New parents know the feeling of utter joy at the fact that they get to help young children learn about the world around them and watch them grow up. They also know the difficulties and challenges that often come with trying to parent a child that requires so much attention. Truthfully, parents are always pressed for time as they sink so much of it into their children. Many want to know how to manage time with a newborn.
They want to spend a significant amount of time with their newborn, but they also want to take some time for themselves and other activities in their life. It is reasonable that many new parents don’t want to give up on all their hard work to create a life for themselves that they enjoyed before they were parents. We want to discuss some tips to help new parents maintain that balance.
12 Tips for How to Manage Time With a Newborn
1. Review How You Currently Spend Your Time
Many new parents feel stretched to the limit regarding how much time they have in a given day. However, studies show that there are a number of things that most of us do on a given day that we could quickly push off to another day or not do at all.
For example, the average social media user spends 2 hours and 22 minutes of their day checking their profiles. That is time that they could quickly put towards something more useful.
New parents may or may not be spending their time on social media, but they are likely wasting time in some other way, if not on social media. That is important to recognize and try to correct.
2. Create A List Of Priorities
New parents often know which tasks must be taken care of first and which can be put off until later. However, they also often have that list floating around only in their heads.
They should be taking the necessary time to write these thoughts down. That can be a problem because it means they must capture all of the crucial tasks of the day as they go around taking care of things.
If they miss some of the day’s essential tasks, they are shortchanging themselves and anyone else who is counting on them to get these things done. That is no way to live your life, which is a big reason why they should create a list of priorities today.
3. Find Ways To Eliminate Unnecessary Tasks
Try to think ahead and see which tasks you are currently wasting your time on and how you might change that. You know in your heart of hearts which tasks are time-consuming and contribute less to your day.
If you can find a way to eliminate them or shift the responsibility of handling them to someone else, then you are already creating a time management system that will work better for you.
It is all about coming up with the answers you need to solve the puzzle of how to take care of various issues that may arise in your day.
4. Organize
You need to have an effective organizational system that works for you. It may be a simple and classic system, such as a filing cabinet full of paperwork and documentation that is useful to you, or it may involve a more high-tech approach, such as using some of the latest organization apps on your phone.
Whatever works for you, the bottom line is that you need to have a system that you can lean into. Once you have your system in place, stick to it and use it daily.
“The future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow” – Anonymous
5. Give Everyone In The Household A Job
This tip may not be possible for single moms who are parenting solo. Still, anyone with a partner or older children should have a plan for the responsibilities that each person in the house is responsible for. This is necessary because everyone needs to contribute to the benefit of the household if they want to continue living there and soak up the benefits they receive. This type of discipline may take some time for certain house members to get used to, but they need to learn to get used to it ASAP because it is their responsibility to keep up with things just as much as it is the mother’s responsibility.
6. Choose NOT To Do Certain Things
Is it okay with you if dirty laundry stays dirty for another day? If so, allow this to happen and focus your energy elsewhere. You are never going to get everything done all the time, so you should pick and choose your battles so that you don’t get overwhelmed by all that you have to do. You are responsible for ensuring that you only take on what you feel is needed.
7. Keep Your Tasks Somewhere Visible
Consider posting the things you need to do on a calendar or list them somewhere you can see when you need to. Keeping it visible and accessible at all times is a great way to help you ensure that you don’t forget what you are doing. You can look at it often when you need a reminder of what you are aiming to take care of following, and you can reference it back at times when you are feeling uncertain about how to organize the rest of your day.
8. Always Be Prepared And Ready To Go
Moms of newborn children often have to pick everything up and head out the door at a moment’s notice. It is ideal to have a to-go bag already fully stocked and sitting by the door, ready to go whenever you need it. This kind of thing will make it easier for you to get out the door at rapid speeds when there is simply no time to waste.
“All time management begins with planning” – Tom Greening
9. Automate Tasks On The Internet
You should take care of as many of your routine tasks on the Internet as possible. There is no reason why you should do things like pay bills via the old-fashioned method of mailing in a check. Nothing makes sense, and you will ultimately just cost yourself more time by doing so.
If you still need to set up accounts to pay your bills online, work on that process right now. You need to automate as much of your day as you can to free up more of your time for yourself.
10. Consolidate Tasks And Possessions
Clutter gets in the way of progress all the time. If you can consolidate the number of possessions you have in your home, you can manage them better, which will make a big difference for you when you try to get organized. You deserve the freedom that being organized can unleash for you, and the only way to get there is to consolidate the possessions that you and your children have to make things easier to manage in your household.
11. Meal Prep
Meal prepping has been something that people have been doing for a while to save time, but it is a great idea for busy housewives. Taking some time when the newborn is asleep to prepare several meals in advance means that you are never in any danger of having to try to prepare a meal for yourself at the last possible minute. You can take care of your nutrition ahead so you always know that you will have something reasonably healthy to eat and not risk trying to prepare your meals when you have other things going on.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axes” – Abraham Lincoln
12. Ask For Help
When your responsibilities swamp you, there is no shame and no harm in asking for help. Great moms have to do it all the time, and you should take that to heart when working so hard to ensure your children are cared for.
Remember, they look to you for help taking care of their day, and you can look to other moms and other people who have been in your shoes before to help you out with yours. There is no shame in doing so, and you may gain a newfound understanding of certain ways to do things.
You are an influential person with a lot on your plate now with your newborn child. Getting help with your daily tasks is an obvious thing you should be doing. A great way to make it happen is to start practicing with some tips left above.
Additionally, you can always rely on a network of other parents of newborns who are going through many of the same things that you are. When you do so, you can learn from their experiences, past and present, to get a better idea of how you can work towards accomplishing your goals in your day. Work at it until it just becomes more accessible and easier.
