Mothers Share: What I Wish I’d Known During Pregnancy
Pregnancy is a short and special time in your life. So it only makes sense to celebrate and enjoy it. We asked our readers to chime in on the topic – “What I wish I’d done during pregnancy.”
They say hindsight is 20/20. We always have a different perspective after an event in our lives than we did before or as we were going through it.
If you’re currently pregnant, you might already be tired of helpful tips and “Have you thought of any names?” And no one should blame you. As one of the moms says below, people seem to consider pregnant women fair game for unsolicited advice.
Just as we like getting advice from moms who’ve actually used the products we share in our natural baby gear guides, we thought it would be helpful to share this advice from moms who recently had their babies and reflected on their pregnancies.
What I Wish I’d Known During Pregnancy
These answers are honest, thought-provoking, and I related to many of them – even though it’s been a while since I was pregnant. If you have something to add, we’re happy to include it.
Even if you’re past the pregnancy advice stage, this first tip applies to any stage of parenting.
Give Yourself Grace
“I wish I’d been more patient with myself. I was so forgetful and spacy, but the worst part was that I would berate myself for it. Now I realize how short a time it was, and I was way too hard on myself.”
“I wish I would have slowed down a little and respected the fact that my body was exerting so much energy to grow a human. I was working a full time stressful job and coming home thinking I could still make dinner and keep the house perfect. It was like doing all those things plus being on a stair machine 24/7.”
Accept Help
“I spent the last 5 weeks of my pregnancy on bed rest, and I wish I would have taken more offers for help. I didn’t want to inconvenience anybody, but it was really hard on my husband and me. We don’t have family nearby, and I think people are slower to ask if we need help now that the baby is here because we rejected their offers once already.”
“Honestly what I wish I’d done during pregnancy is ask for or hire help. Working full time after I hit the 7-month mark was so hard. I should have gotten help with the house cleaning or one of those meal prep services so I wouldn’t have felt the need to keep doing allthethings!”
Slow Down / Rest More
“OMG… Why didn’t I sleep more?”
“Life is total chaos now with a preschooler and a 3-month-old. I wish I’d slowed down and cherished those last few months where our older daughter was actually settling into a good routine. It’s all over the place now but I look back and see that we had a lull we won’t have for a while and I should have appreciated it more!”
“Honestly, even though I couldn’t sleep very well toward the end of my pregnancy, I wish I had tried harder. I’m at a deficit I’ll never come back from.”
“Now that I realize everything I was about to go through, I totally wish I had relaxed more instead of making an Insta-worthy nursery our son doesn’t even sleep in!”
Don’t Take Advice from Others Too Seriously
“Why do people think pregnant women are fair game for their advice? Most of the time it’s not actually advice. It’s more like a way for someone to act like they know more than you because they’ve already had a baby.”
“I’m just a few weeks away from giving birth to our first child, but I feel like stopping people before they start by saying, ‘Oh, it’s our fourth – I’ve got this’ to see if that will make them back off.”
“I was talking to my cousins about gentle parenting and my aunt butted in telling us that the baby is a whole lot easier to discipline now than he will be when he comes out. I’m surprised our eyes aren’t all stuck in the back of our heads from rolling them so hard.”
Take Maternity Photos
“I wish I’d taken more photos. I shied away from them then because I felt like a house, but now I look back at the few pics and really, really regret not taking more.”
“Here’s what I would tell pregnant women: take maternity photos. They don’t have to be professional or shared on social media. This is a major chapter of your life, and one day you’ll be glad you documented it. I promise.”
“Yes! Take photos! My babies are in school now, but I only have a few from my first pregnancy and really just one of my daughter next to my huge belly during my second. I actually wish I was in more pics from pregnancy through those early weeks. I didn’t feel like it then, but now mourn that there’s no evidence of ME during such a precious time in my life.”
Don’t Obsess Over Baby Gear
“More than half of this stuff I literally had to have turned out to 1 – not work, 2 – he outgrew in just a few weeks or 3 – just a complete waste of money. There needs to be a podcast that just interviews new moms about what they regret buying.”
“My SIL offered all of their baby stuff and while we gratefully accepted clothes and some things, we bought (or received as shower gifts) mostly new gear. Now that everything else is so expensive I wish we’d accepted any and all hand-me-downs and asked for cash or gift cards at our showers. Oh well, live and learn!”
“If you have friends who already have kids, talk to them about what baby stuff they actually used. We ended up with a lot of gear that got used only for a short period or not at all. Our ancestors didn’t have a baby registry because babies don’t really need all that much stuff.”
Do you agree with some of these or have something to add? Tell us in the comments!
More Pregnancy Resources
The Healing Power of Rest: Lying In with Your New Baby
Restorative Soups for the Postpartum Mama
Hi can you please share where that blue dress in the photo is forpm!?
Thank you
According to the photographer, the lovely dress was made custom by a tailor in Romania.
Someone mentioned that you can find similar dresses at an online maternity shop called Lukalula. We don’t know anything about their materials or customer service, so it’s an unofficial recommendation 😉
In this fifth pregnancy I’ve realizes it would have been nice to have journaled at least a bit with each one. Some things the same, some very different. The baby takes a little of your brain power, but I do think nursing thru the nights takes a bit of your memory too. The journaling I have done with them all as they have grown older is soo precious. Would be nice for my girls to have a bit of perspective on pregnancy too.