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Hey there friends. Welcome to the better postpartum podcast. I’m your host Angel Swan, crunchy mom, coffee addict and postpartum doula turned new mom, coach. This podcast is your audio guide to not just surviving but thriving during those early and newborn days. If you want to care for yourself, your household and your baby with confidence, grab your earbuds because this is the only podcast that you need. So what do you say? Should we get started with today’s episode? Let’s do this. Hey, friends, happy holidays. Thanks for tuning in today. Before we get started, I just wanted to read this really sweet review submitted by Bert girl KR, she says I binge these episodes and feels so much more informed on how to care for my newborn and myself. Who knew you could have multiple milk let downs while pumping? Mind blown and supply immediately increased? Thank you. Hey, girl, you are so welcome. That’s awesome. I love that you had a result by listening to my podcast and actually doing the things that I say to do. That is so cool. Ah, that makes me feel so good. Thank you. So if you have been loving this podcast, and you’re learning from it, too, could you please please go over to Apple podcasts and just hit this subscribe button. Leave me that five star rating. And if you really love me, you’ll leave me just a quick little love note a little written review. Like I love this podcast, everybody needs to listen or just something really short and sweet. These little love knows that you leave me really make my day I smile so big every time I see them. And it boosts the show so that other new moms can find the podcast and they can learn from it too. So thank you so much again to bird girl kr. Now, let’s get into today’s episode, which is easy keepsake ideas for your baby’s first Christmas. So this is going to be a really quick episode because I know we’re all busy. It’s Christmas weekend. I know I’m going to be busy. I’m going all over the place for Christmas. But I just wanted to put something together for you guys really quick. I want to put this out there because for keepsake ideas and for like making your baby’s first Christmas special, like if you like to search the internet for these ideas, especially Pinterest. I don’t know about you, but I find it to be incredibly overwhelming. And I do feel like a lot of people kind of go with these over the top things. And then like, maybe you can’t do the over the top things. So you feel like a bad mom. And I think people tend to really overcomplicate this. And let’s Can we just be honest, for a second, your baby is not going to remember their first Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate. If it’s not Christmas, they’re not going to remember the first one. So any of these, like special things that you’re doing, it’s not gonna be for them, it’s gonna be for you, right? It’s just so that you can have that happy memory. And yeah, like later on down the road, you can show them look at this happy memory, but they’re not really gonna have any memory of it, they’ll have a sweet picture of it, maybe and that’s really nice to have, but like, you don’t really need to go all out is what I’m trying to say. So, if you think to yourself, What can I do to make my baby’s first Christmas special for me memorable for me? Like, what would that be? What are you going to do? And if you know me, you know that I am a minimalist. I don’t like to do anything super extravagant. I much prefer to keep things really simple. And I think that for a lot of moms the pressure of doing something extra special for their baby’s first Christmas or first Halloween their first Thanksgiving, like whatever these holidays are that you’re celebrating. All of that pressure can make things really, really stressful instead of fun and actually, like memorable, creating happy memories. And that’s really not the spirit of the holiday season. So I just want to give you like a couple really easy, simple and sweet things that you can try to just make your baby’s first Christmas Special, without like breaking the bank or stressing you out. So the first thing that I’ve got here is if your baby’s still really teeny tiny, you can pop them in a stocking, please don’t hang them up. Oh my gosh, I saw someone put a baby in a stocking a newborn and then hung it up and took a photo please don’t hang them up in the stocking that just feels dangerous and reckless. But you can put them in a stocking lamb on like a fuzzy blanket and take a picture because oh my gosh, it’s so cute, right? That’s the best stocking stuffer ever.

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Or if your baby is a little bit bigger They’re not quite that newborn size anymore. You can put them in like a gift box, stick a bow on their head and take a quick picture. That would be absolutely adorable. And let’s be honest, babies that are just in their diapers are like extra cute like those little nakey babies and their diaper. Just put a naked baby in a stocking or a gift box and you’ve got a really cute picture. Or the next idea, which really, I think it’s my favorite for like keepsakes, something you can hold is to make a salt dough ornament of your baby’s handprint or your footprint. Now I actually like I did not think about this myself with with Jenny. But my mother in law was on top of it. So she surprised me with a salt door salt dough ornament of Jenny’s handprint. And they painted it to look like Santa Claus. So like her thumb came out and was like the long Santa’s hat. And then all of the fingers kind of made up his beard. It was so cute. And it really was like my favorite gift of the year of all the things I got because it’s a little handprints of my baby, it was so cute. And it’s still the the best ornament that’s on my tree by far. So there’s that the salt dough ornaments. So you can make your own salt dough, you don’t have to buy a kit, or you can buy a kit if you really want to. But that just I always like the DIY. So you usually have stuff at home that you can use. Okay, so then the next really simple thing that you can do is just take a family photo in front of your Christmas tree. Hello, just something that’s so it’s so easy, but I feel like sometimes we just have to be told these things because like, I would not have thought to do this. If someone hadn’t pointed it out to me when I was like, you know, a brand new mom, I just didn’t, you know, I didn’t think about that. But then you take your photo in front of the tree. And then the next year you take your photo in front of a tree. And it doesn’t even have to it doesn’t have to be the same tree doesn’t have to be the same place but you’re in front of a Christmas tree. And then every year you’ve got these pictures in front of a tree. And you get to look back on that and see how everyone has grown. It’s so sweet. I love looking back and seeing how teeny tiny Jenny was next to the big Christmas tree. I love it. Because my my mom has an artificial tree that’s literally 12 feet tall. I’m not exaggerating. So we take a picture by that tree. And it’s absolutely humongous. Can you imagine a little tiny baby next to a 12 foot tree, it’s awesome. And then my in laws always have like they go and cut down a Christmas tree at a tree farm. So their trees are usually nice and fat and fluffy. So these pictures are just they’re just always great. I love them. So if you can take a picture in front of a tree, I highly recommend it. But I will say I think overall, like if you’re tight on time, obviously this is Christmas Eve. So these ideas like it’s something you can do right now, it’s not something that needs a lot of forethought. That’s kind of why I’ve decided to pick these ones. But if you’re tight on time, or you have a low budget for stuff like this, the absolute best thing that you can do is just take a lot of pictures, take a lot of videos, I love the videos, they’re actually better than pictures for real. But take those pictures and videos of your baby enjoying Christmas. And make sure that someone gets behind the camera and takes pictures of you with your baby. Because this happens all the time where we as moms, we are never impactors, because we’re always the ones behind the camera. We’re always like, Oh my gosh, that’s a sweet moment. Let me take a picture. And then like other people don’t do that. They don’t do that for you. So this year, I just want to challenge you to make it a priority. To get someone else to snap photos of you with your little one. You just make it someone else’s job to do that. Because you’re not going to be able to get these kinds of pictures in a year, you know, they’re going to grow. So, those are my ideas for your super simple but like special keepsake ideas for your baby’s first Christmas. Again,

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keep it super, super simple. If you want to do like a crafty thing, I would just stick to do to doing like one or two so that you don’t get overwhelmed. But really, the photos and videos are always my favorite things that come out of the holiday season. We just get some really, really special gems. Really great. And then before I hop off of here today, I want to invite you to join my brand new program. It’s called back to you. So if you are feeling burnt out as a mom, my back to you blueprint is a step by step system that will teach you how to get 30 minutes of me time, every single day. So you can feel like yourself again. So we do this by building up your support system, even if you don’t already have one built in, we get your baby or your toddler on a predictable routine, then we’re going to simplify your daily tasks. And then we put it all together to create your weekly plan, where you will actually be able to block off that 30 minutes of me time in your planner every single day. So you’re gonna follow your plan, and get that me time because you are the priority here, right? We got to take care of you before we take care of other people. And don’t worry, don’t worry, you will not be doing this alone. So you will have access to this self paced course, you’ll have access to our members only Facebook community where you can ask questions anytime. And you’ll get weekly q&a calls with me where you can get instant, like one on one support and feedback directly from me. And if you can’t attend the calls, obviously, you can submit your questions ahead of time and I’ll still address them. This is something that I have been teaching my one on one coaching clients for over two years. And I have taken all of that coaching and I have put it into an affordable self paced program for you. So that what I’m that what I’ve been teaching, right, it’s accessible to everyone now. It is an incredible life changing program. And from now through January 1, it’s over 50% off, five 0% off. And I only have 10 spots available for this round of back to you. And a few of those have already been claimed. So if you want to join back to you, if you want to stop running on empty, you want to ensure that you get 30 minutes of me time every single day, so that you can feel like yourself again. Just come and join me seriously. Go to Angel swan.com/back to you. That’s a NGLSW o n.com/b a C KTOYO YOU to join. And I’ll also put the link in the episode description. I can’t wait to see you inside the program. It’s gonna be awesome. Again, we’re starting on January 1. So the time is ticking you got to join now the price is going up January 1. So it joined now, why not right? Okay, friends. As always, don’t forget you can hang out with me on Instagram at Angel dot Swan, you can grab my free postpartum planner on my website, Angel Swan calm. And of course, don’t forget to go on Apple podcasts and rate review and subscribe. When you do that you are showing support for the show. It’s really it’s the best way to support the show. And it really, really, really helps. So please go and do that if you haven’t already. Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you soon. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the better postpartum podcast. Here’s what I want you to do next. If you loved what you heard today, would you do me a giant favor and leave me a written five star review? Those little love notes that you leave are the perfect way to thank me for putting out these episodes just for you. Seriously, it would mean the world to me. Next, take a screenshot of the episode you’re listening to right now and share it on your Instagram stories and make sure you tag me at Angel dot swan. That’s SW o n so that more moms can find this podcast and hopefully get the advice and encouragement they need to truly thrive with their babies. And don’t forget to come back every single week for more nuggets of wisdom and truth bombs about the early motherhood journey. I’ll talk to you next time. Bye bye