5 Time Saving Pregnancy Hacks

One thing every exhausted pregnant lady wants to know is how to make the most of the little time we are awake during the day. My 8 week pregnancy update is so quick, that I decided to squeeze in these 5 Time Saving Pregnancy Hacks too! Hopefully, you can give these hacks a try and they will make your life a little bit easier.

But first the pregnancy update…

If you recall my post from last week, food and I had a very weird relationship going on. I was nauseous and sick pretty much all day long. This week, my body has decided that it doesn’t like most foods. I am having something called food aversions. I’m very familiar with these from my previous two pregnancies, so I’m not surprised at all. Although, I have always been able to eat pizza, including during pregnancy and yesterday my body said – “nope!”. I know now that I will have to eat more snack like foods and more often to make sure I’m eating enough.

Other than that, I haven’t had any new symptoms. I could swear I feel baby flutters in my stomach, but I know that’s highly unlikely at this point. We have an ultrasound on Wednesday, so pray that everything is as it should be!

Five – Trim Your Schedule

I get it. We all have a million things to do every day. Most of them are for our children or to keep our homes in order. However, during pregnancy out time is so precious. It’s a battle to do anything other than sit and take a nap in the first trimester. So, take a look at your schedule and cut back.

Here are a few things I cut back for example:

Extra curricular projects at work
Early morning meetings at work
Church 2x on Sunday reduced to 1x
Anything that involves me leaving the house after 6pm

Four – Invest in Laundry Baskets

Our laundry is already usually the most difficult chore to do in our home. With me being out of commission a lot of times, it just continues to pile up. So what do you do? At a bare minimum, wash all of the clothes. If you have a finished basement or a guest room, let them live there. Sort all of the clothes, by person, in all of your baskets.

This way as you work on them a little at a time, at least people can find their own clothes in their assigned basket in the meantime. This is not a long term solution, it’s not even a cleaning solution. But keeping the laundry out of sight and organized will at least make you feel better…even if you never get to it.

Three – Get Your Kids to Help

My kids are 4 and almost 2. At this point, when I ask them to help me clean up they basically just pick up a toy and start playing with it. Last week, I figured out how to get them to clean up the entire living room without my help. It was the most amazing feeling ever.

My girls love to help. So, I made a series of requests and games surrounding needing their help. The requests started with their favorite thing – ability to go in my room. Anything that could go in there was rushed in immediately and thrown on the floor. I expected that. They also love throwing things away, so the next request was to pick up any garbage. The hardest thing to get them to do was put away their toys. This took several attempts before I promised them. chance to make cupcakes with mommy when they finished. Overall grouping like tasks was the best strategy to ensuring the task of cleaning the whole room didn’t; overwhelm them.

It still took patience and effort on my part to direct my children from the couch, but I didn’t have to get up so I’m calling it a win.

Two – Outsource Anything You Can

This step will depend on your finances and technical savvy. I’m just going to briefly list a few things you can consider outsourcing to make your pregnancy a little easier.

Cleaning/House Keeping Services – even if it’s just 1x per week
Shopping – try Amazon, Instacart, ThredUp, or your favorite online retailers to avoid lugging the kids around for hours in the aisles
Cooking – I know that fast food isn’t the healthiest option for us or our little ones. If you can, start or join a freezer meal group at your church or with your friends. Find out if your family members may make a little extra food for your family once a week. If all else fails, don’t feel too guilty about eating out. First trimester exhaustion won’t last forever!

One – Remember That WE Don’t Have to Do it All!

Last week, I talked to you guys about mom guilt. It’s almost inevitable when settling into pregnancy, especially if it’s not your first time and you have other children to care for. It can cause us to worry about so many things we feel we should have managed or handled. It’s awesome to take ownership of our roles within our families, but friends let’s not forget where Jesus comes in!

He overcame the world and everything in it so that we wouldn’t have to. He has shown us that not even death will prevent us from God’s love or our eternal inheritance. Not only that, but we were given this beautiful and loving Holy Spirit inside of us and He is a reminder that through Jesus, we can do anything!

That means that if we are struggling with keeping the kitchen clean, toys off the floor, eating right, even connecting with God during this time of exhaustion – that Jesus can help us with that. Don’t forget that we weren’t created to keep perfectly clean homes or children who are well behaved all the time. We weren’t created to make Pinterest perfect meals or have Instagrammable eyebrows in every photo. We weren’t even created to save our children or our husbands. Jesus was meant to be their Savior and we should trust in that truth more than anything.

Think of all God has already done for you sister. Do you think that he would abandon you or allow the enemy to trample over you after blessing you with the amazing gift of new life?

These 5 Time Saving Pregnancy Hacks are great to keep in mind, but the power of prayer and the might of God will always do more than anything else ever could.