Pregnancy tips: The moment you know you’re pregnant, it seems that your social media feed does too. Unfortunately, being bombarded with information about how to be the BEST parent, or what to DEFINITELY NOT DO EVER continues through pregnancy and beyond. This is made more complicated by the fact that opinions and best practices vary, leaving soon-to-be and actual parents overwhelmed, confused, and bogged down with content that all feels essential to this life-transforming new life chapter.
How do we make sense of it all? How do we sift through the noise to find what we actually need? How do we know who we can actually trust for pregnancy and parenting tips? Will this actually make us feel more or less overwhelmed? Shouldn’t we be reading a book instead of watching reels?
These are some of the many questions I asked myself over the last year as my own social media feed quickly deduced that my partner and I had become expecting parents. After a lot of screen grabbing, video saving, following, unfollowing and some real life trial and error, here’s how I learned to navigate the social media experience as a parent.
Step 1: Find Your Village
Parenthood is not something to navigate alone. There’s a reason why when people refer to raising children they say, “It takes a village.” As an expecting or new parent, it is important to find 3-5 trusted individuals you can turn to for help. This may be a parent, a sibling or other family member, a friend, a neighbor or coworker.
Select your village thoughtfully. Did you trust these individuals to help you previously? Do you consider them wise, kind or savvy? Will they treat you with care at your most vulnerable?
I personally rely on my village quite a lot. They have listened to recordings of my baby coughing in the middle of the night to soothe my anxious heart, given honest postpartum advice that’s not sugar coated, and have helped me celebrate the small victories, like getting out of the house for the first time, just for one single hour, during those early days.
Your village should give you strength, confidence, comfort and transparency. They should care for your child and you. They also should acknowledge that what works for one baby does not necessarily work for others. The nature of a village is to provide help and support, not shame and isolation.
Step 2: Seek Help IRL
If your village consists of people who live in your same general area, lean on them to help you find experts to guide you in real life based on their own experiences. I strongly suggest using your village to guide you to a trusted pediatrician, lactation consultant if needed, and mental health counselor. Pediatricians can also provide suggestions for specialists in other areas of need for you, your partner, or your baby.
You cannot do it alone. If you are insured, many of these services are covered by insurance. I will never forget crying through the majority of my first lactation consultant appointment because it was the first time I’d allowed myself to pursue help outside of the hospital or my home after birth, and I was finally talking to someone who saw my overwhelm, saw the person beneath the role of mother, and just understood what it was like to be in my shoes. The tears were a relief. A release. It was incredibly powerful.
Step 3: Consume With Care
My first two steps of navigating social media have nothing to do with social media. That was intentional. While social media is an incredible resource that connects people around the globe, it can also be a place that leads to self critique and analysis paralysis. Consuming with care involves limiting how much you consume, and ensuring you don’t do more harm than good for your parenting practices and mental health.
Consuming with care also involves limiting the number of accounts you follow. Are the accounts run by actual specialists? Is their advice research based? What’s the overall theme and message of their content? If you find that you’ve followed upwards of 20 accounts related to pregnancy, parenting, postpartum, etc., go ahead and unfollow 90% of the accounts that have targeted you, and stick to 2-3 per topic.
Know what you’re looking for with confidence. Are you seeking humor? Advice? Community? Worst case scenarios? It’s easy to find yourself in the middle of a very loud virtual town square if you’re not following accounts with intention and a sense of purpose and direction.
As you consume, try your best to take in information without judging yourself for not knowing or doing what the content creator is suggesting that you do. Explore with curiosity and try new things in bite sized pieces that feel doable to you based on where you’re at mentally and emotionally in this moment. Remind yourself that you only have so much mental load capacity. Being a parent is a 24/7 job, and you deserve credit for showing up for your child every day.
Lastly, not everyone is in a place to have an in person village due to location or circumstance. If you are seeking community, you may find it online. Some people love the anonymity of subreddit. Others love the opposite feel of a Facebook group, with the potential for connection beyond the group. There are subreddits and Facebook groups for a variety of niches including but not limited to breastfeeding, IVF, donor conception, parent groups local to you, and more. These communities help to remind us that we are not alone.
Step 4: Reflect and Reevaluate
Here are some pregnancy tips. Every few months, it’s helpful to reflect on who you’ve followed and reevaluate. After being exposed to a larger amount of content, ask yourself, what is this content producer’s goal? Are they trying to sell me something? Is this click bait? What might have seemed helpful initially may not be worth your time or attention upon further review.
Also, as we grow as a parent alongside our baby, we begin to make choices in areas where we might have previously been uncertain. Did you decide baby led weaning won’t work for you? Unfollow! Does cosleeping freak you out? Unfollow! Is tummy time giving your baby trouble? Seek out and find targeted support.
Lastly, it is important to remember that many content creators are profiting off of their content, and may even be funding their entire lifestyle through their content. These creators want to make it look easy! Is a parent taking too much credit for a baby who magically sleeps 10 hours? Is it making you feel like garbage to see moms “nailing” a 7pm bedtime or a 2 hour “easy nap?” Unfollow them!
Above all, treat yourself with care and compassion. You are more than your highlight reels; you are stronger than your weakest moments. People have been raising babies since the dawn of time, long before social media, and you can too.