Pursuing a career and motherhood is a tough job that requires a lot of commitment and dedication. Professional mothers become so dominated by childcare thoughts that they fail to maintain a balance between their personal and professional lives. Our suggested guidelines will help mothers change this thought process for the betterment of themselves.
Self-care for professional first-time new mothers
Self-care routine of professional new mothers is affected by many professional and personal factors. Many of these are related to each other to such an extent that we fail to recognize their importance.
Studying these factors will help to understand the context of this concept by understanding the main causes that hamper the realization of the self-care concept. We have discussed in detail these concepts to make you aware of the real-time factor in action against this concept and possible solutions to it.
Motherhood vs Professionalism
Professional moms are always haunted by the thought that their professional career is surely going to affect childcare activities. In a personal context, mothers’ thoughts are constantly controlled by the notion that they are not doing enough for their baby or cannot attend to the baby’s needs adequately.
These thoughts develop deeper roots in the mother’s mind if the baby gets sick too often. Professional factors also contribute to these thoughts. For instance, if a mother sees another colleague’s child outperform her baby, it will intensify her guilt that the performance of her baby is solely the result of her negligence.
If a mother is pursuing a professional career, work and home life balance becomes the main catalyst for triggering these thoughts. These thoughts change the thought process of the mother.
Emotional Setbacks
Professional mothers’ constant indulgence in the feeling of professional guilt leads to stress and anxiety. This significantly affects the mental health of the mother to a great extent. This situation leads to sharp changes in mood swings, affecting family life.
This emotional state of the professional mother leads to fights between husband and wife. The bonding time between mother and child also gets affected. All these emotional burdens change the mental state of the mother to such an extent that the mother feels constantly exhausted throughout the day.
Societal expectations from professional mother
The image of motherhood that prevails in our society has nothing to do with the real-world context and professional life career that a mother pursues. Movies and fictional characters in novels and books also contribute to this image.
This image is portrayed as attainable, and professional mothers find it hard to achieve this benchmark. Since every mother has to face a different set of challenges, compelling them to adhere to one fit-for-all gold standard is inappropriate and irrational.
Self-care is not a selfish act
In this society, where benchmarks for motherhood are too idealistic to attain, exercising self-care can be perceived very negatively. Professional mothers often end up with the sole focus of managing their baby’s needs, to the extent that their career and personal needs are set aside most of the time.
But the core of this situation is that a mother caring for herself is caring for her baby. If a mother finds some time for her care, it does not imply that she is escaping from her responsibilities. In fact, in a broader context, personal care creates a more vibrant mother who can adhere to the child’s needs and professional needs effectively.
Self-care effects on mental health
Self-care directly improves a professional mother’s physical and mental health. Any time dedicated to self-care that provides some hours of leisure and relaxation helps to get rid of daily stress.
No matter how complex the professional or personal circumstances are, self-care is crucial. This can be understood from the simple concept during the early days of infant birth, which required more frequent feeding and attention. If a mother cannot get enough sleep, she will not be able to attend to the needs of newborns more effectively.
Physical well-being is a prime focus
Pursuing a professional career and motherhood is such a hectic task, and it takes a huge toll on the physical well-being of the mother. Infants and children’s feeding and preparation is a time-consuming process that dominates most of the time for mothers.
This situation may lead a mother to skip her meals. Meals are an important source of energy, and mothers are no exception to this. Not eating meals at the right time deprives the mother of the necessary energy required to pursue her personal and professional life, which leads to exhaustion in a short period of time. Meals at regular intervals of time are a necessary part of self-care.
Emotional Balance
Emotional balance is key to a happy life, but it is often neglected during parenthood. Emotional balance is unique in the sense that it is related to both personal and professional people to whom you are related and directly affects your emotional state.
Two states create emotional balance. Either through release of the emotional energy by giving due love time to your partner. The second stage is to gain emotional energy. This is done by doing things that you love to do, like journaling and meeting with friends. All these activities will boost your emotional energy, so you can be more vibrant.
Support network for professional mother
The professional mother necessarily needs to have some sort of support to help with the parenting of the child. The value of additional support is underestimated to a great extent. This can be understood by the fact that the newborn parents often ignored the support offered by their couple’s parents.
Self-care is not a self-driven process. It depends on several factors, like the availability of time or a support network during the parenting journey. If you do not necessarily incorporate support from family members in parenting, relying solely on your partner will affect his or her personal and professional lives. The availability of free time is crucial for self-care.
Pursue your passion
Motherhood does not end with the conclusion of the pregnancy cycle. It is an evolving and continuous process. Though it is not possible to set an end date for child care and parenting journeys, from birth to the first 3 to 5 years, they are of significant importance.
If you are planning to have another baby during this period, then the parenting journey of the mother continues for an even longer period. This highlights an important fact due to the continuous nature of parenting, it is not possible to confine ourselves to parenting only.
Mother needs to continue the pursuit of their personal and professional goals. Go restart your job or profession when you think it is the right time to do it. This will foster a feeling of goal realization. You can also continue your passions or hobbies to boost your morale. In this way, you will be able to exercise self-care by pursuing your passion.
Stay active for self-care
A mother’s physical activity gets restricted during the pregnancy cycle. This situation changed after the completion of the delivery cycle. In a real context, the mother’s physical activity remained confined to adherence to childcare needs.
A professional mother needs to demarcate a boundary between physical activity and physical exercise. Though managing daily house chores is a good physical activity, it cannot be termed a good physical exercise. Mother needs to indulge in some sort of physical exercise, even for ten minutes daily, at her home or office. This improves the physical state of the mother, leading to healthy self-care activities.
Restore your social connections
Nothing is more satisfying than the company of a good friend or a family member. During the final months of pregnancy, mothers mostly have to stay indoors, and their social life is affected a lot due to this mobility.
Professional mothers, after the conclusion of delivery, may want to restore their social connection but find it hard to do so because of the frequent breastfeeding of the baby. Yes, it can be a concern, but there are many aids, like breast pumps, that can help solve this problem during your socializing moments.
Socialization is an important aspect of self-care. It diverts your attention from daily housework and office chores. Socialization will enable you to enjoy many moments of joy with your friends. This will bring positive mood vibes into your personality. A happy, positive mental and physical state is an ideal realization of the self-care goal of professional mothers.
Conclusion
A professional mother’s care has nothing to do with her ability to manage childcare activities. They are integral to the personal health of the mother. All these personal care activities will improve the physical and mental health of the mother, so she can take care of the baby and her professional life effectively and productively.