Creating A Work-Life Balance For Nursing Mothers

The term “work-life balance” involves the minimization of work related stress and the establishing of a stable and sustainable way to work while maintaining health and general well-being.

However, a nursing mother is a woman who is breastfeeding a child. Managing work and her life was already a lot to handle before the baby. With the addition of a baby, it makes it a lot more difficult to handle, and without proper balance, could pose a threat to the sanity of the woman.

Juggling the responsibilities of a job and your brand new baby may seem impossible and challenging, but that’s where a little or maybe a lot of planning and persistence can be helpful.

Here are some strategies that can help you create work-life balance as a nursing mother

Set Up a Family Calendar

Having one place where every family member’s work schedules, appointments, commitments are recorded is key for managing the chaos of work and family life. You will know at a glance what you need to do that week without being told.

Work-Life Integration

After some months of staying at home after giving birth, work resumes but the fact that work resumes doesn’t mean that breastfeeding will stop too. Therefore, there has to be a level of integration between her work and life, which means that she can work at home when she is free, also she can take breaks at the office to breastfeed or rest herself.

Don’t try to be a supermom because it is not easy to handle everything yourself, especially when there are people to whom you can give the work. It is important to get help either by employing an assistant at work or getting a relative or a maid to the house. That would help you concentrate on yourself and the baby, because being a nursing mother can be demanding and would require lots of love and understanding, plus assistance.

Caring and Listening to Your Body

Caring for a baby takes a lot from the mother and milk production takes a lot of nutrients from her body as well. It requires that she rests well and feeds well as that will help for milk production, produce more food for the nourishment of the baby and make a healthy mother at work. Therefore, she needs to observe and care for her body by resting when tired and eating adequately. This will help her not be used up in the process of nourishing the child and then perform poorly at work. It is important she listens to her body and gives it what it wants since personal care and her healthy well-being are key to making everything at home and the office run smoothly.

In conclusion, it is not easy balancing it all, but on those days when you are feeling like you wish you could give more at work or at home (or both), tell yourself that you are doing the best you can. Remember, you just brought a beautiful life into the world and that’s the biggest accomplishment of all.