Are you feeling overwhelmed during pregnancy? This post shares 6 tips to relieve pregnancy stress and eliminate unnecessary overwhelm.

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During my first pregnancy, I totally felt overwhelmed by everything going on, and I was so afraid I wasn’t going to be ready for my baby.

So don’t go through what I went through! Here are some ways you can avoid feeling during pregnancy.

(And if you want a free resource to minimize pregnancy overwhelm, you can grab our free printable positive pregnancy journal worksheet here.)

1.) Get an early start on pregnancy tasks.

The earlier you can make preparations for your baby and pregnancy-related tasks, the less you will need to worry about later.

Some examples of tasks you can get an early start on:

*Writing your baby shower guest list

*Registering (although you may want to wait till you know your baby’s gender -if you’re finding out)

*Scheduling appointments– you don’t want to wait 2 days before you’re overdue for an ultrasound to call for an appointment.

*Taking advantage of reduced cost or free insurance as well as WIC if you qualify (don’t assume you won’t qualify- the income guidelines for programs for pregnant women, babies, and kids generally allow for higher incomes than government-based programs for adults in general.)

2.) Take naps when you need to.

Although your body is designed to be able to handle pregnancy and birth, it does take a lot out of you physically. Just doing things you normally did before you got pregnant may now exhaust you.

So when you’re tired and you have a chance to take a nap, DO IT! If you are super busy, try to find creative ways to work naps into your schedule.

3.) Pace yourself with everything.

You might be used to a nonstop ‘go, go, go.’

But if you keep that way of doing things during pregnancy, it’s going to be ‘go, go- out-of-breath’ or ‘go, go- need to sit.’

Life is busy. I get it.

But when you are pregnant, you need to pace yourself, especially during mid to later pregnancy when you may start to get worn out, and get literally out of breath (which you may find is different than the type of fatigue often experienced in the first trimester.)

Some ways you can pace yourself during pregnancy:

*Do housework and tasks sitting down when possible or take sitting breaks in between tasks (especially if you get tired walking around and standing up.)

*Think about what you need to accomplish before traveling to different floors or rooms in your home. I got to the point in my pregnancies where I really didn’t have energy to go upstairs twice in a row because I forgot something.

*Don’t research/read everything at once. I am all for encouraging expecting moms to research medical decisions. And who doesn’t love looking up the stages of your baby and how they’re developing?

But you don’t need to research every single stage of your baby in one sitting or read 5 pregnancy books a day.

That’s too much at once! You need to pace your brain, just like you need to pace yourself physically.

Instead, you can research in a logical order the medical decisions you need to make (like starting with what’s coming up in your current trimester or the next several weeks,) and pick out a reasonable amount of pregnancy reading material that matches what you really want to learn about.

This will help to you prevent you from getting overwhelmed during pregnancy.

4.) Write things down.

It’s a good idea to have a calendar/notebook/agenda or planner/electronic notepad that you use to keep track of things- appointments, questions to ask at your next visit, things you need to do, pregnant-related topics you want to research, etc.

You won’t always have time or energy to act on everything you remember or think of the very second it comes to mind. But you don’t want to forget either.

So write it down!

I personally use and love the Living Well Planner– it is a really nice physical planner, and it’s great if you like to time-block or schedule things by the hour. (You can get $5 off of this great planner with my referral link in the Living Well Shop here.)

5.) Make sure you don’t do everything by yourself.

Going it all alone is going to be overwhelming.

Pick out the areas of your pregnancy that seem overwhelming and find someone to help you or just be there with you.

Get your husband/dad-to-be involved when you need him.

If he can’t be there for everything that you feel you need support with, find someone else to take over in those areas.

Some specific times to have support:

*Going to prenatal/ultrasound appointments
*Going to birth classes
*Making baby shower preparations (depending on how much you need to do)
*Registering for baby items

…And whatever else you need someone there for.

6.) Eliminate or limit activities/tasks that waste your time.

You want to give yourself time to relax and not try to pack too much into each day.

This means cutting out stuff in your day that may be unnecessary (especially if it’s unnecessary and stressful,) -even things like spending too much time on social media, checking emails, etc.

So there you have it – 6 tips to avoid feeling overwhelmed during pregnancy. You’ll definitely have challenges while you’re expecting, but you don’t have to be overwhelmed by them!

Do you want more resources to overcome pregnancy overwhelm? Grab a copy of our positive pregnancy journal worksheet here (or fill in the form below.)