For the next few days, I’m going to share some Q&As that I’ve recently shared with some readers on subjects ranging from first trimester woes, fussy newborns, and temper tantrums. I’ve shared some of my experiences below, but I know that many of you also have wisdom to offer. Please leave a comment if you can share some advice with these ladies!
The topic today is “First Trimester Woes.” Tomorrow we’ll discuss fussy, sleepless newborns!
Vicki asks:
Do you have any advice for how you cope during the first trimester of pregnancy? We are expecting #7 and I’m miserable, I’ve sorta resigned to not doing school till I start to feel better. :) Any tips would be very helpful.
First, congratulations on #7! What a blessing! I’m sorry that you’re having a rough pregnancy. Mine have all been relatively easy pregnancies, but that first trimester is always so exhausting! During my pregnancies we joke about “coma-naps.” ;-)
I would recommend that you scale back a bit with school, but I would still try to do some. After the baby comes you will want to take some time off, and if you took off the 1st trimester you’ll probably feel pressured to start back before you’re ready. Also, the routine of school may actually help your days to go more smoothly because your children have the structure of knowing where they are supposed to be and what they’re supposed to be doing. When we take breaks from school, sometimes it just feels like chaos! But that said, I do have some ideas to make it go a little more smoothly.
I just looked at your blog to see the ages of your children. I noticed you have a 5th and 3rd grader. My thought is that they can probably do a lot of their schoolwork on their own if you give them a list to follow. Another thought is that they can help “babysit” for you so you can get a little nap. Maybe not babysit all their little siblings, but if you time it while the littlest one is napping, then you could divide them up, having your 5th grader focus on one of the preschoolers and your 3rd grader focus on the other, for about a half hour or so. Your 1st grader could be a “babysitting helper” with one of them. It wouldn’t be very long, but even a short nap could give you a nice pick-me-up. And, while I don’t normally advocate media, I think an occasional short video for the children is not a bad thing, especially for homeschooling mama expecting her 7th baby! My friend, if anyone needs a nap and has an excuse to use an occasional video, you do! :-)
Funny, I was in the middle of replying to you when I left awhile to go eat dinner, cleanup, etc. At the dinner table I mentioned your comment and asked the kids if they had any ideas for you. My 4th grader suggested that you have your children do the readings for the My Father’s World subjects. I forgot that we did that a few times on my rough days, and the kids LOVED it.
I noticed that you are doing CTG (My Father’s World’s Year 2: “Creation to Greeks”) this year. I remember that year had a lot of hands-on things. I’d recommend you skip the ones you don’t feel up to, and not to feel even the tiniest bit guilty about it. Also, kids are more adept than we often give them credit for, and they actually really love to do some of the activities independently. A few times my children would do some simple science experiments without me. Nothing dangerous, of course, but they really are capable of taking an activity and running with it.
With your 1st grader, if you can just get in phonics a few days a week until you are feeling better, he will be fine!
You might scale back on housework at this time too. Paper plates at dinner, vacuum less, etc.
Readers, any other advice for Vicki? I’d especially love it if you’d share your advice on coping with morning sickness. I’ve not had much experience with that aspect of pregnancy, and I’m sure there are a lot of expecting mothers that would love some tips!
I have only one child, so I don’t know about the child wrangling side, but I suffered hyperemesis, so I know a LOT about the feeling miserable part. I’m guessing you don’t have severe morning sickness as I did (I had to go to the hospital at one point, and was lighter the day before baby was born than before I got pregnant because it continued all 9 months) but some of the same things still apply.
The biggest thing is, for this 2 months of morning sickness, simplify. You can pick everything up again later, it’s ok, you won’t miss anything. You can pick it up when you feel better, 2 months isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things.
First of all, cut back on hospitality and out of house activities. I know of one lady who’s husband won’t allow anyone over during the first trimester. And those out of house activities can be started again in a couple of months, it’s not permenant. It’s important for everyone that you have time to rest and do the most important things. Having said that, you might feel better having a good friend over to keep you company, just choose those friends well, ask someone who will bring you a meal, not expect you to cook one! Do you know what I mean? This isn’t the time for aquaintances and church hospitality, it’s the time for close friends and support. There will be plenty of time for the former in the second trimester.
I became very discouraged and overwhelmed by what I didn’t do, couldn’t do. So I began to write a list each day of simple things. Nothing big like ‘clean the house’ or ‘organize the pantry’, but little things. 5 each day. Your list would look very different as you have kids to help and kids to care for, but an example of one of my lists as a housewife was
Wash Breakfast Dishes
Put one load of washing in the machine
Hang out one load of washing
Quick Pick Up Loungeroom
Wipe down benches
These are all small things that, with the exception of number 3, could be done in 5 minutes. But for me it gave me a goal. Instead of looking at everything I didn’t do I could see what I did do, and know I was (just) keeping my head above water. Many days this was all I could manage, as I would need to lie down after every task, some days when I felt better it motivated me to get a little more done.
Delegate! I don’t believe children should do ALL the housework usually, mum still needs to take her fair share as the keeper at home, but for the 8ish weeks of morning sickness, have them take over! Especially if they’re doing less school, use this time to teach the older ones housekeeping skills. A 5th grader can usually, if taught, cook lunch or even perhaps dinner with supervision. A 3rd grader could certainly be responsible for breakfast or snacks. All the kids bar the youngest can clean. And use the energy that their work saves you, to do a little school with them instead of washing dishes, or to read a book and supervise an experiment instead of attempting to make lunch. Grab what energy you can.
Sure it will be extra work for them, but if school is cut back to the basics of math and english for a few weeks, it won’t take much more time, and as long as they know you truly appreciate their helping you, it will teach them some valuable life lessons.
On that note, go into ‘cleaning emergency mode’. Do the nececities. Prepare food, neaten house, wash clothes and dishes. The things that need to be done to keep your home sanitary. Don’t worry if the linen closet colapses on top of you when you open it, shove it back in and put it on a mental to-do list for next month. Ignore the pile of stuff one hoarding child has accumulated, as long as they’re stacked neatly, you can go through and throw them out later. Mopping, depending on your children and your house, can often be put off (my mum only mopped every 6 months!) Dusting can wait, as can yardwork. Only do what you need to keep the household functioning.
But it’s not all ‘take out, take away’. It’s important to put into this minimized routine as well.
I made a big effort to do something for myself each day, whether it was to watch a movie or work on a craft, something to feel good about myself, even for half an hour. You can do this while the baby sleeps if you aren’t in need of extra sleep (I didn’t need extra sleep with my illness, contrary to many peoples ideas). And on that note, make time to do something special with the kids. Lay out an old sheet and lie on the couch while they make a collage. Biuld blocks with them, whatever you can manage, do something special together each day. Make this time special.
So in short
Delegate the chores to the children wherever possible
Have a limited list of small tasks you can do to encourage yourself and feel like you’re achieving something
Use the extra time for the basics of schoolwork, math english bible and perhaps an alternating ‘fun subject’ on the days you feel up to it.
Don’t choose now to teach someone to read, or potty train someone, or begin a new math concept.
Take the time to do something for yourself
Take the time to do something with your children
Remember, this will pass sooner than you think. 2 months is a short amount of time. Your kids will enjoy the break from full school, they will learn a lot from ‘life skills’ lessons, and it will become a special time as you cut out outside responsibilities for awhile and make the effort to do something with them during this time when it’s hard to give the attention they need.
And when the new year comes around, which isn’t far off now, you’ll be all ready to get stuck back into it :) Good luck!
Abba12, thank you for all the wonderful ideas drawn from your very difficult pregnancy, and driving home the truth that it’s a short time, to focus on the most important things, and not to let the items of lesser importance wear out Mom’s limited strength, and pull her attentions away.
I could have written this question myself! I am expecting number #7 and thankfully I have just passed 12 weeks (on Saturday) and I am feeling my motivation returning. My oldest is 10 and youngest is 18 months with the others stairstepped inbetween. I was more sick than I have ever been with this pregnancy 24 hours a day! The only time I didn’t feel awful was when I was sleeping.
Both Michelle’s advice and the first commenter are very good advice. We also use MFW and I think during the first trimester we completed 2 weeks of it. And I don’t feel guilty about it! One thing I forced myself to do even if I felt so bad I didn’t want to, was to plan out their individual lessons for the following week. I have a printed out spread sheet for each child that has all their assigned seatwork for the week and reading assignments. The older ones (10 and 8 and sometimes my very motivated 5 year old) would start their seatwork before I was out of bed. My kids are very early risers, while I was suffering M.S. the earlier I got up the worse I felt. So I tried to sleep until the baby was awake and needed me. But anyway back to school, they often times had a very good start on their basics. I am taking two years to get through the MFW Countries and Cultures because I have had so many set backs that it was the easiest to let go. Now that my M.S. is over we are back to our full schedule of school.
I would also recommend you just stick to the basics around the house also. My kids have their assigned chores anyway so the house continued to run fairly well even with mommy down. Clorox bleach wipes are great for a quick wipe down of the bathroom, which my 10 year old does every day. (we have 5 boys so it is a neccessity around here :) ) My other oldest does vacuuming where it is needed. If the floors didn’t get mopped we tried again the next week.
My priorities were:
a healthy breakfast for all (the protein helped me and also the kids to focus on their tasks)
basic school subjects accomplied
clean clothes for everyone (I have always made sure my hubby’s clothes were ironed for the week but for the first time in our marriage he went to work and church with clothes that I just hung up right out of the drier…..and it really didn’t show. He knew I was really sick then!! I didn’t care that he was leaving the house in unpressed clothes!)
supper on the table
We also have quiet time everyday in our house. But it is especially important in that first trimester. Since it was an established routine the kids were use to just having the house quiet while the little ones slept. The only difference now was that mommy was also dead to the world. I allowed them to play approved computer games. They all knew their alotted time so they set the timer and took turns. Those not playing either watched or read a book. Everyone was inside so there was no safety issues.
Getting plenty of rest is huge. There were nights I was in bed by 8:30 sound asleep. I wish I could give you something that would help with the morning sickness. The only thing that sort of helped me was to have something in my mouth at all times. I sucked on hard candy or chewed gum and it helped a bit. If I didn’t nothing or got even the slightest bit hungry I almost could not function anymore. So try little snacks throughout the day.
So keep life simple and once you are pasted that 12 week mark life will return to normal and you can catch up on all those things that got left undone while you were just unable to do them.
Michelle
Thank you for sharing, Michelle! I especially like your priorities. Keeps us reminded of the things we need to do, and also helps us to see the things (important ones at that) that have been accomplished.
I’ll leave it to Vicki if she’d like to share her blog. :-)
PS if Vicky doesn’t mind you sharing her blog I would love to check it out! Sounds like we have lots in common. :)