9 in, 9 out: A postpartum update and some advice from a 3rd time mom

Plus, things that I've been wearing and eyeing lately!

Somehow, I have a nine-month-old baby. It feels impossible. But it’s true - I even confirmed it out loud this week when scheduling a pelvic floor physical therapy appointment (don’t be like me and wait this long to do it…) as the scheduler said, “oh, so what’s the reason for the appointment - did you have a recent birth?” and I sheepishly said (while doing the math in my head), “yeah…kind of recently…like…in June.” Some days are short, some are long. Some weeks feel insane and like they’re over in the blink of an eye, some feel amazing, and others stretch out endlessly. No matter what, you can’t convince me that I’m not in a time warp and all of a sudden out of nowhere it’s been nine months.

Willa (the baby!) is thriving. She is babbling constantly (not saying mama yet, but you bet I’m waiting for it), eating everything in sight, and obsessed with her older siblings. The smile on her face when she sees them in the morning makes my heart feel like it’s going to explode out of my chest.

There is a lot of talk out there about “it took 9 months to grow the baby, give yourself 9 months to get back to normal” (obviously, I used the catchphrase as the title of this post). In my experience, “back” is a silly term to use because there is no going back, and “normal” is another silly term, because what even is normal? When there is a baby in your life, or really, young kids, you are trying to work out a series of equilibriums and routines. The thing about them is that they are always changing - babies change so fast - but you slowly but surely get better at finding the routine, settling into it, and shifting into a new phase starts to feel like a little bit less of a disruption. (PS: some phases will still rock you, and I think that’s normal too - but, behind the scenes, you’re getting a teensy bit better at managing through the changes). Physically, your body is recovering from growing a human and giving birth - both of which are big demands on your body and recovery & healing takes time. Your hormones are changing constantly. Mentally - everyone’s experience looks different, but it’s usually not easy - and, it’s not linear! All this to say - I’m nine months postpartum with my third, and I feel pretty good. We are in a good routine, I love routine (and my family thrives in it) - and one thing I know from having 3 kids is that the routine won’t last forever, but whenever something changes - we can and will figure it out!

What I’ve found though, is that it takes me more than 9 months to feel like myself again. Most likely, it will at least take until I am no longer nursing - to physically and mentally feel like myself again. I still feel like my hormones are wacky sometimes, and I am dreading the changes that will come when we eventually wean. One of the biggest things on my mind right now is figuring out my workout routine. A consistent workout routine is a huge part of how I feel my best - mentally and physically - and I haven’t had a consistent routine since early fall of 2022 when I found out I was pregnant and started throwing up every day (that was cool, ha!) I’ve had bits and starts of getting into it since Willa was born, but I’m looking forward to the weather warming up, being able to get outside more easily, and figuring out how I can build a few workouts a week into my schedule more consistently (I might even try taking a class outside my house - gasp!). I am ready to feel strong again!

Another thing on my mind is just wrapping my head around how to balance it all (lol, I know this term sucks, but that’s what I’ll use). Until pretty recently, it’s felt like we have 2 kids and a baby. Willa has her own unique needs and requirements, but she also has very few opinions - put her in a stroller to do errands with you, strap her to your body if you’re out and about. Basically, if she gets her naps, food/bottles/nursing sessions when she’s hungry & her diaper changed, she’s golden & happy as a clam. The big kids travel in a pack and they have things they want to do, random urges that sometimes need to be contained, and demands ranging from reasonable to delusional - and all of them have to be addressed. The balance and management of the three of them, in partnership with my husband, plus our jobs, our home, our individual interests, our relationship, our friends, our extended families, etc. It’s always in flux. I have no secrets. We have a full-time nanny, plus a school-aged child, plus our nanny regularly helps us outside her normal hours, and we often have a babysitter in the mix. Some days feel really good. Some days feel…not really good. I am regularly questioning everything, and wondering if our current arrangement is the “right” decision, or if it’s sustainable. I have no answers. Many questions. But, when I focus on the micro level - we are having some very, very good days. Lots of laughing. So much love. Focusing on the small stuff helps ground me in the fact that all I can control is what I am doing today. I absolutely worry, get anxious, spiral, have a good old menty b, but I am also good at shaking it off (when I can’t, see advice #1 below).

One thing that I am looking forward to, especially as the weather warms up, but mostly as the baby is getting a bit older, is building more solo time into our routine for both my husband and me. With a bit of an older baby, it’s becoming (slightly) easier for one person to take all 3 kids at a time. This is our sign to figure out how to leverage that to give each of us some more solo time when we need it! I am most looking forward to getting into a regular tennis routine with some friends when it’s warm enough to play outside!

We’re still workshopping our 4-person selfie method, but we’re out there hanging out with 1 adult to 3 kids and it’s actually (mostly!) fun!

Aside from recapping the things I’m ruminating on right now (I love it when I get little glimpses into other people’s lives via substack - and I like writing about my life, so I hope you, my reader, also, find this entertaining, or, at least, engaging). I decided I would also share some (unsolicited) advice/thoughts about being postpartum. LITERALLY, No One Asked, But…here we are! Nine months out from what is (probably/maybe if you ask me, definitely if you ask my husband) my last baby I am feeling nostalgic and like I need to document the (few) coherent thoughts I have right now. This is for you if you’re a mom, if you’re pregnant, if you’re newly postpartum, if you’re at any point in your postpartum life, if you think you might want to be a parent, if you’re trying to become a parent, or if you’re just nosy or curious (hi - I honestly hope this is every one of us!)

Bodies are wild. The picture on the left is 41 weeks (I had Willa a few days later!). On the right, she’s (a few days shy of) 9 months!

1. This first rule applies to every human: When you feel weird, get outside and go for a walk. If you are feeling down - get your butt outside. Get fresh air, sunshine, move your body, drink a glass of water, and stop doom-scrolling. Listen to a podcast, listen to an audiobook, do nothing & just think (LOL JK like I would ever do that, maybe someday, ha!) If you are postpartum put your baby in their stroller or carrier. If you possibly can, make a friend who has a baby around the same age as you and meet up and walk together. If you don’t already have a mom friend, or you feel weird about making a friend, all you do is this - “hey, I usually do this walk at X time on X day, I’d love company if you ever want to join.” The secret is - we are all looking for those types of connections. Whoever you ask will most likely feel relief, joy, and gratitude for the invitation. Rip the bandaid off because the benefit you get from having connections with other women in the same phase of life as you (this is true in my experience for motherhood, but I think this is true for literally any phase of life that you’re in) is tremendous! This is a great way to have a weekly therapy session, someone to talk through baby things with, and you’re way less likely to skip the walk if you have a date! Get out by yourself, or with others, ideally both.

2. Babies are meant to stay up at night. They are nocturnal. It does not last forever, but it is literally how they have been living their lives while they were growing inside your body. YES, you will sleep again. YES, it is very hard to be sleep-deprived. BUT, when I stopped fighting the MOTN wakeups, and hoping (in vain) that I would magically get a full night of sleep, and instead accepted the wakeups as something that was just going to happen, and stopped being so focused on getting back to sleep as soon as humanly possible, nights became way less scary. Remember - it doesn’t last forever. Have little treats for the middle of the night - I used to have a specific show I would watch during night-time feedings (Emily in Paris or Grey’s Anatomy early seasons) or a really listen to a really good romance novel. To get sleep, in those early days, I go to bed at 7 PM and give the baby to my husband for the first shift. She spent a lot of time sleeping on his chest while watching golf videos on YouTube. He would bring her to me like he was a night nurse to feed and that was it - I would go back to sleep. Around midnight he dropped her with me and went to bed himself for his long stretch and I would deal with subsequent wakeups. This meant I at least always had a few hours to function with. Again, it doesn’t last forever.

3. Thank your body every. damn. day. Postpartum body image, a changed body, getting dressed, recovery - all of it is hard and complex. It looks different for each of us, but no matter what, your body has done something incredible. Be grateful and give yourself as much grace as you need. More on getting dressed postpartum here (and some of my favorites/workhorses/things I’m eyeing below).

4. Fully snuggle your baby against your body and smell their head as much as you possibly can. I mean, fully stretch their little body so it’s lined up against your body, touch their cheek to your cheek, and then wrap your arms around them and hug them against you and just memorize what it feels like. The most incredible feeling in the world. And smell their head a million times. The most incredible smell in the world. It is an immediate comfort to my nervous system. A cherished moment. Complete and utter wholeness. They won’t feel this little forever, and I normally hate when people tell me that, so I kind of hate that I’m telling you this, but seriously. Do it.

5. Decide who you want advice from, and ignore the rest. This includes not just the people who you will ask for advice (and those you might need to ignore IRL), but also the sources of information about parenting that you consume. I don’t follow any parenting accounts on instagram. Why? I don’t need to be inundated with that information. Remember that (for the most part) all the reels that those accounts are putting out are designed to get new eyeballs on their content. It is meant to incite a response in you. When you’re the parent of a newborn - it looks a little like constant information overload about how to get your baby to sleep, what baby products you absolutely under any circumstances shouldn’t use, or “10 things I would NEVER do as the mom of a newborn.” It’s too much. Several years ago, I decided I didn’t need constant advice to be served to me, about whatever parenting problem was the focus of the day, and I have never looked back. This is not to say that I don’t seek expert advice - I do. I just don’t use social media to access that advice. Listening to a podcast, reading a specific newsletter, or purchasing a book from an expert is a much more productive way to get the info and advice when I need it.

6. Make (or join) a text group with other moms in your life. I’ve had a text chain with my college friends (

   Ellie - A Day In Her Life
   I think we just consider you a BC gal now) since 3 of us had kids in 2018. It’s grown to include all of us. We are geographically dispersed, and we have kids at different stages & ages, but we light up the chat every day. Advice, validation, shared experiences, funny experiences - anything goes. Last night, I discovered a tick bite on my son and panicked, and scared him when I removed it - basically, did not follow #9 below at all. I texted our mom chat describing what happened, and just writing it down, and how I felt bad about it was an instant release. Plus - I got instant advice, a newsletter on the risk of tick-borne illnesses & what to do.

7. Do things that you (and your partner) like to do with your kids. Practice doing this when you have a baby. While getting out of the house can feel SO HARD, being outside of the house in a place that adults like is so good for you, your baby, and your partner. Many parts of your life and routine and the ways you spend your time will change when you have kids, but everything doesn’t have to. Pay attention to the things that you do as a family that make you feel the happiest & fill your cup the most, and then do them. For us - we like to run - we bought a jogging stroller a few years ago and we use it almost every weekend - my oldest even bikes along with us now. We love to go out to eat, we love to organize afternoon hangouts with our friends and bring all the kids, and we love weekends away experiencing small doses of communal living - so we do those things as much as we can.

   

   Things I like to do: stuff with my friends. So I took the whole crew to a football game at my alma mater this fall. It was chaotic, but it was so fun (for all of us!)

8. Prepare to ask for help. I am personally very bad at this, but it’s important. If you are bad at asking for help, and getting ready to have a baby, make a list now of things that other people could help you with so you have something ready to go when they ask. Ideally, do it with your partner so they can also provide a suggestion when help is offered. It can be little things - my girlfriend once stopped at CVS to pick up some extra Colace for me on her way to my house. GLAM! When in doubt, ask for food. Specifically, lunch - why is lunch so hard to pull together? I don’t know why, but it is!

9. Practice Relaxing. I don’t mean relaxing in the sense of lying on the couch and chilling out (okay, I don’t not mean that - you should relax as much as possible, but that’s not my advice). Practice being relaxed. Being a parent means that you now have a whole new person (or people) about whom you are going to worry. There is no limit to the amount of things you will worry about. But, worrying - it does nothing. It robs of us enjoying the present, without doing anything productive about the future. Being more relaxed, on the other hand, lets you enjoy everything more. It also sets the tone and vibe that impacts people around you, including kids. There is this great quote from Bill Murray that I discovered a few years ago and have had hanging in my office ever since, that pretty much sums it up.

   “The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself.”

   I recognize that this is way easier said than done - it is hard work (and for some, it comes more naturally than it does for other people). But practice relaxing (or, managing your anxiety) NOW because the worries, the triggers, the sources of your tension or anxiety, they aren’t going anywhere.

10. Have so much fun. Everywhere you go and everywhere you look, people will tell you how hard it is to have kids. And it is true - it’s hard, it’s expensive, it’s tiring, it’s a lot of work! But, it is also SO MUCH FUN. Laugh as hard as you can. Be silly. Tell silly stories, make silly noises. Indulge in bathroom humor. Cover your kids up with their stuffed animals and pretend you can’t find them anywhere just to make them laugh. Keep a note on your phone and write down all the ridiculous things that your kids do & say so that you can look back on it and laugh and bask in the sweet memories. Stay up at night missing them and scrolling through photos of them on your phone. Kids rock.

Phew, okay, if you made it this far - dang, thank you so much. I’m going to bring it back to shopping (because, that is, after all, the theme of my newsletter) now that I have reached my maximum allotment of run-on sentences for a single newsletter. A little round-up of postpartum-friendly pieces - things I have and love, view as essentials, and some new arrivals that have caught my eye recently.

Vanessa Top - Mille is one of my favorite brands, and they recently gifted me a few things, including the Vanessa Top. I love it - it’s such a wearable piece - I’ve worn it out to dinner and for a work trip - it’s the perfect balance of feminine and classic! I have many other pieces from Mille, including the Saffron and Daisy dresses - it is one of my favorite brands in general, but especially for pieces that will look and feel great through multiple phases of life. You can use the code CHRISTINA15 for 15% off your purchase!

Kyle Cardigan - A variation of jeans and a cardigan is one of my most worn postpartum uniforms, and as the weather warms up, I love the idea of a cardigan tee - this is just so sweet.

Levis Jeans - Finding jeans pospartum is a special kind of torture! But, at the same time, having a pair of jeans that you feel great in is such a win - you can pair anything with those jeans! Right now, I’ve been really happy with several pairs of Levi’s, and overall, I feel like the price is right - under $100, and they are regularly discounted (Levi’s F&F is happening right now so many pairs are 30% off). My favorite pairs are the patch pocket ribcage (TTS), ribcage ankle straight (size up), and ribcage wide-leg (run a little small). If you are looking to spend less, check out these H&M jeans (Slim Mom High Ankle) they are fantastic.

Boden Loafers - A slip-on shoe is a postpartum essential - when you’re wearing or holding a baby you want something you can slip right on. Very into these white loafers for spring (currently 15% off w code P1N7). On the topic of Boden, I love this jumpsuit.

Uniqlo Sling Bag - A hands-free option that holds just enough.

Spanx Perfect Pant, Kick Flare - deeply into kick flare pants right now (lots of styling inspo here), and in addition to my beloved Donni’s, I recently added this pair from Spanx into the mix and am loving them (these are TTS for me - I wear a M in the Regular inseam, and am 5’6” - they come in multiple inseams!). These are little fancier & I got to be able to wear for work, but I’ve also dressed down with a sweatpants and sneakers. An non-hard pant option is a postpartum essential!

Doen Ischia Dress - This dress, which just dropped in this beautiful new pattern, is the ultimate every-stage-of-life dress. It is feminine, flattering, a little romantic but not overly so. This is a great dress for family photos (or maternity or newborn photos) - I have it in a blue floral pattern and wore it for our family photos last fall.

Doen Carolynn Dress - If you have an occasion to get dressed up for that you’re shopping for, I love this dress - the color!!

Gap Sweatshirt & Sweatpants - A comfortable matching cozy set is a postpartum essential IMO - be comfortable, and feel just a little better by not wearing ratty gross sweats all the time). This set from Gap is fab. I sized up in the sweatshirt for an oversized look, but the pants are TTS. If you are going to wear your sweats out & about, and you might consider spending a bit more, I really love these pants and this sweatshirt.

Alice Ribbed Sweater Dress - Button-down dresses can be hard to find, but this one is great for the transition of seasons, and you would wear it well into fall as well. Add a blazer to wear it for work, or pair with sneaks & a fanny pack for easy weekend activities.

Paris Sweater Jacket - A cardigan like this is the perfect topper for a spring outfit and is an instant put-together piece. I love the blue!

Denim Shirt / Jacket - My denim shirt is one of the most worn items in my wardrobe - I wore it throughout my pregnancy and still reach for it all the time - a great layering piece! If you’re looking for something similar, I’m really into this jacket, and this one too.

Amela Linen Top - Fit and Flare Tops with Buttons are on my radar right now. Vest-inspired, but not overtly a vest, I love the ladylike and feminine details on this tank. I am imagining pairing it with everything from denim shorts to trousers or a slip skirt.

Blake Ruffle Shirt - Alex Mill is a favorite brand, and I love their new collection. This blouse is gorgeous.

Anya Ballerinas - Okay, so obviously not just for those of us who are postpartum, but sometimes, all you need to feel like you have plenty of clothes to wear is a new accessory - these shoes are perfect for spring and right into summer.

Thank you so much for reading. If you are looking for more postpartum style inspiration, below are some previous pieces you may enjoy. If you are postpartum and struggling to figure out what to wear to feel good and like yourself, and think you might be interested in styling support, drop me a note, I’d love to work together.

• Getting Dressed When You Just Grew a Human - My best advice on approaching getting dressed right after you’ve had a baby.

• Getting Dressed When You Just Grew a Human & Have a Big Night Out - Ideas for what to wear to look hot as sh&t

• Postpartum Closet Refresh - How 13 pieces can be combined to create over 30 outfits that are great for postpartum

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