My Plans For Maternity Leave

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Baby Mazen feet!

When Mazen was born I never took much of a break from blogging. I went from three posts a day to one and since I was writing mostly about life as a new mom, my content was easily generated and recapped. I was also writing both KERF and BERF along with a few ongoing freelance gigs. I’m glad I just have one blog to focus on this time! (Plus sharing on Instagram, obvi). While I don’t remember feeling too overwhelmed with my work time after Mazen was born, I do remember being so tired at the end of the day and feeling obligated to update the blog each evening. After a few months of that I switched over to mostly topic-based posts so that I could batch write during nap times and not have to work in the evenings so much. I wrote this post about work-life balance when Mazen was nearing a year old, and it’s interesting for me to go back and re-read now. (I also stole the same pics for this post!)

So what’s the plan when baby #2 comes?

From when the baby arrives to New Year’s Day, I’m planning to go into low-power mode. I recently started listening to Gretchen Rubin’s Happier podcast, and I enjoyed this episode describing low-power mode as a computer functioning on the bare minimum of resources. I don’t intend to disappear entirely for 10-ish weeks. I’m just going to publish posts maybe once or twice a week about what’s going on in our lives with a few sponsored and topical posts scattered in. I want there to be zero pressure on myself to sit down to my computer if I’m feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, etc. But I also know that over the course of a week I should have enough time to check in with you guys at least once with some pictures and updates.

What I don’t intend to do is pre-write 10 weeks worth of posts and/or have 10 weeks worth of guest posts. I don’t think that’s worth the effort. I think quality over quantity is my goal. The fear of any blogger taking a hiatus is that readers, income, and momentum will all disappear forever in a matter of days. While I am a little worried about that, I am fairly confident that most of you won’t forget about me 🙂

VIDEOS

I really want to spend as much time with both of my children as possible. I remember from last time: the first six weeks are simply about survival! I do want to share a birth announcement and birth story as soon as I can. The blog might be quite baby heavy in the early days, but since it’s always been about my life, I’m sure that will come as no surprise.

I also am very grateful that we’re a two-income household and if my contribution shrinks for a while, we’ll be totally fine. I also ask for your grace that if my ratio of personal to sponsored posts seems a bit jarring that it’s for the livelihood of our family and not because I am lazy or shilling myself out. I always try to infuse as much personality into my sponsored posts as I can. I have a few posts already in the queue that I’ve worked on this summer and am really excited to share but they had to wait for the correct timeline!

I think the timing of a late October to New Year’s break works well since most blogs see a big traffic dip over the holidays anyways, and then come New Years, I’ll be about (hopefully) 2.5 months postpartum and (hopefully) feeling ready to get back into a healthy routine. I’ll be right in step with the New Years resolution crew! I really have no idea if by New Year’s I’ll be ready to get back into five posts a week, but that’s my hope and plan for now.

And long term?

I know from the past that I’ll get back into it when Baby B is taking longer naps, in preschool, and eventually in elementary school. I know I’ll get back to traveling and will eventually have the time to produce longer-form posts again, but I also know that it’s the family and real life posts that you guys love the most!

When Mazen was younger and taking super long afternoon naps, I was able to use the afternoon hours to work. But with two kids on different schedules, I might have to hire childcare a little more than I did with Mazen. I have always tried to use the least amount of paid help possible, which has been a good cost savings, buts at times has meant a distracted mom or higher stress. I’m not sure what my plan will be, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

As I’m sure all of you would agree, family is the most important thing. They are only babies once! I hope to update the blog when I go into labor like I did last time instead of just disappearing, but if he comes fast, that might be the case. So if the blog goes dark sometime in the next 5ish weeks, check Instagram!

xoxo



from Kath Eats Real Food https://ift.tt/2N8QZGv

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