Readjusting Priorities and Expectations
Becoming a mother adds more to your to-do list. If you had a marriage and a job and a home and a pet before, now you've still got those things, but you've also got a wonderful baby you want to devote a lot of time to. Something has to give. You can't continue to do everything you did before, to the same standards and requirements, while also fitting a baby into your life.
This is the time in your life to make changes and simplify, if you can. This is not to say you can't excel, do things well, and achieve amazing things. Motherhood doesn't have to crimp your style, but it does mean you have to choose what is important to you and focus on those things first.
A lot of women always expect too much of themselves. They feel they have to keep a perfect house, excel in their career, have wonderful friendships, do community or charity work, have a size-zero toned body, create romance, cook beautiful meals, and more. This is hard enough to do on an ordinary day, but on a day when you're trying to care for a baby and adjust to new motherhood, it is simply impossible. You must choose where you're going to excel and accept that some other things simply are not going to get done, at least not to the level you might have preferred pre-baby.
While most pregnancy magazines are geared to moms under age 35, there is a magazine exclusively for older moms:
If you don't reduce your priorities and instead move on full steam ahead, certain that you can and will do it all, you will likely become exhausted, frustrated, overwhelmed, and possibly depressed. Instead of succeeding at doing everything well, you will likely find you're doing everything, but none of it well at all. Organizing your priorities does not have to mean that you'll decide to be a great mom and everything else will go to pot. Instead, it means reducing your standards and expectations, and accepting that things may not get done as soon or as well as you want.
An important skill is learning to delegate. Delegate tasks to your partner, parents, friends, older children, coworkers, and anyone else you can. Carrying the entire burden by yourself is too much. If you get other people to help you do things, it will still all get done without wearing you out.
