Postpartum Social Circles

January 8, 2019January 23, 2019

Postpartum Social Circles

There are so many various social circles we enjoy: work friends, school friends, family, people from book club, people from church, my best friend, and the random cousin I like more than my other ones. We foster relationship, and our lives develop into this dynamic hodge-podge of people. It’s awesome.

It’s no surprise, then, that we get confused when someone has a baby. Should I do something? How can I help? Does she even need help? Well, she probably has family to take care of her anyway, so I’ll just leave it alone.

We’re not even that close. Is there anything I can do, really?

The short answer is: YES!

We’ve put together this very simple infographic for people in a woman’s life to use as they support her. Maybe this will give you your answer. Maybe it will confirm what you already know or correct what you’d disregarded. Maybe it will give you an idea or spur on inspiration of your own.

The point is: if you know a mom who is in her first weeks postpartum – whether you simply know about her or she’s your closest childhood friend – you have a part to play. It could be as big as helping maintain her house or regular visits to hold her baby while she showers. But the little things – prayer, encouragement from afar, or leaving a meal on her doorstep – matter just as much.

How does Marabou support women?

We live in culture where “bouncing back” is more valued than proper rest. As admirable as it may be for a sports star to get back on the field, the same rules don’t apply to postpartum recovery. The traditional resting period has been stolen from women through pressure to get back to their job or simply through lack of presence.

Grandmas, sisters and best friends who otherwise would have been there to help a woman transition into motherhood often live too far away to be of any help. Household chores and caring for older children inevitably fall on the mom. But she just delivered a new life! She needs rest.

Marabou Services is a unique gift registry which provides services instead of stuff. Most mom’s get too many onesies, too many baby blankets and not enough helping hands. Break out of a destructive cultural norm and start a Marabou registry today.

Start a Marabou Gift Registry!

With a Marabou registry you can sing up for any service which will benefit you or someone you know during the postpartum recovery period.

Postpartum doulas for a first time mom

House cleanings for moms of multiples

Childcare for moms with older children!

Once your registry is created, add it to any other registry or post it to your Facebook and ask friends and family contribute to your postpartum service, rather than buying you more stuff.

More and more moms find they have to figure out postpartum alone. Is it any wonder why PMDs are on the rise? Or women are embittered by the journey of motherhood? We can change that by giving the gift of peace.

January 7, 2019January 23, 2019

Double & Freeze: Corn Chowder

This is our next installment in our series called Double and Freeze. The concept is that you get more bang for your buck in meal preparation by doubling your recipe, serving half and freezing half for another time. I always do this near the end of my pregnancies in preparation for the postpartum phase. When I’m cooking dinner for my family – and if it’s freezer/leftover friendly – I double the recipe and freeze the extra half to be consumed during the postpartum phase when I absolutely will NOT be cooking dinner. I do declare! At the end of this process, we have a freezer full of meals and even if we have a Meal Train (see here), our freezer meals fill in the gaps nicely or extend the time meal preparation is unnecessary. Win!

Our last double and freeze was my go-to: Bean & Cheese Enchiladas (see here). But today I’m going to share another meal I love: Corn Chowder! This is a family recipe from my mother-in-law, and we make it all winter. It’s creamy and nourishing and mostly definitely has its roots in the Midwest. In other words: ignore this post if you’re dairy sensitive!

Here’s what you need:

4 cups water
7-8 medium potatoes
4 carrots
4 stalks celery
1 yellow onion
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
4 cups milk
2 (15 ounce) cans cream-style corn
1.5 cups shredded parmesan cheese, and more for garnish, if desired

Peel your potatoes and carrots. Dice them up and slice your celery. Chop your onion. Add all these vegetables to a large saucepan with the water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 12-15 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Do not drain!
Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper and whisk until smooth. Slowly stir in the milk. Cook 10-15 minutes until thickened. Do not boil. Add the parmesan cheese and stir to melt.
Add cream-style corn to the vegetable saucepan, then stir the sauce in as well. Cook 10 minutes longer or until heated throughout. Serve with biscuits or muffins.

And there you have it! Easy, right? Serve this for dinner in your last weeks of pregnancy and store the remainder in the freezer as a nice, hearty, and nourishing postpartum meal.

How does Marabou support women?

Start a Marabou Gift Registry!

With a Marabou registry you can sing up for any service which will benefit you or someone you know during the postpartum recovery period.

Postpartum doulas for a first time mom

House cleanings for moms of multiples

Childcare for moms with older children!

Once your registry is created, add it to any other registry or post it to your Facebook and ask friends and family contribute to your postpartum service, rather than buying you more stuff.

More and more moms find they have to figure out postpartum alone. Is it any wonder why PMDs are on the rise? Or women are embittered by the journey of motherhood? We can change that by giving the gift of peace.

January 3, 2019March 19, 2019

How to NOT Hate your Tupperware Cupboard

Tupperware: the ultimate love-hate relationship. Why is it that when you finally find the appropriately sized container, you cannot. Find. The. Lid?! I remember even when I was a kid, I despised my parents’ lid drawer. Scavenger hunt every time! And not in a good way.

Shortly after we got married, my husband and I invested in our favorite universal Tupperware. But even so, containing it all drove us nuts. We thought stacking them in a cupboard would be fine, except when all the lids would fall out every time we moved one and we weren’t fans of losing that precious cupboard space. But sticking them on a low shelf is arduous, too. You have to get on your knees to find the one you want, which is inevitably in the back. Try getting back up again with an infant in one hand and the toddler sticking his head in asking, “What you looking for, mom?” as he grabs anything and everything.

In a rare stroke of genius my husband changed my life: he put them all into two baskets! Whaaaaat!

We fall into the category of storing all our Tupperware in bottom shelves. It’s a narrow shelving area, and pretty deep, so finding the right container was difficult. Until, that is, my husband came up with the basket idea. One – stored on the bottom shelf of our cupboard – is for larger containers and is usually used for leftovers after dinner. The other basket sits on top and holds the smaller guys. I pull that one out for packing up snacks and smaller items.

What a simple solution to an otherwise painful experience! There are only two types of lids, so all the small lids stay with the small containers, and all the large lids stay with the large containers!

Another added benefit is that instead rummaging around the shelf to find the four or five different containers I need, I just pull out an entire basket and work with it on the countertop. I pull as I need without having to bend over and reach into the cupboard when I inevitably forget one I need.

Prepping snacks and packing away leftovers is a breeze. Ah, when something in motherhood is simplified! I hope this tip helps you, too!

How does Marabou support women?

Start a Marabou Gift Registry!

With a Marabou registry you can sing up for any service which will benefit you or someone you know during the postpartum recovery period.

Postpartum doulas for a first time mom

House cleanings for moms of multiples

Childcare for moms with older children!

Once your registry is created, add it to any other registry or post it to your Facebook and ask friends and family contribute to your postpartum service, rather than buying you more stuff.

More and more moms find they have to figure out postpartum alone. Is it any wonder why PMDs are on the rise? Or women are embittered by the journey of motherhood? We can change that by giving the gift of peace.

January 2, 2019January 23, 2019

How Our Communities are Kept from Becoming Villages

The village is the ideal I dream about. I can make grand statements about how we’ve lost it in modern society and that people have lost the art of caring for one another, truly and practically. But that’s not going to accomplish much.

The truth is, to have a village, you have to be more than just casual acquaintances. You have to see your tribe on a near-daily basis. You have to grow together. You have to really know each other. Like an idyllic small-town community, which the majority of us don’t have. We don’t live in small-town America anymore; we live in suburban sprawl, and much of our connection exists online. The beautiful imagery of the out-in-the-bush African village surrounding a mother with love and care isn’t reality for us! Maybe it’s an ideal. Maybe it’s an inspiration. But we certainly don’t live that way.

And actually: when we put those expectations on our own society, it can be damaging.

When I was a childless newly-wed, I had many friends who were growing their families. Being Navy spouses together, I felt called to lend a hand whenever I could and be there to support these moms who did so much. Their husbands were on frequent deployments, like mine, and having to manage a family and household by yourself without any support is overwhelming and exhausting, to say the least. I was happy to help wherever I could.

But what I didn’t realize was the importance of having a relationship on which to base this support. With one family in particular, I started out with oodles of enthusiasm and said yes to every request for childcare.

This is my village dream… right?

But because my relationship with the mom had no legs to stand on, I ended up as her free babysitter. I was more than willing to help out in a pinch, but without the basis of a relationship, I started to feel taken advantage of. This led to bitterness and self-loathing (why can’t I just give freely? Why am I so selfish?).

This experience rocked me a little. Why did I become bitter? I did what the community was supposed to do! But I realized that if a close friend of mine was experiencing this and needed this much help, I would be there with bells on. But we would be living life together. And that familiarity would make all the difference – I wouldn’t be a babysitter, I would be a sister.

I’ve analyzed this in many ways and revisited it over and over in my head, and the conclusion I’ve come up with is you CAN overstep boundaries even within a strong community. The deep social connectedness, which you find in a small town or village situation, can be lacking in today’s environment and the abruptness and intensity of the needs of postpartum women can overwhelm us. Especially in relationships that are new. Our close family and friends that we’ve known since our own birth are often far from us geographically or too busy to provide the 24/7 support postpartum mothers need. Those in our immediate vicinity – like neighbors or co-workers – we may have known for a short time. Does it really make sense to yell at Americans to meet each other’s needs so deeply when we barely know each other?

How do we bridge the gap?

My ideal is that dreamy little village where everyone supports a new mom. It always has been, and always will be. But how do we meet a new mom’s needs midst our modern culture, which is self-isolating? How do we pull together as a community to care for new moms during recovery even though we are often not near our dearest loved ones or have little to bind us to one another as closely?

Don’t stop the encouragements

It’s easier than ever in today’s world to give a quick shout out via Facebook, Instagram, text – or better yet – a heartfelt phone call. A positive bit of encouragement shines through the fear and “not-good-enough” culture like a candle in the dark. New moms are bombarded with unsolicited and unhelpful advice filled with fear that fuels the innate anxiety they already have (the focus of that first year is often how to keep your baby from dying). If more people were proactively optimistic with the new moms they know, there is no doubt we would see a measurable decline in Postpartum Depression and Postpartum Anxiety.

Visit moms with the right attitude

We all want to see the new baby! That’s a natural and good thing to celebrate. What we should also keep in mind, especially if you get to visit in those first few weeks, is that new moms need help! Paternity leave is not as prevalent in our society and dad may not be able to take time off. Mama needs rest. Who’s going to do the dishes? And when I say dishes, I mean the whole kit and caboodle: vacuuming, dusting, tidying, dishes, yardwork… look around and you’ll find something mom would appreciate done. It might come across as awkward in the moment because we’re not used to this kind of approach. But if you follow your gut and just go for it, you’ll end up leaving mom better than you found her.

Gift a practical and much-needed service

Does your close friend need another cute onesie from you? Does your daughter who is approaching her due date want to concern herself with laundering more baby blankets? What she really needs is a second set of helping hands. Give her a postpartum service, instead of more stuff!

Sound expensive? It is, trust me. Even a single house cleaning can cost hundreds of dollars, and postpartum doulas have valuable skills which are reflected in their hourly wage. No single individual is going to drop $800 to give a new mom the care she needs.

DON’T STOP READING! YOU CAN STILL GIVE HER THAT SERVICE SHE NEEDS!

There is a way to bridge the gap between our geographically dispersed society and the needs of new moms.

Marabou Services is a postpartum registry that gives you and your whole community the ability to gift services that are generally out of reach for a single gift giver. How does it work? Instead of one person giving $800, how about twenty people giving $40? Or maybe you don’t need expensive doula care and just want to sign her up for a few house cleanings. Does ten people giving $30 sound reasonable?

Services are what postpartum mothers need, don’t let their price tags deter you from filling that need.

We as a society do a great job taking care of first-time moms. They need baby gear. That’s easy: put together a registry and everyone chips in! But the needs of second-, third-, and fourth-time moms often go unmet. Less than 10% of moms are thrown a baby shower for subsequent children after their first. This makes sense: they don’t need more of that baby gear! The needs they have include keeping up with the other children, and the house, and dinner, and work, and their husband; all while their body moans “SLOW DOWN!” We’ve left many moms in the lurch because there is no effective avenue to satisfying their needs.

This is why Marabou began (see here). This is why Marabou teams up with postpartum doulas (see here). This is why you should remember Marabou when your best friend announces she’s having her third child, or your co-worker prepares to have her first baby; or if you’re a mother-to-be, why you should consider asking your family and friends to gift this to you (see here). Marabou fills a need that otherwise goes unmet.

In our culture of “who can bounce back the fastest,” moms who need a longer recovery time are bullied to buck up against their best interest. Don’t give into the nonsense, mom. You’re not a tennis ball. You don’t need to bounce anywhere. You need rest and recovery after childbirth. It’s healthy for you and good for your child. Your own personal village should be there for you; however they manage to do so. But hopefully for whatever needs you’re left with, Marabou Services can step in.

See our other posts in this series on the why and how of our business:

How does Marabou support women?

Start a Marabou Gift Registry!

With a Marabou registry you can sing up for any service which will benefit you or someone you know during the postpartum recovery period.

Postpartum doulas for a first time mom

House cleanings for moms of multiples

Childcare for moms with older children!

Once your registry is created, add it to any other registry or post it to your Facebook and ask friends and family contribute to your postpartum service, rather than buying you more stuff.

More and more moms find they have to figure out postpartum alone. Is it any wonder why PMDs are on the rise? Or women are embittered by the journey of motherhood? We can change that by giving the gift of peace.

January 1, 2019January 23, 2019

The Needs of a Postpartum Mother

The postpartum phase is often a mystery to those not experiencing it. It’s even a mystery to me at times, because each postpartum experience is different! I think we focus a lot of energy on the physical needs of a postpartum mother. These are absolutely, 100%, without-a-doubt important. Bring her a meal, and nourish her soul too, right?

But, there are other needs that we often forget. Here’s an infographic we created to help remind us of these other needs as we interact with postpartum mothers. Use it as a guide as you prepare to visit a new mother:

Mom physically needs wholesome food. Bring a meal that’s warm and nutritious.

Mom emotionally needs openness and vulnerability. Ask her how she’s doing in a way that’s genuine. And if she seems open to it, be inquisitive to the challenges or concerns she alludes to.

Mom mentally needs quiet and stillness. Take your bells off before you go in, use a soft voice and maintain a peaceful presence.

Mom spiritually needs acknowledgement. Affirm everything she says and – if you feel comfortable – tell her how amazing you think she is for doing all she’s done: labor, childbirth, taking care of a newborn.

The list could go on and on. I think if we all used ideas like this when visiting postpartum mothers, we could forge strong connections and leave mothers feeling refreshing and nurtured, instead of depleted after hosting guests mostly interested in holding the new baby. Onward, support people! Go out there and bless new mothers everywhere.

How does Marabou support women?

Start a Marabou Gift Registry!

With a Marabou registry you can sing up for any service which will benefit you or someone you know during the postpartum recovery period.

Postpartum doulas for a first time mom

House cleanings for moms of multiples

Childcare for moms with older children!

Once your registry is created, add it to any other registry or post it to your Facebook and ask friends and family contribute to your postpartum service, rather than buying you more stuff.

More and more moms find they have to figure out postpartum alone. Is it any wonder why PMDs are on the rise? Or women are embittered by the journey of motherhood? We can change that by giving the gift of peace.