Mothers Share: What I Wish I’d Known During Pregnancy

Pregnancy is a short and special time in your life. So it only makes sense to celebrate and enjoy it. We asked our readers to chime in on the topic – “What I wish I’d done during pregnancy.”

Their answers are honest and thought-provoking. We hope you can take this pregnancy advice and apply to your stage of parenting or life in general.

Give Yourself Grace

“I wish I’d been more patient with myself. I was so forgetful and spacy, but the worst part was that I would berate myself for it. Now I realize how short a time it was, and I was way too hard on myself.”

“I wish I would have slowed down a little and respected the fact that my body was exerting so much energy to grow a human. I was working a full time stressful job and coming home thinking I could still make dinner and keep the house perfect. It was like doing all those things plus being on a stair machine 24/7.”

Sleep Now

“OMG Why didn’t I sleep more?”

See also: The Healing Power of Rest: Lying In with Your New Baby

“Honestly, even though I couldn’t sleep very well toward the end of my pregnancy, I wish I had tried harder. I’m at a deficit I’ll never come back from.”

“Now that I realize everything I was about to go through, I totally wish I had relaxed more instead of making the perfect Instagram-worthy nursery our son doesn’t even sleep in!”

“Someone told me pregnancy sleep was just getting you ready for sleep (or lack of) with a newborn. Now that we have a 12 week old baby girl, I’m sorry to report that was an understatement!”

Don’t Buy or Register for EVERYTHING

“Hubs has the changing table in the garage organizing tools and some of my gardening stuff. We rarely used it for its intended purpose, and it had to go to the garage because there is absolutely no way to repurpose a traditional changing table as stylish furniture.”

See also: First Time Parent? Here Are 7 Baby Items You Really Don’t Need

“A lot of items for new moms are designed to prey on fears and what-ifs that never come to be. Skip the ridiculous device that claims to make your baby smarter in utero, and the pacifier disinfector. I promise, millions of toddlers with pacifiers that were wiped clean on their moms jeans grew to be healthy, thriving adults with perfectly normal immune systems.”

Accept Help

“I spent the last 5 weeks of my pregnancy on bed rest, and I wish I would have taken more offers for help. I didn’t want to inconvenience anybody, but it was really hard on my husband and me. We don’t have family nearby, and I think people are slower to ask if we need help now that the baby is here because we rejected their offers once already.”

See also: Restorative Soups for the Postpartum Mama

“Honestly what I wish I’d done during pregnancy is ask for or hire help. Working full time after I hit the 7-month mark was so hard. I should have gotten help with the house cleaning or one of those meal prep services so I wouldn’t have felt the need to keep doing #allthethings!

Don’t Take ALL the Advice Too Seriously

“Why do people think pregnant women are fair game for their advice? Most of the time it’s not actually advice. It’s more like a way for someone to act like they know more than you because they’ve already had a baby. I’m just a few weeks away from giving birth to our first child, but I feel like stopping people in the grocery line and saying, ‘Oh, it’s our fourth – I got this.'”

“I was talking to my cousins about gentle parenting and my aunt butted in telling us that the baby is a whole lot easier to discipline now than he will be when he comes out. I’m surprised our eyes aren’t all stuck in the back of our heads from rolling them so hard.”

Take Maternity Photos

“I wish I’d taken more photos. I shied away from them then because I felt like a house, but now I look back at the few pics and really, really regret not taking more.”

“Here’s what I would tell pregnant women: take maternity photos. They don’t have to be professional or shared on social media. This is a major chapter of your life, and one day you’ll be glad you documented it. I promise.”

“Yes! Take photos! My babies are in school now, but I only have a few from my first pregnancy and really just one of my daughter next to my huge belly during my second. I actually wish I was in more pics from pregnancy through those early weeks. I didn’t feel like it then, but now I feel a slight mourning that there’s no evidence of ME during such a precious time in my life.”

Do you agree with some of these or have something to add? Tell us in the comments! And find more advice on a healthy, stress-free pregnancy here.