Getting childcare help is reserved for when you go back to work. Like don’t think that you only get childcare help if you have a doctor’s appointment or a haircut or something productive.
Like just get it if you can afford it, and you will just relish those hours for yourself. And then it really also changes how you spend time with your little one when you’re back. Like I just started enjoying it so much more when I’d had some time away, when I had some time to like reconnect with me as a person.
It really improved things drastically on so many fronts that I, I just encourage it, like, if you can swing it, really push yourself to do it because it really makes such, such a difference. Okay, next tip. Do not clean all day. This is one that, I mean, it is time management, but it’s also just, I just wish I could go back in time and like just tap past me on the shoulder and be like, stop.
Stop doing this. The first two months of my first daughter’s life, I spent the first part of all of her naps cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry, and then I realized. The house reverted back to a mess within like 10 minutes of her being awake, and I was essentially wasting this Oh, so limited free time on cleaning that would just get dashed away as soon as she woke up.
And once I realized that I, so I had that light bulb moment, I was like, I’m done with this. So I let the house stay a mess until she went to bed. I found it way more enjoyable to clean after she went to bed, and I knew it would stay clean for an hour or two of my awake time. I will say I do love waking up to a clean house, so it was worth it to me to clean every day, but by cleaning once a day.
It just helped me enjoy it more when I was cleaning because I would listen to an audio book and just enjoy that time or talk to a friend. And then I also got to reclaim all of her little, you know, nap windows to do things that were important to me, like sleep or shower or email, or maybe do a little bit of business.
I forget what I was doing then, but. I just could reclaim that time and when your time is so limited, and especially in those early days where naps can be like half an hour, 40 minutes long. It just was really, really nice to be able to claim all of that versus just 15 or 20 minutes after I’d finished cleaning each nap.
I. Okay. Next tip is be prepared for emergencies. Now this one’s a little morbid and a little scary, but I am a big believer in like being prepared and hopefully never needing the knowledge. Like kinda like Murphy’s Law, if you’re ready. Hopefully it doesn’t happen and you probably took some sort of first aid course when you were pregnant.
At least that’s what my friends were doing in California. But what happens is, is you re, you know, get trained in CPR and all this kind of stuff, and then you forget about it ’cause you’re really tired or you just don’t think about it. I don’t know if you forget about it, but you’re not thinking about it.
And for me, I just was like, I don’t remember anything from that class a couple months ago because I’m so tired. And one thing that I started doing that I need to actually get back into, I must have, I don’t know why I fell off doing it. I must have took it outta my calendar at some point. Is spending 10 or 15 minutes watching a CPR and choking YouTube video and just like obviously like how to respond to those scenarios.
And I think I did it once every other month and I need to again work that back in because if push came to shove and you needed to do that, it’s really hard to recall back to that one CPR class you took like months and months ago. And it just felt really good for me to have that in my back pocket. What I did is I found, I don’t even have the links anymore, but I just found a.
Hospital produced video on how to do CPR and choking with an infant, and then later with a toddler and child. And when I had both, when I had a toddler and a baby, I’d watch both every, I think it was every other month. And that’s really valuable and I just share it that it is morbid. But I do feel like that was a good time management tip that I’m glad I’ve spent the time on.
I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t needed to use it, but I know I have felt more calm in those moments. Not fully calm, but more calm in those moments. Be like, I know how to respond to this. I know how to respond, and it’s fresher than it would be, and I feel more like equipped to deal with it in those moments.
Speaking of lighter emergencies, not as scary. Is keeping, and this is just a random tip, but it is really handy. I’m sure you know it. I mean, there are all these like YouTube videos on how to prepare for a baby that are more in line with the random tips to do, but I absolutely am a fan of having extra diapers, wipes, and clothes in the car.
I would also recommend a set of old clothes for you in the car, and that can be something you calendar. Just kinda like updating those diaper, you know, changing tables and diaper bags that you would like. Check on that every few weeks to make sure that everything’s still in there. Or if you need to like supplement it with stuff that’s been taken, you can do that.
Next tip kind of relates to the thing I said at the top is set realistic expectations. Especially in those first months, basically until you’re down to like zero to one nighttime wake-ups, really lower your expectations about what you can accomplish in a day. This can be really difficult for those of us who are used to go Gogo before having a baby, and it’s very strange to have to slow the pace of life so significantly and just embrace it for a period of time knowing that it is a season.
Embrace it also in the sense of do not, you know, have it adjust your planning. You’re not going to be able to do what you could do before the baby comes. Once the baby is there. Typically, I shall say again, every child is different. My first, this, what I’m saying, very much stood my second. I actually got a lot done ’cause she slept so much more and so you’ll have to vary it, but I think it’s safer to go in thinking you’re not gonna get very much done and then be pleasantly surprised when you do.
Versus thinking that you can somehow still accomplish hours of productive things every day, and then being continually frustrated when that doesn’t happen. If that’s the scenario you end up in. Next tip, this one is up to you. This one very much depends on if you have a home partner, obviously, and then also what your preferences are.
But one thing we have done, and it’s looked different with each kid in each scenario is really split the nights. We were not a couple that both got up for every feeding. I just feel like then you’re all, everybody’s sleep is really disrupted. So with our first, I believe my husband would take her from like 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM every night, and I would sleep without listening for a baby.
I would feed her pass out. I think the baby would sleep on my husband, like just out in the living room, and he would watch TV for like a couple hours there, and then I would take over for the rest of the night and it just gave me three solid hours of sleep, and then I would still sleep. But in that more like patchwork way the rest of the night.
But having that kind of first couple hours of sleep was really, really great for me. I know it’s only three hours, but I’ve heard something that like. Each hour of sleep you get before midnight is almost like double the hours after midnight. And I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what it felt like I remember at the time.
And so I just share that with my second, what we did. This is so crazy. It’s like just funny. The things you do that you think about later is we had a unfinished garage in San Diego. Where we had a sleeper sofa out there and we, when we had our first kid, my husband would sleep out there sometimes, particularly like after a shift or, yeah, or like before, I can’t, like if he was sleeping, when we were gonna be awake, he would go out to the garage in this unfinished garage and sleep on the sleeper sofa.
And then with our second, he just kind of slept out there for the first couple weeks. And he would set an alarm for I think five 40 and he would come in the house by 6:00 AM. And no matter what was going on, like I would take the shift with the girls until 6:00 AM and then he would take the girls and I would just sleep as long as I wanted to.
And that is different than the first time we did it. I think we were like, I. Honestly, the second was so much easier sleep-wise that would not have worked for our first daughter, but the second slept pretty well, and that divvy worked really, really well for us. It was very doable. I think my second was only up like two to three times a night from the beginning, and then it quickly dwindled to like one to two times a night.
And so anyway, I’m just kinda more thinking out loud and now getting wrapped up in the memories of those days, but bad. That’s what we did. I really recommend. I know again, everybody’s different. I’ve never candidly really understood both people getting up for every single feeding. I get that it allows like, you know, the woman to do the feeding or to pump, and then the guy can, or you know, that’s a heterosexual couple.
Like the other partner can do diapers and things like that. But candidly, it just means everybody’s tired the next day and by divvying it up a little bit more, there is something. At least for me, very different about sleeping. When I do not have to listen for a baby. It’s like my brain knows that and my body can just deep dive into sleep better than it ever can when I’m have to be like, I’m gonna listen for kids.
And so having that like really off the clock period of time is really, really valuable. Obviously that 6:00 AM thing only worked while my husband wasn’t working, but it really worked for us for a long time. So we must have taken off a couple weeks around then, and that was really valuable. Okay. Last thing is don’t forget about postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression.
I heard this from someone else, and I’ll try and find out who it was so I can credit them, but kind of having a list of the symptoms of each of those and taping them up somewhere in your kitchen. Making sure your partner knows, and maybe even like your mom or a parent or some good friend knows what the symptoms are.
Postpartum anxiety and depression. I think, I mean, it’s hard to know ’cause it was undiagnosed, but I’m pretty sure I had postpartum anxiety with my first, and I mean, it’s all valid. Part of it was rooted in the reality of how hard it was, especially with a kid who wasn’t sleeping and taking a bottle and just.
And she’s awesome, but she was feisty and stubborn from the get go. So like there was real anxiety that came out of all those things, but I’m sure it was exacerbated by hormonal stuff. And just looking back, the level of anxiety I felt was probably not normal, and I just wish I had had it more on my radar.
I mean, candidly, I knew about postpartum depression. I didn’t know about postpartum anxiety until later, and I just wish that. I had been more aware of what those symptoms were and that the people close to me had as well. I, I am someone who, when I’m going through something rough, I’m like, I’m fine, because I feel like, well, I have to do it anyway, so why even acknowledge that I’m not fine ’cause I have to do this anyway.
And me acknowledging I’m not, not fine doesn’t change that. And I think that’s my approach to a lot of tricky things in life. And here I think it was to that as well. I don’t think that’s actually true. Like I could have gotten more help and support and talked to someone who understood what was happening in a far better way than I understood what was happening.
And so that’s something I wish, looking back that I had done. Other advice I’ve given to other new moms, I. Is also really starting therapy beforehand, like starting therapy before the baby comes so that you have a relationship with someone who. Understands these types of things and can be on the lookout with these types of things, or even if you clock it and know that’s what’s going on, it’s really hard to, you know, at that point, like when you have a little baby, it’s hard to imagine researching and finding a therapist.
And if you don’t like the first therapist, finding another one. Like if you can have that relationship in place before the baby comes. That would be a really, really big one. Speaking of that, a tip I did not think about, but I think I will throw it in right at the end on the time management front is before the baby comes, if you’re listening to this while pregnant, really thinking about all the things like the life things that you might want to do before the baby comes.
And I don’t mean like all the things, there’s so many adulting things, but I mean a haircut, getting the oil changed in your car, going to your PCP. Having that dermatologist appointment, all the things that we need to do that you might tend to do at different times of your life without fully appreciating that those times of your life now are in the first six months of your kids’ life and that things are harder.
I. When you have a kid that you have to bring in tow or you just might end up, you know, you get a sitter or your partner watches, or your mom watches the kid, and like you’d rather use that time for other things. And so I just throw that out there that if you wanna schedule all of those things before you think the baby’s gonna come, that can be really, really valuable.
Okay. Those are my random tips. Take ’em or leave them. Understand that. Everybody’s kids are different, everybody’s experiences are different. Someone listening to this might be like, that’s not at all my experience, and that is totally fine and totally valid. I’m just trying to add value where I can, and I hope that that helps to a degree.
I’ll also mention I have a lot of other resources that are related to this. I have a podcast episode on the one year shakeup where I think that it’s really, really important to understand that around when your baby is roughly a year old, and again, every kid is different, but roughly around a year old, you can share the load with your partner, typically a lot better than you might have.
Been able to earlier, and so I think it’s really important to calendar that in your own calendar so it doesn’t pass by and you we blow by it without realizing the potential for the change. I also think it’s great to talk to your partner about that earlier and say, just so you know, around the year mark, we’re gonna have an intentional shift on how we manage all of this stuff.
Hopefully you can do it earlier and again, if you can, wonderful. But if you haven’t been able to, then I think that that’s an important conversation to have and there’s a whole podcast episode about that. I also have a really great article that was crowdsourced on how to go on maternity leave, and so check that one out.
Even if you’re already on maternity leave, as you listen to this, there’s some really great advice on how to ramp back up into work once you go back to work, and so that there’s some great advice in there. I’ll link that in the show notes as well, and I think we have a couple other things as well, and I will put those in the show notes just for resources that are related to this topic as well.
I hope this was helpful. I know it’s a bit random. I bopped around a lot, but hopefully you got a couple things that will serve you well and that can kind of anchor you and help you feel like this very amorphous, weirdly slow paced, but so much going on whirling time. Hopefully you can get it to a place that feels a little bit more how you want it to feel.
Good luck. It is a wild time and a wonderful time, and you are strong and capable and you will get through it. I will talk to you in the next episode. Thanks for being here.
