How to Stay Healthy as a New Parent
When you have a new baby, it’s unlikely your first thought will be for yourself, let alone your health. You have nappies to change, a child to stop crying, and the constant desire for sleep.
Things like your physical fitness and your dietary health slide to the side in favour of this new, exciting life you’ve brought into being.
But staying healthy is more important than ever. With a child depending on you, you need to ensure that you are in the best health you can be. But how can you balance your health with the demands of being a new parent?
Medication
Many people will take some form of medication as an adult. However, as a new parent, you might want to check whether the medication you take will inhibit your ability to act as a parent for any reason. For example, some medications make you drowsy, affect your reflexes, or damage your balance. These are all issues that might make taking care of a baby a bit harder.
Chat to a doctor about whether there are any other alternative medications or if they have any tips for lessening the side effects of your current medication.
As a new parent, it can feel like there isn’t a spare second in the day to head down to a doctor’s appointment. But, to make things easier for yourself, you can always use Oxford Online Pharmacy.
Breaking bad habits
Everyone has a few bad habits. Whether this is as small as biting your nails or as dangerous as smoking, bad habits are hard to break. But some of these more serious habits, like smoking and drinking, can have adverse effects on a new baby.
As you become a new parent, taking a second look at these habits and working out a plan to change them is essential. Children should be in a smoke-free environment, or they could run the risk of developing health issues or, in more serious cases, sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI).
Similarly, other bad habits, like drinking alcohol and caffeine, should be more limited than usual, as they may make parenting more difficult for you. Caffeine affects your ability to sleep, so ensure you don’t have it late in the day. New parents don’t get enough sleep as it is – try not to reduce the amount of sleep even further by having too much coffee.
Keeping to a healthy diet
When you first have a new baby, you might not feel you have enough time for shopping, preparing meals, and cooking meals. It can be easy to fall into the trap of ready meals or processed food.
But the food you consume gives you energy, and new parents need energy more than most people on the planet. Therefore, it’s of increasing importance that you consume food that is going to fuel you best.
The foods that are best for you include:
- Fruits and vegetables
- Protein
- Dairy
- Grains
It’s also essential that you drink lots and lots of water.
It’s great to know what types of food are good for you to eat, but the problem still remains: you have no time in the day to cook and prepare food. Luckily, there are a few tips and tricks you can use to ensure you eat healthily and don’t spend too much time cooking.
If you make meals in bulk, all you have to do is defrost and warm them up. This is super easy, quick, and can be done in the background while looking after your baby.
To save even more time, you can buy vegetables and fruits pre-cut and washed. This way, you don’t have to spend time preparing your ingredients.
When out shopping, don’t buy unhealthy snacks. Instead, buy nuts, yoghurts, and sticks of vegetables. Therefore, when you reach for a snack, you’ll be eating something healthy.
Try to do some exercise.
The thought of having a half-hour to spend to go on a run feels like a fantasy to most new parents. But getting thirty minutes of movement is exactly what a person needs to maintain healthy fitness.
For parents, making exercise a part of your everyday activities is the most sustainable method. An example of this might be pushing your baby in their pram while walking to the post office. This way, you get out and about, moving, and healthy.
Stay healthy for your baby
You want to be around for many years to come to spend with your child. Keeping healthy now will help to ensure this gets to happen.