Postpartum Stress Reducers

  • Ask your husband to give the night feedings on weekends.
  • Leave beds unmade.
  • Sleep when the baby sleeps.
  • Take an aromatherapy bath.
  • Wear wrinkled clothes.
  • Simplify dinner: replace homemade dinners with frozen entrees, buy prepackaged salads.
  • Do fewer chores.
  • Rent a video and watch it by yourself in the afternoon.
  • Take your baby to a movie matinee.
  • Read a good novel and give yourself permission to enjoy it.
  • Hire a mother’s helper to come for a few hours a day.
  • Treat yourself to a grocery delivery service.
  • Make a long distance call to an old friend.
  • Have a pizza delivered.
  • Get a haircut, manicure, pedicure.
  • Ask your husband to bring home takeout food.
  • Hire a cleaning service for a few months.

      • (Adapted from This Isn’t What I Expected by Karen Kleiman, M.S.W. and Valerie Raskin, M.D. Bantam, 1994.)

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