I have been pregnant three times and was once a doula and an antenatal teacher. So I have spent a lot of time either being pregnant or around pregnant women! In fact, at some point I was pregnant AND a doula! And the whole time I was following TOMM.
Despite absolutely LOVING all things birth and babies, I am not very good at being pregnant. Mike can 100% vouch for this. I don’t bloom (I sweat) and I suffered from really bad morning sickness with all three of my pregnancies.
So I have done my fair share of cleaning avec bump and I found some shortcuts to make it all a little bit easier.
- If you are not feeling your best then this is NOT the time to have a massive declutter. Keep the cogs turning but don’t put pressure on yourself to have a Pinterest worthy home.
- You might find yourself having aversions to strong smells, so now might be the perfect time to look into less toxic cleaning products. You might want to do this when the baby arrives too.
- Always work to your ability. If you are in the first stages of pregnancy and feel as though you need to go to bed every day at 4pm, then there really is no point fighting it. Your body needs rest. So stick to the most urgent jobs and stop as soon as you need to.
- If you are following TOMM… (If you are not then you really need to get on it! You can read all about it here) Then split your 30 minutes into chunks. Either 2 x 15 min chunks or 3 x 10 min chunks. This way you will conserve your energy and the cleaning won’t seem as overwhelming.
- Break the bigger jobs up into smaller tasks. A massive mountain of laundry can be really daunting. So tackle it one stage at a time … fold it … then stop. A little while later put it away. It makes it seem much less of an ordeal!
- Always accept help when offered. This rule also applies to when you have had your baby.
- Be your future friend. Take advantage of the days when you have more energy and use this time to catch up or get ahead on tasks.
- Don’t feel pressured to get absolutely everything ready for the baby before he/she makes their appearance. The shops will still be open after you have had your baby. So don’t don’t bust your buttons to be 100% ready, take your time and relax.
- As an extension of the last point newborns sleep A LOT! Maybe not at night when you want them to, but during the day they will feed/sleep/poo/feed/poo/sleep so you will find yourself with time to do stuff (if you feel up to it) so bear this in mind and maybe save some easy projects for after baby is born.
- Getting on your hands and knees and dusting the skirting is a good thing as it can help your baby get in a really good position for the birth. Keep this piece of info to yourself though … you know just in case you can’t be bothered!
- A top tip that I always used to tell the mums in my classes was: Don’t stand when you can sit and don’t sit when you can lie down. The message behind this was grab any chance to rest when you can!
- Invest in a slow cooker and slow cooker liners. Keeping yourself nourished when you feel queasy or too exhausted to cook can be challenging. Take a look at the slow cooker recipe section of the blog and find some go-to recipes. Some of them take seconds to prep and this means that at the end of the day when the energy levels are flagging you will have something to eat. Plus if you you use a slow cooker liner there will be no washing up!
- Don’t panic if the nesting never happens … I never bloomed … the pregnancy stereotypes don’t always apply!
- Always remember the golden rule … if anything feels uncomfortable then stop.
- And finally download the TeamTOMM app – it will take all of the thinking out of the housework AND you can share your log in with other people – so when those offers of help come in you will have a handy list of stuff that they can do – handy!!!