2020 Community Self-Care Check-in Challenge!

[BrendaBT]

As the New Year unfolds and we adjust back into our daily hectic routines it is important to remember to pause, take a break, and take care of ourselves as well. This year my biggest goal is to practice more self-care rituals. After all, beauty starts from within!

As a way to commit, hold each other accountable, and ultimately help each other take care of ourselves, we thought it would be fun to do a weekly self-care check-in, by choosing one ritual and reporting back weekly with our progress.

Now, I know most of us are busy people, but dedicating time for ourselves can be as simple and effective as:

1. A morning meditation, and/or nightly adaptogenic drink (may we suggest FOUR SIGMATIC - Golden Latte Mushroom Mix with Shiitake & Turmeric or FOUR SIGMATIC - Mushroom Hot Cacao Mix with Reishi )
2. Better sleep! Committing to getting a full night's sleep 1 night/week, and sticking to an earlier bedtime.
3. Waking up! Get up after that first alarm so you’re less rushed in the morning and have more time to mentally prepare for the day!
4. Be active - get to yoga 1/week or go for an early morning run before work.
5. Skincare - masking on a weekly basis, getting a facial, or remembering to remove your makeup every night!
6. “Me time!” Embrace the FOGO (fear of going out), read that book you've been wanting to pick up
7. Make healthier choices - adding more fruits and veggies to your meals.
8. YOU PICK! You know yourself better than we do, so if we missed something please share how *you* want to take care of yourself. Just don’t forget to check in with us! 😊

This thread will be a place to talk about your weekly self-care check-ins, share how you’re feeling about your progress, recommend/talk about products you’re using, and share your self-care tips and tricks.

Reply below to tell us which self-care ritual you’re committing to!

*EDIT 4/2:

Hello everyone, we hope you and your loved ones are staying safe! Given the times, we may just need this thread more than ever so we wanted to add in extra self-care goals now that many of us are spending more time at home or are going into the world helping others. Here are some additional ideas for taking care of yourself. We challenge you to try a few of these and share your wins on this thread!

1. Stick to your routine: Maybe it's putting on your favorite outfit instead of PJs or doing your makeup/hair in the morning! Snap an OOTD and share it here.
2. Staying active: This could be as easy as one 10-minute workout video each week or dusting off your yoga mat. Let’s see that at-home gym or virtual workout class!
3. Setting up your space: Are you reading, eating, sleeping, working out, and BIC-ing in the same spot? Try to establish devoted spaces for all of your activities.  
4. Stay social: Set up virtual face-time with your loved ones and maybe spend some extra time here in the BIC!
5. Spring Cleaning: Try reorganizing your home, bedroom, or simply going through your stuff to declutter your space. If you reorganize your beauty space we would love to see a before and after photo here!
6. Take on a new hobby or learn a new skill: Master that smokey eye you’ve always wanted to. Maybe even learn a new language or instrument!
7. Do your own nails - no nail salon? No problem. Let’s see that at-home mani once you’re done – no worries if it isn’t perfect.

What are you doing for self-care? We are open to all advice and want to congratulate you on your little wins!

[eshoe]

Oh wow I’m so sorry, mama! @itscarin ❤️ to you right now, the best self-care you could give is to just be gentle with yourself. You’ve got a lot on your plate, hang in there, you are doing the best you can😊

[SportyGirly125]

@itscarin Your doing great!!!  Hang in there. It will get better I promise. This is coming from someone who has an almost 4 year old and a 4 month old with 2 c sections. Showering is a luxury in the beginning and was my me time. Sleeping will be non existent but eventually they will start taking longer naps. The only part that will be hard is if you are nursing and not formula feeding your baby to establish your milk supply.  I’m still pumping or feeding my daughter every 3-4 hours everyday and have gone back to work. 

[averylayne]

@itscarin Being a mom is a mental marathon! And it's SO TIRING! Take away my sleep, take away time to eat, drink, and everything else required for basic human life, but DO NOT take away my showers! lol.  It was the 1 thing I asked for when people wanted to help. LET ME SHOWER! Give me my 10 mins of listening to nothing but water! The initial phase is a huge shock...like, "I just birthed a human out of me (the same human who hasn't allowed me to sleep or rest comfortably for the last 3 months), can I just take like a 30 min nap?" No, no you can't 😂 But it gets easier! At first you have no idea how there's enough time in the world to get things done, but you figure it out along the way because you're a mom and that means you're a rockstar and a boss! You got this mama! You'll be taking those walks in no time! 💪🏼

[SportyGirly125]

@averylayne Totally agree about the let me take a nap. Sleeping when baby sleeps is really the hardest advice to do because you want to get things done 

[averylayne]

@SportyGirly125 @itscarin  agreed, cannot nap when baby naps because there's like 50 breast pump pieces to be washed, and 3 loads of laundry to be put away 😰

[itscarin]

@averylayne Thank you! Week 3 is already infinitely better than day 3. I just wish I had been prepared to not even have time to use the bathroom.  Everything felt like a race against the clock at first but you’re right — with time it has gotten better and fingers crossed it continues to get better!

[blackkitty2014]

@itscarin I can totally feel you. I’m the youngest in my family and My brothers didn’t have kids so holding and carried my son were all first time experiences too. Same with diapers. I remember taking shower is a luxury. Try to take it easy and don’t stress. I know it’s easy said than done. 😘 i lost all my baby weight within 6 weeks and continue to drop to my high school weight all during nursing 😟 This all due to lack of sleeps. Getting back to work also was hard. It was so unhealthy and stressful. Walking your dogs and the baby sounds liked a great idea to de-stress. It’s totally okay to let the baby cry a little bit while taking cared of mommy basic needs liked shower, comb hair etc etc. Sending you and the baby lots of hugs and love. 

[itscarin]

@blackkitty2014 Thanks. I’m on week 3 and I’m still up 20 lbs, meaning I’ve only come down 15 lbs. I’m wondering if this is just what I look like now or if it will continue to come off. It’s hard because taking care of myself because sometimes I don’t even eat until 2 pm. I want the weight off but right now I’m prioritizing the milk supply over any kind of cosmetic stuff. I just need to work out for my own mental health. It drives me nuts feeling weaker and struggling to carry heavy things like the stupid car seat or the stroller. 

[SportyGirly125]

@itscarin With my son I gained 35 pounds and didn’t get back to my pre baby weight till he was 12 months. With my daughter I gained 33 pounds and lost the weight within the first 6 weeks and have 5 pounds left to lose but haven’t really been exercising just nursing around the clock and she’s 4 months old. They say it took 9 months to gain the weight so give yourself 9 months to lose it.

 Continue with establishing your milk supply because it pays off. I worked really hard at it and now have a freezer dedicated to just milk for my daughter. 

[itscarin]

@SportyGirly125 I feel like I’ve hit every bump on the road to breast feeding. I’ve seen a 2 different lactation consultants so far, and have an appointment with some kind of lactation md in a couple of weeks. 

I feel a little guilty because I did no research on breastfeeding prior to having this baby because I just assumed it was an innate thing that would happen on its own. 

I wish I was building a stash but right now I’m just trying to meet his basic needs. It’s really frustrating having a good boob that yields 10x what the bad boob yields. I wish the bad boob would just get it together already!

[ShortErica]

@itscarin Yes! BAD BOOB needs to figure it out. I felt doubly pressured with my twins and guilty about barely having enough supply and then they would need more. It was a continual game of catch up.

@SportyGirly125 mentioned going back to work so I wanted to throw out that I strongly recommend the Freemie hands free cups. I wore them on my drive to and from work which was a great multi-tasker.

[SportyGirly125]

@ShortErica I heard about those. Good thing work isn’t far and I can feed my baby before and after school with 2 pump sessions at work. 

[ShortErica]

You've got a system down - nice @SportyGirly125!

[averylayne]

@itscarin Have you tried the Haakaa pump?  My lactation nurse recommended it to me. At first I thought it was completely useless, but it actually does a great job at increasing supply.  When I nurse my daughter, I attach the Haakaa to my other breast, and it expresses milk as my nursing breast is letting down, which helps increase the supply. https://www.amazon.com/Haakaa-Breast-Manual-Silicone-Breastfeeding/dp/B07CWK4S5W There are really good YouTube videos on how to use it also.  

I had a few stretches with my first child where I wasn't producing anything.  Just all of a sudden after months and months of nursing and pumping, I became completely dry (ie: pump for an hour and get 10ml yield).  I found that stressing out about it made it worse, and pumping for a shorter period of time, but more frequent helped (not always feasible though).  I was able to recover my supply each time it happened, but it took a few days (and quite a few swear words and emotional breakdowns 😅).  Don't be too hard on yourself mama; we do the best we can! 

[itscarin]

@averylayne I don’t have a manual pump but I do need to get one so I will pick this up. Thanks for the recommendation!

[averylayne]

@itscarin you're very welcome! I hope it works well for you.  

[SportyGirly125]

@itscarin  I have 2 Haakaas. Get that and a roller and heat pads

[itscarin]

@SportyGirly125 @What’s a roller?  I have the laniosh heat/ice gels things. Do you recommend another heating pad thing?

i have go lactation and the mother’s love Brest milk supplements but was advised by the second lactation consultant not to take them because fennegreek can be bad if you have thyroid issues and I may have thyroid issues so ofc I had to go see the endocrinologist again. I’ll get those results on Monday. I’d be thrilled if it was something simple and I could just pop a pill to fix it!

[SportyGirly125]

@itscarin I get lactation food from theletdownproject on Etsy. she makes great gronolas in different flavors and cookies from Liquidgoldcookies (so good you didn’t even know it was a lactation cookie). I also drink Mother’s Milk tea. If you can’t have fenugreek it kind of sucks because that’s one of the ingredients that help with lactation. Have you tried power pumping? I did it twice and saw improvement. 

I use the same heat/cold pads that you have. Here’s the roller thats a game changer for me. 
 

[SportyGirly125]

@averylayne I did so much research and have two Haakaas. What also helps is a roller and a heating pad. Also lactation food.  I make 7-9 ounces every 4 hours when I do need to pump. Have you tried power pumping?  That helps too. 

[averylayne]

@SportyGirly125 I'm actually doing really well supply-wise right now, so I haven't needed to do power pumping.  But I expect I'll have fluctuations in supply before I'm done breastfeeding for good.  I'll keep the rollers in mind if I have trouble later on.  Thanks!