Tips for New Mothers

Soon after the baby arrives, all your energy and attention will be focused on caring for the baby and making him/her comfortable. You may consciously want to focus on the baby and not pay much attention to taking care of yourself. In spite of your busy schedule, you will have to take time out to take care of yourself. Your health, both physical and psychological, is undergoing a healing process after delivery and you will have to pay attention to it. Once the baby has arrived, all your family and friends will want to visit you and your newborn baby. Having too many visitors just after delivery and with the new baby can be very stressful and extremely difficult to handle, whether in the hospital or at home.

During the initial weeks after delivery, it is best to accept all the help you can get in doing the various chores around the house. It would be ideal if you could get your mother, mother-in-law, any relative or friend to stay with you, at least, for the first month. This will definitely ease the pressure off you and will help you get used to having the baby as part of your routine. The first few weeks can be overwhelming and some new mothers just cannot cope with the pressures of having a new baby. This is also the reason why they become irritable and crabby. As much as the newborn requires care and comfort, so do the new mother. Read through our related sections to find valuable tips and advice for the new mother.

Post Delivery Stitches
When asked about their experience of delivering a baby, most women will tell you that it was like rebirth. There is no doubt about the fact that having a baby is one of the most exhilarating experiences in the world. But there is as much pain, as there is joy in this experience and a lot of people overlook this fact. A new mother not only has to care for her newborn baby, but also has to take care of herself to ensure that she heals well.

Postnatal Depression
Postnatal depression, or postpartum depression, is a form of clinical depression which can affect both men and women after child birth. However, it is very less frequent in men as compared to women, in whom the prevalence rate may vary from 5% to 25%. If a new mother in your family is suffering from postnatal depression, it is difficult to deal with her as she may not even want to admit that she is depressed.

Postnatal Exercises
Childbirth and care of the newborn are both physically exhausting tasks. Most new mothers' find that they do not have the same energy level, which they had before their baby was born. In the first few months, the mother's night sleep is disturbed and this adds to the exhaustion. The pressures of taking care of a newborn and managing the house leaves the mother mentally and physically drained.

Postnatal Period
A woman's body undergoes tremendous and several changes during pregnancy. As soon as the baby is out of womb, the body begins its physical healing process, so as to restore its pre-pregnancy state. The uterus, which contains four-and-half liters of water during pregnancy, begins to reduce in size almost immediately after delivery.

Postpartum Depression
There is an enormous feeling of relief and gratitude, once the delivery is over. After months of waiting and apprehension, when the child is born healthy, the sense of fulfillment is immense. But the first few weeks, even months after childbirth, with the baby can be confusing and emotionally draining. There maybe other reasons for distress as well.

Mother’s best beauty tips

Who better to give you beauty advice than your mother? So to celebrate Mother's Day, which falls on March 14 this year, we asked you for your best beauty tips from Mum.

mother and daughter at mirror

From the inside out

My mum swore by drinking hot water with lemon first thing every morning and her skin is still beautiful and she's 82. She still does it and it's something I've passed onto my daughter. Also, my mother-in-law's mother never washed her hair and it glowed with health. She used to have hair way past her waist, and brushed it over 100 times at bedtime. Donna



Olive oil trick

One tip my mum gave to me is to massage olive oil into hands and feet once a week to keep skin nice and soft. It works too! Pondlife



Beauty on a budget

My mum always said you didn't need expensive cleansers or moisturisers. She always used baby lotion as a night time moisturiser- and she doesn't look her 71 years.

Mum2one



Blemish control

My Mum has always said that plenty of sleep and drinking lots of water are the best tips for good skin and she definitely looks much younger than her 61 years. Another tip she told me was to put a dab of toothpaste on a spot at bedtime as this dries it up. I though she was mad when she first told me but it really does work!

Cathe



How to have shiny hair

My Mum always recommended adding a tablespoon of cider vinegar into cool water for a final rinse after shampooing hair to condition it and make hair shiny.  I often do this and, to my surprise, it also tends to make my hair more wavy. No more eating carrots .......

FlibGib



Secrets of soft skin

Moisturise, moisturise and moisturise. It doesn't have to be expensive but just do it. This is one I've also passed on to my daughter - and here's one from my gran, always take pride in your appearance.

Lilaclady



Vaseline tips

My grandmother told me to put a little Vaseline on my eyelashes at night. It makes them silky soft and lush.

Keeper



Making the shoe fit

My mother was very strict about making sure I had shoes that fitted correctly, as she suffered with bunions after wearing ‘fashion' shoes as a teenager. She was only little so used to wear high heels when she was young!

Yelir



Money-saving exfoliation

My mom would have been 100 this year had she been alive. She died at 88 with the complexion of a much younger lady. Exfoliating is something more popular nowadays, but back then once a week mom used to beat an egg and add coarse oatmeal to it and rub it over her face neck and hands. It really worked. I often use it but my skin's not as good as her's was.

Mageroo



Hair and skincare

My mum used to use butter wrappers on her arms and face.  She always used Oil of Ulay as a moisturiser and wore full make-up every day.  Without make-up her skin looked like alabaster.

As a hair conditioner she would put olive oil on her hair and wrap it in an old towel for 30 minutes before washing out. Her hair always shone and had great body.

Care of Your Mother-In-Law’s

Since you say that you have had your Sansevieria Trifasciata plant, commonly called Mother-In-Laws Tongue or Snake plant, for over 10 years, I doubt that you have a gold variety like`Vandal Gold`, a Sansevieria that I have read about but do not know where to buy.

And I am amazed that you have a plant or anything that hasn’t had any change in all that time. There is nothing in TheGardenLady’s house that hasn’t changed in 10 years- including TheGardenLady.

Are you sure that you haven’t been overwatering your plant by watering it too frequently or moved the plant to a different window? Change can be outdoors. Has a shrub in front of the window outdoors, but directly in front of the place you keep the plant, died and been chopped down so that more sun is coming through to shine on the plant?

About the first problem, overwatering: Sansevieria hates, hates, hates having wet roots. They can get a problem called root rot easily especially when they are kept indoors . TheGardenLady had a big pot of Sansevieria that a young artist admired. So TheGardenLady gave the pot to the artist who painted pictures of it. After a year, the plant started dying. TheGardenLady suspected root rot. She suspected that because the young artist watered her plants every week; in one year too much water had been given to the Sansevieria. Its roots never had a chance to dry out. These plants are so easy to care for because they love drought – love it. So if you forget to water it, when the plant is indoors, you will have a happy plant. I have read that you can forget to water it for 2 months during the winter. It wants its soil dry. TheGardenLady has found that, though Sansevieria can be grown in Sun or part shade, hers enjoy just light when it is indoors; and the less sun, the less water it needs.