Tag: Self-Care

How early parenthood prepared me for quarantine

I’ve never lived through a pandemic before. But like all parents, I know what it’s like to have my world shrink. My world used to be much tinier than this, those first weeks after I had each baby when I barely left my bedroom, and the months afterward when even a walk down the street sometimes seemed impossible.

The quarantine’s tight intimacy has been strangely familiar, so sweet and so suffocating at the same time. Thanks to those early baby years, I know what it’s like to have my world close in on me and my children, and how to re-craft my expectations around those new boundaries. Luckily, this time around, I have that past experience to guide me.

A Tranquil Isle in the Sea of Busyness

By Holly Koteen-Soule We all know that sleep is essential for rejuvenation, and if you find yourself paddling hard all day long, you may also want to find a quiet mooring place somewhere in the middle of the day. Naps give young children a chance to rest and recharge, but calm times during waking hours are also necessary for children…

The Power of Focusing on Your Own Wellness

When I was pregnant with my first daughter, family and friends who’d been there all had the same piece of advice: Sleep when the baby sleeps. It seemed so simple, and so obvious. Of course I would do that. When I was tired. Which wouldn’t be all the time. Then my daughter was born, and, like a lot of babies,…

Five Things I Learned From Yoga About Being A New Parent

by Megan Sloan I was a prenatal and postnatal yoga teacher long before I was a mom, and a student of yoga for even longer. Through years of teaching yoga to pregnant students and then seeing their transformations into new parents postpartum, I witnessed the gamut of what becoming a parent looked like. And if there’s one thing I learned,…

Partners and Self-care as New Parents

by Melinda Ferguson The time after a baby arrives is one of enormous change for the entire family. Relationships shift, priorities shift, many aspects of daily life change, and there is much to learn about the care and feeding of a new little person. All of these transitions happen regardless of whether someone gave birth themselves, just by the nature of bringing a…

Beyond Baby Steps: How mama got her voice back

So how does a completely immersed mom claw herself out of the abyss of early motherhood? For me, it started with writing a book and ended with raising a hammer. Let’s start with the Book… Last November I told my family that I would be writing a novel that month. You see, every November there’s a month-long writers marathon called…