Watering the plants: a guide to the small, indirect care tasks that help your postpartum friend.

“… and then one day that postpartum fog was gone.” I hear that a lot. For a moment, it feels great. You realize you’ve been through a lot, but you start to feel like yourself again. You were exhausted, and maybe you’ve finally gotten a full four hours of consecutive sleep, or you got to wash your hair and shave your legs in the same shower.

But then there’s the realization that comes after this one. The one that says “if I’m feeling like myself now, but I wasn’t before when baby was 2 weeks or 2 months old… what did I miss? Was I okay?” It’s okay that that’s a little scary. It’s okay that that leads to a whole new kind of emotional turbulence. You might realize that because you were in survival mode, you didn’t water the plants, wash the dog, or vacuum the car for longer than you should have. It’s all okay.

Everyone is going to drop some of the balls while they’re postpartum. You have to dedicate at least one whole hand to holding the baby, and that makes juggling pretty much an Olympic sport. If something is important to you, tell someone to help you manage it postpartum. If you’re okay with lowered expectations for a little while- that’s great! I encourage everyone to have a postpartum plan that includes making sure the tasks that need to happen, do happen. Stuff like feeding the animals, taking out the trash, and keeping things from getting grossly dirty, but there’s little stuff that is harder to dictate to someone because it seems so small. These are great tasks to check off if you’re checking on someone just occasionally, or for a relative who wants to be supportive but maybe isn’t hands on with the baby or the touch-feely kinds of chats (my dad for example…) and if you are the postpartum person… it’s okay to ask someone to do them.

1- water the houseplants.

2- oil that squeaky door hinge.

3- groom the pets.

4- check the air in the car tires.

5- dust the bookshelf.

6- pull the expired cans out of the panty.

7- check the oil tank (home heat or car!)

8- wipe down the fridge interior.

9- change air filters.

10- check smoke detector batteries.

11- change water filter filters.

12- grab gasoline for the lawnmower, or salt for the sidewalk- as weather and climate dictates.

13- Inventory the freezer meals.

14- Match the odd socks.

15- Recycle the junk mail.

16- Replace that lightbulb.

17-Find all the pacifiers that have fallen under the bed.

18- Return the library books.

19- Unpack the hospital toiletries.

20- Rake the leaves.

21- Water the garden.

22- Clean out the silverware drawer.

23- Scrub the tub.

24- Replace the toothbrushes.

They seem small, but they save you from coming out of the fog only to realize that all of your houseplants are dead, and your house is ready to be the setting of the newest Halloween movie. Even if you’ve just made it through the worst of postpartum, it isn’t a great time to feel like you aren’t an expert at caring for anything, and having to put it on the back burner shouldn't make you feel like you did.

Take care of yourself. Take care of the mother's around you.