Baby’s First: Reducing Stress Around the Holidays

Takeaway: Baby’s first holiday season is a fun and festive occasion. It can also be stressful and full of pressure, causing anxiety or disappointment. Here are my tips to set you and your family up for success while celebrating the holidays with your new baby. 

Baby’s First Holiday Season!

As a new mom, you might want to do it ALL. You might want to go all out - it’s baby’s first holiday season! Or, you might be tired (of course you are, babies are kind of famous for not sleeping, which means you haven’t been sleeping either). You might be reeling from all the adjustments you’ve been making since baby was born. You might not be feeling very festive at all, if you are experiencing or healing from postpartum depression or anxiety. Whatever the case is for you, here’s my advice:

Simplify

Forget Elf on the Shelf, decorating the whole house, making elaborate meals and spending all day baking 6 kinds of cookies. This won’t happen, and it will be frustrating to try. 

Those things are fun and meaningful, but there are simple things you can do that are just as fun and meaningful (and honestly will probably take up just as much time now that you have a baby to care for). 

Try matching pajamas, reading books together, and walking around the neighborhood to see the lights in the evenings. 

These are all traditions that feel good and doable now and can also grow with your family. Maybe as kids get older, neighborhood walks turn into drives with hot chocolate. Maybe reading books comes with eating those 6 kinds of cookies you baked together. Maybe Christmas pajamas come with Christmas movies and snuggles on the couch. For now, set a base and enjoy creating simple traditions to savor while looking forward to the future as a family. 

Slow Down

Have you had this experience? You have a full, fun day planned with your family, new baby included. It’s a little rough getting out of the house, but you make it! You get to your destination and oh, baby needs to eat. Ok, I’ll feed her quick in the car. Oh, diaper blow out. That’s okay! You brought extra clothes for baby. You got this. Oh, she spit up. A lot. All over you. You did not bring extra clothes for you. Now you have less than an hour before she needs to sleep again and doing the backwards math, you realize there’s no way you’ll have time to do your fun activity, get everyone back in the car, and get home before nap time. Which means she’ll either scream all the way home or fall asleep for less than ten minutes in the car and then not nap at home. Great. The anxiety and frustration builds, or the disappointment feels heavy and you start to shut down. Why even try?

This experience is so real and it happens all. the. time. There’s a lot of value in doing the things anyway and addressing a lot of those negative thoughts in this scenario- BUT that’s for another time, a less pressure and stress-filled time than the holidays. For the holidays, it’s OKAY to take it slow and skip doing alllll the activities, especially if it feels like too much. You will likely have a few “can’t miss” activities and events that are going to present plenty of opportunities for working through the above scenario. For the rest of the holiday season, take the pressure off by slowing down. 

Savor

It’s your baby’s first holiday season! You might have been waiting for this for a long time. You might have dreamt of Christmas mornings or Hanukkah nights with your own sweet family. So enjoy it - take photos of baby in their outfit and your family together (quick, before blow out/spit up happens!). Pick a simple craft to do with baby to commemorate the occasion and have as a keepsake. Simplify and slow down so you can savor the time together. A new baby, a new family. This first holiday season is precious AND it won’t be perfect. It doesn't need to be, there will be many more to come.