Expecting a baby means a lot of changes in your life. Along with those changes can come stress and worry. When it’s your first baby, it can seem pretty terrifying. There are so many unknowns, even if you have a basic idea of how things should go. But being too stressed when you’re expecting isn’t going to help you. You need ways to deal with your worries and let yourself relax. You should be enjoying an exciting and joyful time in your life, full of positive anticipation. So how can you learn to let go of your worries and be prepared for when parenthood officially begins?
Get Ready for the Delivery
Preparing for the birth isn’t something you will necessarily do right away when you find out you’re pregnant. But it is something you will need to start thinking about in a few different ways. Creating a birth plan is one way you can feel more in control, even if you know that you can’t plan exactly how everything will go. You can make choices such as what sort of medication you want, who you want with you, and even if you want to play music during the birth. Another task you’ll want to take care of is preparing a hospital bag. You won’t need to do this for a while, but it’s handy to have a bag with all of your essential things that’s ready to go. Think about the comforts you might need in the hospital, as well as anything you might need for your baby.
Educate Yourself
When you educate yourself, you can feel much more confident and less uncertain about something new that you’re going to experience. It’s less unknown to you, although you haven’t experienced it for yourself just yet. There are plenty of ways to learn throughout your pregnancy about pregnancy, birth, and parenting. You can read books, watch videos and TV shows, read articles and blogs online, and more. The more you learn, the more it can help to ease your worries. Of course, sometimes it can have the opposite effect. So it’s important to know when it’s time to take a break and step back from taking in new information.
Remember That Every Parent Starts Somewhere
It’s always important to remember that every parent has to start from the beginning. Some people might have more experience with babies and children, but no one has really been a parent before. When you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, keep in mind that all parents have to learn what to do as they go. No one is perfect or instinctively knows what to do all the time. You’re sure to make mistakes, but you’ll also quickly learn a lot about how to be the best parent you can be.
Speak to Someone About Your Concerns
Keeping it to yourself when you’re worried won’t help you. If you don’t share your concerns with anyone, you can find that your worries get bigger and bigger. There are several people you could turn to if you need to discuss your anxieties. You might speak to a friend or relative, especially someone who is also a parent, and might understand what you’re going through. You could also seek out a neutral party, such as a therapist, who could listen to your concerns and help you find ways to deal with stress.
Meet Other Expectant Parents
One of the best things you can do when you’re expecting is to meet other parents who are going through the same thing. You might already have friends or relatives who are pregnant, or you can seek out people to get to know. Many people meet other expectant parents at antenatal groups or classes such as Lamaze, but there are other ways to meet people too. You can look for social groups for new parents, which might be for expectant mums, dads, or both. You can share your experiences and talk about the things that are worrying you, or just focus on the positives.
Care for Your Mind and Body
We can often feel more anxious and worried when we’re not at our healthiest, both in body and mind. Of course, pregnancy will affect your body in different ways, but it doesn’t have to stop you from living a healthy lifestyle. Keeping active during your pregnancy will help you to keep physically fit and can be a good outlet for your worries. It’s generally safe, although you should speak to your doctor or midwife before starting any new activity. To care for your mental health, you might like to try some meditation or other ways to relax.
Worry in a Productive Way
Letting your worries plague you all day isn’t very helpful, and can just make you stressed. But you can actually schedule some time into your day to think about your worries and what you could do about them. This is a more productive way to worry about things, address the concerns you have, and think about which ones are rational worries with solutions and which ones might not be so rational. It might seem strange, but it can help you to avoid worrying the rest of the time. Practice telling yourself that you will deal with a thought later, instead of in the moment.
Seek Help for Anxiety
Sometimes worrying can go beyond having a few concerns that you want to address. If you feel anxious often and it’s causing you physical and mental symptoms that affect your life, you might need to seek some extra help. Anxiety during pregnancy isn’t uncommon for either the one who’s pregnant or their partner. While anti-anxiety medications are often not an option during pregnancy, there are other ways to treat anxiety. Therapies such as CBT and DBT can be useful, or you might benefit from techniques that help you stay calm, such as deep breathing methods.
Many worries can surround your impending parenthood, but you can seek out ways to address them and feel more positive about what’s to come.
