What was one thing that saved your sanity during the early post partum days?

[Allthesweets]

Hoping for inspiration. :)

A Next2Me crib, 12 series of Gray's Anatomy and a Kindle for the night feeds.

Disney+

Bed sharing, Netflix on my phone, and all of the Dairy Milk :)

About 3 Crunchie bars a day

Netflix!

Moving in with my parents in law for a month. Colicky newborn who screamed for hours and hours a day and slept in 30 minute bursts pushed me over the edge. Not ashamed by that at all.

Batch cooked meals in the freezer. DH adding some annual leave onto his paternity leave after our second so he had longer off.

Cook New Parents meal box + more Cook vouchers 🤣

Lactation consultant, Netflix and a really supportive partner

Cosleeping, a lactation consultant and a really long phone cable.

My DH being a gate keeper. After 45 mins of every visit, he would stand up, say ‘Lovely to have seen you but I’m throwing you out now!’

Also, box set of Frasier and West Wing.

SLEEP!! Just hand the baby off to their father or literally anyone else and get a couple hours sleep. If you're breastfeeding, try and do this early in the day to avoid the evening cluster feeding.

Also wireless headphones to listen to podcasts during the night feeds.

Oh, and our lovely friends sending us batches of pre-cooked meals - yummy.

Sertraline.

My H

• As per PP my DH adding holiday to his annual leave
• A swaddle
• Pandemic so no visitors
• Lots of walks

A big water bottle if breastfeeding, I was so thirsty all the time. DH took annual leave so was off for 4 weeks total. The surprise saviour for me was a simple nighttime skincare routine - 5 mins to myself every night and I'd feel fresh before a night of disrupted sleep. I was never really into regimens like that but was given a cleanser, toner and moisturizer and wow it's really become a lovely routine for me (DS is 11 weeks old now).

Mr Selfridge box set

Wine. :)

The complete sex and the city box set. The complete downton abbey box set.

Oh this is similar to what I was going to say. My in-laws are angels and we moved in with them for about 5 weeks. I had severe PND and was suicidal and this saved my life.

Extremely low expectations and a breast pump so DH could do one of the night feeds

Chocolate digestives, making sure I showered every day even if it meant leaving a grumbling baby DD in her bouncer (yep flame me) and tag teaming with DH. I would pump for the evening feed, he would come home from work and instantly take DD, and I would sleep from about 6 until midnight. Then swap. Meant we didn’t see each other on weekdays but worth it for the sleep, and it was only for about 6 weeks.

Reading something about post partom anxiety I has never heard of this before and after seeing it was able to recognise the signs and get some support

Cross post but snap and I really, really recommend it. So much nonsense about not pumping before 8 weeks, nipple confusion etc - you really need sleep and hydration to maintain a good supply in my experience.