Please welcome Lorraine Regel, co-author of the book The Survival Guide for Rookie Moms. Find out more about the book - for which Owning Pink's founder Dr. Lissa Rankin wrote the foreword! - at the end of this post.

Motherhood officially changes your brain. It may feel like you are out of touch with your old self, and that is because you aren’t the same person. Some moms are at ease with their new role as primary caregiver; others struggle to reconcile their old life with the new one.

Adrift in Baby World

According to a survey, the first year of motherhood can be the loneliest in a woman’s life. Being suddenly cut off from work colleagues and a social life can lead to feelings of isolation. The family support and neighborhood network that existed 40 years ago is now much less common, with families living far apart and the village lifestyle becoming increasingly rare. Meanwhile, after a week or two of paternity leave, Dad is back to his old routine: going to work; interacting and conversing with adults; lunching with friends. It can leave you feeling a tad resentful of your new lot. This is why comrades are vital to new moms. When we can’t fit in with “normal” life, we have to build our own new mommy community to keep ourselves sane.

For me, embarking on motherhood was like entering a whole new world—without a map, guidebook or phrasebook. Luckily, after only a few weeks adrift in Baby World, I was fortunate enough to find some fellow castaways, and soon built up a lifesaving band of mommy friends. Chatting with this group, I discovered more truthful and helpful info than I ever did reading the typical baby book. We were soon discussing the dirty details about how difficult breastfeeding really is and how explosive baby poo can be, sharing tales of vaporized sex drives, and admitting that it’s fairly common to pee your pants at this postpartum stage. Quite often it wasn’t an answer to a problem that brought relief, but simply the knowledge that what was happening to me was normal: other moms have been there. It made me feel a whole heap better to have comrades, and, with the chance to laugh about my woes thrown into the bargain, they might well have saved my sanity.

For those rookie moms who find it hard to cope with the loss of independence (and relaxation), it may help to try and control to some extent how much your baby rules the roost. Rather than give up on your old life, try to include your new child in as much of it as you can, and remember: whenever Mommy World gets tedious, it helps to have an outlet.

Survival Secrets

• Join in local activities. Your local community center will probably have lots of mommy and baby groups and activities for you to join. Things like story time at the library, baby music circles, baby massage, and mommy and baby exercise classes.
• Have friends over under the guise of a “play date.”At this point the babies will be having more of a drool date or a joint breastfeeding session, but you get some vital adult company. Try to think of them more as mommy dates, where the babies just come along for the ride. You don’t have to discuss all things baby with a group of like-minded women.
• If you’re really ambitious, start your own group doing something you enjoy; for example, a running group or a book club.
• Get out dailyfor fresh air and a walk.
• Go on outings. Stretch yourself, be brave and get out there to the museum, zoo or art gallery, either alone or with your mommy friends. There’s a lot you can do with a baby in tow when you’re not on a strict timetable.
• Include Baby in as many of your activities as you can. Exercise with her, or try taking her to restaurants.
• If the restaurant thing doesn’t work out, bring the restaurant to you. Invite some of your fellow new-parent friends over for a nice meal or take-out.
• Make sure you take regular breakswith at least one evening a week to nurture yourself. On your night off, try something new and fun. Take up salsa dancing or learn a language. Learning something new will give you a boost and clear out some of the cobwebs.

Reaching out to you from the life raft,
Lorraine

The Survival Guide for Rookie Moms by Erica Wells and Lorraine Regel (John Wiley, Canada) spills the dark and dirty beans on what it’s really like to survive that first incredible year of motherhood. It’s a practical, visual and amusing book that is primarily a compilation of all the "I wish I had known" comments from their mommy circles, bolstered with useful tips, expert advice and know-how. Through a humorous style and fun cartoon illustrations they hope to raise a smile from the reader even through the pain of chafed nipples; regardless of the fact that she can’t sit down except on a doughnut cushion; even when she hasn’t slept more than four hours in the last forty-eight.

The Survival Guide for Rookie Momsis available now in book stores across the USA and Canada. Also available online at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca, and at the Owning Pink Bookstore.