8 Tips on leaving your baby for the first time and Letting go of Mom Guilt

Hi I am Alyssa, if you are new here I am a confidence coach who specializes in increasing your self-love through body neutrality and understanding that things are allowed to be awesome and crappy at the same time! I have an emphasis in postpartum in my work for as a new mom, confidence and self love can often be our last priority but should be made our first.

One of the first steps to finding your confidence postpartum is allowing yourself to have “you time". With a baby requiring all your attention, sleepless nights, questioning everything you are doing, and trying to figure out the new you, thinking about any time to yourself feels like a luxury. And then it happens. One day you wake up and your baby doesn’t need you every waking second, they are starting to gain their independence and you are excited to finally have a moment to breathe. You decide to plan a MUCH NEEDED weekend away, and as you press the “pay” button on your flight, hotel or adventure a button inside you is turned on. The mom guilt button.

“Should I even be going, this is so selfish of me my baby needs me.” “My mom didn’t leave me until I was 3 years old, I must not be as good as her.” “Why do I even need time away from my baby? I should love being with my baby EVERYDAY.” Do these thoughts sound familiar? I know you are having these thoughts because these are the same thoughts and then I remembered what the flight attendants tell me every time I fly… make sure to put on your oxygen mask before assisting others.

We can not be our best selves or the best parents to our children if we don’t meet our needs first. Here are some of my needs:

• I need quiet time to recharge my batteries to show up as my best self for Logan

• I need quality time with my husband Steve to ensure our relationship stays at the top of my priority list

• I need adventure to continue growing my perspective of the world

• I need time and rest to explore my thoughts to continue to win the battle against my postpartum anxiety and depression.

With this understanding I realized that a major part of my confidence journey postpartum was going to allow myself to put myself first without the guilt of society’s standards. As moms, we are still whole humans who deserve all of our needs to be met. The best way we can do this is trust our intuition enough to know what we need and know what our baby needs and put those intrusive thoughts where they belong, the trash.

Now , I am not saying that letting go of mom guilt is easy… actually it is really hard, but many things that are important are challenging. Like taxes, and setting boundaries with your mother in law. Challenging, but important. Here are some steps I found really helped us let go of the guilt of leaving Logan with Grandma and Grandpa for the first time as Steve and I fell in love with San Francisco and each other with our new titles of Mom and Dad.

1. Do a Trial Run

Do a trial run with whoever is taking care of your babe! This trial run allows everyone to get a bit more comfortable. We gave my mom and dad Logan for a night a couple weeks before we left for bedtime and wake up so they could ask any questions with us there! (This was also really good for Steve and I to feel comfortable that it wasn’t too much for them, also for ourselves to let go a bit while being in the same city.) Also, let’s be honest, the night off was a well welcomed treat lol

2. Have a conversation sharing explicit expectations

This is a hard one, setting boundaries with the people watching your babe. Pull out your mama bear (I know she has come out a couple times) and share that you are setting these boundaries to ensure everyone is on the same page and they are coming from a place of love rather than a place of anger. There is nothing kinder than laying out your expectations with someone, people want to make you happy and this way, they know exactly how to do that. Our boundaries included when we expected texts or calls, who we were comfortable with Logan being with and what activities we were comfortable with them doing. My parents literally crushed it because they were set up for success and it made everyone more comfortable! (We did have to have one small conversation restating the boundaries, but that’s ok! It’s all about learning!

3. Get out the stinky sweater

While you are away, your baby might start to miss you, and that is ok! (It means they have a good attachment style lol ) To help ease this, a great tip I was given was the stinky sweater. The week before you leave, wear a sweater as often as you can, make it really stinky haha that if your baby gets fussy while you are away, whoever is taking care of him can put in the sweater and it will comfort him! (Honestly I don’t think grandma had to do this, because Logan was thriving but it was a comfort to me that we had a plan in place incase there was an issue)

4. Do your best to relax

If you get nervous before or during the trip remember the reasons you trust the people who are taking care of him! Something that helped me was writing down a list of all the reasons I needed to go on this trip and all the reasons I trusted my parents.

5. Are you breastfeeding?

I am breastfeeding but we use formula and pumped breast milk when I am away. Now that Logan was eating solids I was not afraid of Logan going hungry, but I was thinking about how hard my boobs were going to get lol. Pumping can be really exhausting so I made it a priority that I was not going to plan my day around pumping but rather plan pumping around my day. Make it a routine that as soon as you get back to the hotel, you pump, and before you go to bed and when you wake up. If your out all day bring your pump with you! (Unless you are good at hand expressing) We went on an all day wine tour and I pumped in the bus, most people had no idea and the people who knew thought I was a champ. Win, Win. My milk was VERY tainted so I just dumped my milk however I know people who have frozen it and brought it home with them! You are allowed to bring as much breast milk onto the plane as you need!

6. Write a letter stating that (The caregiver) has medical autonomy over your baby

This was an important step for us in case of an emergency and Steve and I could not be contacted . We wrote a letter stating the dates we will be away and the approval for my parents to make any decisions.

7. FaceTiming was cringey

Ok, so our original plan was to Facetime every morning and every night. Sounds great right? LOL we pivoted from that plan quickly as when we Facetimes, Logan seemed really confused, and it made him really upset that he couldn’t get to us in the phone. Facetiming might work for you, but we decided it was best for Logan to receive text messages and pictures instead!

8. Most importantly…. ENJOY!!

You deserve a weekend off, let go of the mom guilt, you are a better mom when you have you time and when you come back you will be refreshed and ready to bond even deeper with your baby, you enjoying your life is helping create a well adjusted kid. The love you have for yourself is just as important as the love you have for your nugget.