I recently experienced a “mom win” day. My baby napped consistently throughout the day but one of those naps was almost 2 hours long. And during those 2 hours, I managed to clean my bathroom and bedroom.
That may not seem like much but to me it’s huge. Pre-pregnancy, Monday was my cleaning day for years. Or more like cleaning morning since I’d start at 4am before my husband woke up. (Luckily the vacuum cleaner doesn’t wake him.) I’d spend several hours cleaning our house from top to bottom. It kept our house spotless but also helped me mentally prepare for the week ahead since my work week started on Tuesday.
I wasn’t sure what to expect as a first time mom. I figured I wouldn’t get as much done in the beginning but surely I can clean my house in one day once he got a little bigger.
Oh, how wrong I was. I agonized over this for months. It’s one thing to live in a space that isn’t cleaned regularly, it’s another to feel there’s a lack of contribution to our family coming from my side aside from keeping our human alive. I recognize the tiny human is a lot of work and responsibility but making sure the house was clean was apart of my routine for years. It was one of my little accomplishments for each week.
I’ve lost count of how many nights I’d lay in bed feeling defeated. Another day, more time I didn’t clean up our home. If only he had taken a longer nap, if only someone could watch him so I could clean uninterrupted, the list went on.
I posted on my Pilates IG page back in November about how my return to working out had been going. Since then I have been doing Pilates here and there but more recently I’ve been upping it to 3x a week consistently. I realized long gone are the days of working out at 6am because that’s when my baby needs to be fed. Pre-baby I was adamant about working out first thing in the morning or I wouldn’t at all that day. (I know, weird quirk of mine.)
One day I woke up and put on leggings like I was going to workout. I waited until his first nap of the day and I did it! I did Pilates until he woke up. It felt invigorating to do something that I love just for ME. It wasn’t a big ordeal. Even though it wasn’t 6am, I did it successfully.
That’s when it hit me, I need to let go of my expectations. I need to let go of my “all or nothing” mentality. I used to workout at the butt crack of dawn but now I workout when my child naps later in the day. I used to clean the whole house in one day. Now I clean a room at a time when I can. It’s not the worst thing in the world. At some point this week (if I manage to keep it up) our house will be clean all at once! And that’s just fine.
Letting go of those expectations has allowed me to breathe… and live in a partially clean home with decently sore abs.
Life after baby has changed me in more ways than I could’ve ever imagined. There are moments of frustration but way more moments of gratefulness for this sweet baby who made me a mom.
What expectations did you have to let go of when you become a parent? Comment below or tag us on instagram!
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