Simply put, I was not okay the first week after having a baby. The night we came home from the hospital I hadn’t slept in 3 days, couldn’t get my baby to latch well (turns out he had a tongue, lip and cheek tie) and was so afraid he was going to suffocate, I didn’t sleep again for another two days. I started hallucinating, and I remember thinking there was no way I was going to make it through this. It got dark, I was scared.

The days after, as friends and family came and went, I started feeling more and more confident in my natural instincts as a Mom, and paid very close attention to my mental well being.

1. Make Time For Showers.

They don’t have to be an ‘everything shower’, but if you can, do that! Sometimes all you need is just… a shower. Ensuring that you’re taking a shower everyday or everyother day quickly became nonnegotiable for me. It reset my mood, gave me something to look forward to, and reminded me that I was still a person inside my very very tired body.

I proritized a few things when it came to my shower, mostly focused on efficiency and relaxation. In that, here are a few products that I used and loved.

---

2. Everything has a home.

(Even the burp cloth you just used for the fifth time today.)

It’s wild how fast the baby clutter creeps in. One minute you’re nesting with a clean dresser full of perfectly folded onesies, and the next there’s a trail of diapers, pacifiers, and mystery creams leading from the nursery to the fridge.

The burp cloths. The Haakaa. The black and white cards. If it didn’t have a place in those early weeks, it was either constantly missing or creating mental static I didn’t have the capacity to deal with.

So I got clear on one thing: every item needed a home— even if that “home” was just a bin, basket, or drawer divider.

It wasn’t about being perfectly organized (Type B girly here). It was about giving my brain fewer decisions to make. When I knew where the Tylenol was, I didn’t have to tear apart three drawers at 2 a.m. When I could grab a pacifier without digging through the diaper bag, it felt like a small, glorious win.

This quote from The Minimalists stuck with me: “Minimalism is not about having less. It’s about making room for what matters.”

And in postpartum life, what matters is peace of mind. A sense that something is in order, even when your sleep, schedule, and mental health are not.

---

3. Choose One Sacred Space

In the chaos of postpartum life, you won’t be able to keep your whole house perfectly clean. Not even close. And trying to do so will just leave you frustrated and exhausted. So instead, I picked one space to keep sacred. Just one.

For me, that space was the kitchen. I was constantly in there— warming bottles, storing milk, reheating my coffee for the second fifth time. So I decided: this is the place I will keep as calm and clean as possible.

At the end of each night, no matter how utterly exhausted I felt, I’d give the counters a wipe, load the dishwasher, and reset the drying rack. It gave my day a bookend. It made me feel like I had accomplished something, even if the rest of the house was chaotic.

But your sacred space doesn’t have to be the kitchen. It could be:

• The baby nursery
• Your nightstand
• The bathroom
• The nursing corner

The point isn’t perfection. It’s having one zone that’s yours. One spot where your brain can breathe, where things feel somewhat together, and where you can go to feel calm when everything else feels out of control.

Start small. Keep it simple.

---

4. High-Protein Freezer Meals (Thank You, Past Me).

In the weeks before giving birth, I made about three dozen freezer meals because I knew myself. I didn’t want dinner to be skipped all together because it was too much or become a 6pm meltdown.

I’m not the mom with a color-coded chest freezer. I just knew that postpartum hunger hits hard and fast, and there would be days I’d be too tired to cook.

So I kept it simple:

• Two freezer meals scheduled per week
• Lots of high-protein options (because protein is essential for healing, hormone regulation, and you guessed it— making breastmilk)

Some mainstays included:

• Beef Lasagna
• Chicken Pot Pie with Almond Flour Crust
• Chicken Patty, Egg, Cheese and Avocado Breakfast Sandwiches
• Beef Enchalads
• Pumpkin Muffins
• Beef Bone Broth
• Homemade Applesauce from our tree
• Poblano Chicken Chili
• Grassfed Meatloaf

When the meal train dried up and the Doordash giftcards were zero’d out, those freezer meals were a lifeline. One less decision. One less thing to clean.

If you’re reading this while pregnant: this is your sign. Please make the lasagna. Freeze the burritos. You will be so grateful later.

---

5. Daily Mental Health Check-In (With Your Person)

You’ll fill out so many postpartum depression screening forms in those first six weeks. And while those are important (and absolutely worth paying attention to), the thing that helped me the most day-to-day was a simple, personal ritual: a daily mental health check-in with my husband.

Every day, I rated my mental state on a scale of 1 to 10:

• 1 = something is seriously wrong, we need to call someone
• 10 = I feel like pre-baby me (or close to it)

It wasn’t a formal conversation. No journaling required. Just a simple moment where I’d say, “I’m at a 4 today,” and that would set the tone for the support I needed. Sometimes I just needed to cry on his shoulder. Other days, we’d reach out to my doctor. And sometimes, I’d phone a friend to come over and watch a movie with the baby while we caught up on sleep.

It became a non-negotiable for us. Just a one-line pulse check that gave my partner the insight to show up for me in the right way and gave me the language to advocate for myself without having to explain everything.

Even if it’s not a partner, text a friend. Leave a voice memo. Track it in your Notes app. What matters is that you make space to check in with yourself and loop someone else in. It doesn’t solve everything, but it does help the people around you better know how to care for you.

---

6. Morning Hydration Before the Coffee

Basic? Yes. But starting my day with 16–20 oz. of water before that first sip of coffee made a noticeable difference—in my energy, my mood, and my milk supply. It became one of the few things I could actually control when everything else felt wildly unpredictable.

Most mornings, I added LMNT or Ultima hydration powder, but that’s totally optional. The point is: get water in you ASAP. You’re doing a lot. This one’s simple, doable, and grounding.

---

7. The 10-Minute Reset (Outside, If Possible)

Whether it was a walk around the block, stretching on the floor, or just sitting on the porch with my baby, I gave myself permission to pause and breathe for 10 minutes. That was it. A micro-break. No expectations, no step goals, just a reset.

Science backs this up: short breaks throughout the day help lower cortisol and improve mood. And when done outside? Even better.

Pro Tip: On days I managed to squeeze this in during the afternoon, I noticed the Sundown Scaries (if you don't know, the best way I can describe it is a feeling of impending dread as the evening approaches. There's no explaination, just so.much.anxiety. I didn't know about it before having a baby, and I wish I had. You can read more about it here.) felt a little less intense. I was still tired, still touched out, but just a bit more emotionally regulated. 

---

8. Put on real clothes (some days).

No shade to sweats, I absolutely lived in them. But, I bought ones that I still fet cute in, and that were easy to breast feed. Cue Free People’s Hot Shot Crossover Set and Victory Set.

But once or twice a week, I’d throw on jeans and a sweater. Sometimes even mascara and blush. It wasn’t about looking cute; it was about feeling a little more like myself. It helped me mentally separate “I’m drowning” from “I’m adapting.” And some days, that tiny shift was everything.

---

9. Create Shared To Do Lists

My partner and I used a few different lists on our Hearth Display and it saved us. If I remembered something during a 3 a.m. feeding, I’d add it right then. The mental load in those first few weeks is so much, and I am not a person who can keep things in my head.

One of the reasons I love Hearth is that you can have multiple lists running at once, so nothing gets buried. Below are a few examples we kept live on our display:

Costco List – for all the bulk staples like:

• Wipes
• Paper towels
• Laundry detergent
• Snacks for adults (hello, protein bars and chomps)
• Easy breakfast
• Sparkling water
• Trash bags
• Batteries
• Ziplock bags

General To-Do List –

For when your brain is full and you need someone else to take the baton.

• Recycling goes out every other Tuesday (set on repeat)
• Update Coterie diaper subscription size
• Restock diaper caddy
• Reorder nipple cream
• Vacuum the nursery
• Return Amazon swaddles that didn’t work
• Call pediatrician to confirm next appointment
• Send thank-you note to friend who dropped off dinner
• Defrost a frozen meal for tomorrow
• Book postpartum pelvic floor consult

Packing List For A Quick Overnight Trip –

These lists helped us operate as a team, even when we were both running on fumes. Plus, having them visible meant others, like my mom, could step in without me needing to ask. If she saw “restock diapers in the caddy” on the list, she’d just do it. It took the pressure off me to be the sole project manager of our home, which is exactly what I needed in that season.

---

10. Bedtime Routine for You (and Baby Too!)

Everyone talks about baby bedtime routines which are incredibly important. But, having one for yourself might be just as important. In the first few weeks, my nights were chaotic and unpredictable: cluster feeds, witching hour screaming, and lots of Googling “is _____________ normal?” at 2am.

But once we found a semi-rhythm for the baby, I started layering in a routine for myself too. Nothing fancy, just a few grounding steps that signaled the end of the day. For me, that looked like a warm shower, a fresh pair of pajamas and nursing bra, a moment to reset the house (and especially kitchen, see point 3) and an attempt to read my kindle in bed, which usually was netted out to 2 paragraphs before I fell asleep.

It helped me shift out of pure survival mode and into something that felt a little more sustainable. Some nights went sideways and that was okay. I had a more simplistic routine that could be done in less than 7 minutes.

Final Thoughts

Postpartum life is anything but predictable. Routines get derailed. Some days you’ll crush the to do lists when your baby miraculously takes two, two hour naps, and other days, brushing your teeth is the win. That’s real.

But these habits? They weren’t about being perfect for me, they were about giving myself tiny anchors in the chaos. A clean kitchen. A walk around the block. A diaper caddy that restocked itself (thanks, Mom). None of them changed the fact that postpartum is hard but they did help me feel more grounded, more supported, and just a little more like myself.

If you’re in the thick of it, I hope at least one of these habits meets you where you are. And if not, there’s always tomorrow. You’ve got this Momma.