The Ultimate Postpartum Preparation Checklist for Centering the Mother

You’ve probably made your birth plan, but what about your postpartum plan? First time moms often overlook preparing for those first six weeks after birth. They may not realize what’s about to unfold until suddenly they’re home with a newborn wondering why no one mentioned what a difference planning and support could make during this transition.

It may be hard to believe if you’ve yet to experience it, but a new mom needs just as much as her baby does. Simple tasks you used to do on your own, like making something to eat or taking a shower, can feel like impossible feats during the postpartum time.

 As a postpartum doula, I often get calls from women a few weeks after birth inquiring about my services because they are overwhelmed, sleep-deprived, and under-supported. We live in a culture that has forgotten how to care for new moms. I wrote this postpartum preparation checklist, to help you plan for a nourished and restful fourth trimester. You’ll notice this checklist centers the mother’s health and wellbeing. It’s meant to guide you in caring for yourself, so you can care for your baby.

This checklist is guided by the 5 Cross-Cultural Prescriptions for Postpartum Wellness as taught to me by my teacher Rachelle Seliga of Innate Traditions. Just like in pregnancy, postpartum is a specific period in a woman’s life where she must care for her body differently than before. Traditional cultures around the world know that women require these five pillars of care to be well in mind, body, and spirit in the early postpartum.

Rest: Creating space for uninterrupted physiological recovery and bonding

Warmth: Keeping warm through herbal sitz baths, teas, and warming foods to support circulation and recovery.

Specific Foods: Nutrient-dense, easy to digest, warming meals

Bodywork: Tending the body after pregnancy and birth

Community: Calling on friends, family, and neighbors for support

Rest

I’m starting the checklist with rest because it is foundational to postpartum wellness.  Resting supports a new mom’s overall healing and recovery. It also impacts sleep, mood, hormones, postpartum bleeding, and prolapse. By rest I mean staying in and around your bed as long as possible. Traditional postpartum care practices recommend an extended resting period anywhere from 21 to 42 days depending on the culture.  The longer you can stay in and around your bed, allowing your body to recover, the better.

Create Your Postpartum Essentials Station Next to Your Bed

•       Set up a serious station next to your bed with all the essentials, so the only place you’ll need to walk is the bathroom. This station can include multiple water bottles, a large thermos of tea, and even a mini crockpot.
  
  Every morning your partner can put a jar of frozen soup or stew you’ve cooked in advance to warm in the crockpot. All you have to do is scoop it out when you are hungry. Your station can also include lots of one-handed snacks you can eat throughout the day while nursing your baby. Nuts, mini muffins, and lactation balls are some of my favorite snacks to leave by a new mom’s bedside. Nipple salve, herbal body oil, tinctures and some of your favorite essential oils can also be part of your station.

·         You’ll also want to stock your station with anything you will need for baby. Diapers, wet wipes, burp cloths, a swaddle, a change of clothes, etc. The goal is to have everything you might need throughout the day within arm’s reach, so you are more likely to keep resting.

Create Your Postpartum Essentials Station in Your Bathroom

You’ll want to keep a peri-bottle full of a concentrated herbal tea beside your toilet, so you can use it each time you use the bathroom. Your peri-bottle can be filled every morning at the same time your soup is put in the crockpot. You’ll also want to keep your sitz bath herbs and soaking basin in the bathroom, so you or your partner can make a sitz bath daily for the first couple of weeks. An easy way to make sure your sitz bath herbs are ready to go is to ask your partner to steep them every night and strain them every morning. Once strained, it can be stored in a mason jar on the bathroom counter, so all you have to do is pour them in the basin and add some warm water when you are ready to soak. Some moms like to keep an electric kettle in the bathroom, so they can easily warm water to add to their sitz bath. Your bathroom station can also include herbal body oil, hemorrhoid cream, wet wipes, and disposable underwear for postpartum bleeding.

Make a Plan for Prioritizing Rest

·         In addition to setting up your stations, you’ll need to talk with your partner about prioritizing your rest for the first six weeks after baby is born. Grocery shopping, cooking, housekeeping, older children, and pets will all need to be taken care of by someone other than you. Pregnancy is the time to start building your network of support. You will need others you can call on for help with daily tasks while you recover. It’s unrealistic to expect our partners to take over everything when they too need time to bond with baby and transition to their new role. Your network of support will also be important for helping you with your new baby. Talk to your partner about who will take care of baby when you need to shower, nap, eat, or just need a break.

Keeping Warm

Traditional postpartum care sees the body as energetically cold after birth. Our job is to warm it up through warm beverages and foods, warming baths, sitz baths, pelvic steams, and by keeping our homes warm. When the body is left in a cold state and is further aggravated through cold foods, cold temperatures, and wind, a postpartum woman becomes more susceptible to illness both physically and mentally. Prioritizing warmth in the early postpartum allows a new mom to heal and rekindle her inner fire while protecting her physical and mental health.

Ways To Keep Warm

•       Keep your feet covered with socks or slippers. Avoid walking barefoot on tile or wood floors.
  
  
•     Drink warm tea or room temperature water. Avoid iced drinks and smoothies for the first six weeks.
  
  
•     Eat warming foods like soups and stews, and cook with warming spices like ginger, cumin, cardamom, and cinnamon. Avoid cold foods such as salads and raw veggies.
  
  
•     Keep your home as warm as possible. If you are postpartum in the middle of summer, keep fans and air conditioning from blowing directly on you.
  
  
•      Belly binding
  
  
•     Sitz baths, herbal baths, pelvic steams
  
  
•      Herbal body oiling with warming oils
  
  
•     Call on your network of support. Keeping warm also means tending to your heart. New moms need love and support. Connection warms the heart.

Food

Food is so important in the postpartum time. Pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding are tremendously taxing on the body. Warm, easy to digest, nutrient-dense meals are the building blocks for your recovery. Warming foods will bring heat back into the body and gently rekindle your digestion. Because the digestive system slows down in pregnancy and birth, you’ll want to focus on slow cooked meats, well-cooked veggies, stews, soups, and porridges- all foods that are easy to digest. Eating this way in the beginning can prevent digestive issues from developing now and in the future. Food should be nutrient-dense to help your body repair and rebuild, as well as provide nutrient-dense breastmilk to your baby.

 Nourishment Plan

•      Taking care of a newborn and prioritizing your own rest means you won’t be cooking once the baby arrives. The best way to make sure you have nourishing food in postpartum is to cook it in pregnancy. Batch cooking and freezing meals on the weekends is one way you can ensure you are well-fed postpartum. The First Forty Days, Nourishing the Sacred Window, Sitting the Month, and Real Food for Pregnancy are some of my favorite books to cook from.
  
  
•       Instead of going to brunch with your friends during pregnancy, ask them if they would be willing to come over and cook with you as you build your postpartum freezer.
  
  
•       Create a Meal-Train. Asking your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers to sign up to cook for you is another way to keep the food coming. I recommend moms create a meal-train before their baby shower, so they can share it with everyone they invite and list it as a gift option. Are there any restaurants near you that you know make healthy food? Listing these restaurants, so people can purchase gift cards to them is another option for those who can’t commit to cooking for you.
  
  
•     Do you have a friend or family member who would be willing to come over once a week for the first month to make you some snacks for the week? Stock your pantry with all the ingredients you will need and have recipes printed, so it’s easy for someone to come into your kitchen and get started. If you don’t have anyone that can help, consider hiring a postpartum doula. A postpartum doula can help prepare fresh foods, teas, and snacks so you stay nourished throughout postpartum.

Bodywork

Bodywork is a way for a new mom to receive when she is in a state of constant giving to her new baby. Bodywork also helps the postpartum body to heal through the movement of blood and lymph. In order to move lymph, we must move our body. Because we are prioritizing rest in the first six weeks, bodywork is a way to move the lymph while the mother continues to rest.

Tending the Body in Postpartum

•      Look for a local massage therapist who specializes in pregnancy and postpartum massage. Finding someone who will travel to your home is ideal, since you will be focusing on resting. Leaving the house with a newborn can also be challenging. Once you find a massage therapist in your area, list her on your baby registry, so friends and family can donate money toward your massage or purchase a gift card for you.
  
  
•      Many postpartum doulas practice some form of bodywork. A  postpartum doula may be able to provide bodywork during her scheduled in-home care session with you. 
  
  
•      If you can’t afford a professional massage, herbal body oiling at home is the next best option. Rubbing your body with herbal body oil will get your blood and lymph moving and relax your nervous system. You can do this while lying in bed with your baby or ask your partner or a friend to do it for you. Hands moving over the body with intention will be healing. Herbal body oiling is a way for you to connect with yourself and a simple way for others to give to you.

Community

Love, support, and connection are just as important as nourishing food and rest. Pregnancy is the time to build the community who will show up for you postpartum. Who will you call on a challenging day? Who can you ask for help? Who do you trust to be with you in this vulnerable space? These are the questions to ask in pregnancy, so you feel supported in postpartum.

Who Can You Count On?

•      Before the baby arrives, sit down with your partner for a serious discussion about who each of you can lean on for help. Each of you needs your own network of support. The more people you gather, the better.
  
  
•      Think about your friends and family members and what support role they would be best at. Some people like to cook, some like to keep things tidy, while others are good at organizing. Do you know anyone who is really good at listening? How about someone who always makes you laugh or the person you can count on to get things done? Everyone has a gift. I invite new moms to think about each person’s gift in their community and then call them up and talk to them about it. Most people want to help, they just don’t know how. Your job is to ask them for help with something they are good at, so they will feel good about helping you.
  
  
•      Postpartum is a time to practice the art of asking and receiving. We have to be brave enough to ask for help and brave enough to receive it. It sounds simple, but most of us are used to doing everything for ourselves. It can feel vulnerable to have to rely on others. It’s okay to feel vulnerable. The new mother needs to be held just like her baby.
  
  There's a lot to think about when planning for a new baby. I wrote this checklist because planning for your own care is just as important as everything else. Postpartum care should be a part of women's healthcare. Centering yourself during this time will give your body the time it needs to heal and allow you to step into motherhood energized and replenished. 

T