It is my last weekday of work before we welcome another baby to our home. With Baby G my maternity leave started earlier than anticipated and left me little time to really prep and reflect on what I’d hope it would be like. With Baby 2 staying nice and secure until her expected arrival date, I’ve had some time to map out what a successful maternity leave will look like this time.

• On my first maternity leave, I went in thinking it was a time to try to knock out some things I hadn’t been able to get around to during the week because of work. This maternity leave I plan on using the time to bond with baby. Laundry, dishes and mulching the flower beds can wait. I plan on soaking up every contact nap I can.

• This time around my plan is also to incorporate outings and visitors much more slowly. With Baby G everyone wanted to come visit right away which was a lot while trying to recover from a C-section. I also felt the need to schedule her baptism, send out birth announcement and get newborn pictures done ASAP. While I still plan on doing all those things for this baby, they definitely won’t be done as quickly.

• Baby #2 will be a planned C-section, and the first time around I definitely tried to do too much too soon. I didn’t give my body the time it needed to fully recover. I plan on taking at least the first 6 weeks of maternity leave to fully let my body recover from surgery and pregnancy.
• With that being said, once I am clear to start exercising again I plan to jump back in. I did this one my first maternity leave and being able to re-establish an exercise routine was so important before I went back to work.

Overall, maternity leave the second time around will hopefully be filled with more bonding and less “doing.” I’ve been working a lot on realizing as a parent we don’t need to have every second of every day scheduled for ourselves or our kids and I am hopeful this philosophy will shine through during this leave.

What was your maternity leave like? What tips for leave do you have for other moms? Drop them in the comments below!