9 Effective Ways To Boost Self-Esteem For Moms | Motherhood Wellness Blog

Motherhood is a wonderful joy that can build self-esteem in a variety of ways, but it can also decrease self-esteem sometimes too. 

In this article, I give my top tips on how you can boost your self-esteem as a busy mom!

Low Self-Esteem After Baby

You might feel the need and desire to build self-esteem after having your baby to cope with the variety of physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual changes that you have gone through during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum—which is totally normal. 

To assess your needs and get some clarity on where your focus needs to be, journaling is a great place to start.

You might feel that your self-esteem is particularly affected just after having a baby because you have gone through quite a few different physical, mental, and emotional changes in a really short period of time. 

Having a baby brings a lot of change that spans your entire life and affects your sense of normal. In a sense, you have to get used to your new normal, but it can be overwhelming because your ‘new normal’ is constantly shifting and changing quite rapidly as your baby grows. 

Each mother has a unique experience when it comes to the changes that she may experience when welcoming her child into the world. For example, you may have been a working woman and decided to give up your career either temporarily, or permanently to bring your baby into the world. 

Or perhaps you were previously extremely independent, and have brought a child into the world as a single mother. You may now find yourself having to navigate a world in which you may need support that you didn’t previously need. 

Or perhaps you previously enjoyed an extremely athletic life, and are now finding that your body has changed and you can no longer afford to go to the gym for an hour or two every day. Or maybe you feel the need to build self-esteem and confidence around your new-found responsibility of raising a child who relies on you for their every need.

If you’re struggling to maintain your self-esteem after having a baby, just remember that many women go through the same experience and that you can rebuild your self-esteem and confidence with dedication, persistence, and consistency.

Postpartum Self Image

You may struggle to get used to your changing body after having a baby, and you can rest assured that you’re not alone—this is a really common issue that many women have after having a baby.

Many women put on extra weight during pregnancy which is normal as your body supports your baby’s growth inside the womb. But this extra weight means that many moms have to find a deeper sense of self-love for their changing bodies. You may, or may not, find that weight easy to shift after pregnancy. Many women also notice that their metabolism changes after pregnancy, meaning that they have to care for their fitness and diet differently than prior to motherhood.

But self-image doesn’t just relate to the way you look, it can also be about your self-perception and identity. Perhaps you were used to being quite independent, carefree, and spontaneous prior to having a baby. And struggle with having to be slightly more organized and planned to cater to your child’s needs.

There are a variety of different ways in which your self-image shifts as you become a mom, and you might be surprised at what feels natural and which parts you have to get used to.

How Do I Build My Self-Esteem After Having A Baby?

Here are some of my top tips to help you build your self-esteem and confidence as a mom after having a baby. These tips are designed to help you feel confident after having a baby, but also to help support you in the monumental shifts that happen during different stages of motherhood.

1. Social Media Detox

Having a social media detox is always on my list for self-care for mothers because if you’re feeling sensitive, or your mental health is suffering and you’re getting to grips with changing aspects of your personal identity, then social media can be a slippery slope.

There are a lot of beautiful things about social media and it can be really handy, but not all of the time. If you’re struggling with your own self-esteem then you want to avoid comparison. Social media tends to be filled with curated highlight reels that aren’t a true depiction of reality. And whilst you might usually be able to cope with this input and filter between reality and fiction, if you’re feeling low—there’s a high chance that social media is going to make you feel a whole lot worse.

If you can come off of social media for a sustained amount of time whilst you restore and recalibrate that is most beneficial, but if not perhaps do a capped amount of screen time per day or weekends off of social media.  

A clinical journal by Cureus notes that social media can aggravate mental health problems and can also have a detrimental effect on the psychological health of users.¹ It was also noted to have links to anxiety and depression.

2. Journaling

Journaling is one of my favorite top tips for moms when it comes to getting their bearings. With the right journaling prompts and questions you can find out so much about where issues lay, and also how it is best to proceed and find resolutions. 

During a journaling session, you can get racing or recurring thoughts out of your head and onto paper, which in itself can help you to sort through thoughts and find resolutions. But using some good journaling prompts which take you through certain steps of identifying problems to finding resolutions is a massive help.

In your journaling sessions, you can focus on identifying which parts of your self-esteem, self-confidence, and identity you are struggling with, and can then proceed to think about self-empowering resolutions that might help to rebuild your self-esteem.