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.
It is an important aspect of a healthy work environment and maintaining it reduces stress and helps prevents burnout in the workplace. Also the key to achieving work life balance relies on not just what you do while you are at work, but what you do outside of work as well.
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.
Get Assistance
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.
Simplify Your Mornings Create a consistent morning routine for you, your baby and the rest of the family and stick to it. That way you will automatically know what you have to do before you either get out the door to start your commute or begin working from home and you won’t lose too much time fumbling around. Though, be realistic and flexible because babies and life in general are unpredictable, so try to do some of your prep the night before, like packing lunch and snacks, preparing bottles, getting your baby’s diaper bag ready, showering and other things needed. Your mornings will run more smoothly the more you practice and get as much done ahead of time as you can.
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.
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