Nurture: A Modern Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, Early Motherhood—and Trusting Yourself and Your Body

by Erica Chidi Cohen

Housework With intermittent periods of bustling activity followed by crashed-out couch sleeping, you may find yourself looking around your home and wondering how everything got so chaotic. Even so: don’t do housework, for at least the first week. Right now, this is one of those chores that is best handled by delegation. Ask a close friend, family member, or your partner if they can shoulder it for the next few weeks—or, again depending on financial parameters, this is a great time to budget in some element of housekeeping. If you don’t have support, it’s helpful to limit your scope—keep one room or one area of the house clean, so that you can go there, away from the rest of the mess, to recharge and gather yourself in a calm environment. This is preferably the place where you’re nursing or feeding your baby, so you can relax and drop into that space without any distractions. If you do end up taking on a bit of housework, continue to keep in mind that your abdominal and pelvic organs are still healing; therefore, if you have to work, lie down on your belly for ten to fifteen minutes afterward to help support and soothe your uterus as it heals.