New Mom Mondays – Meet Pragati

NEW MOM MONDAYS CHASING LITTLES
This post is part of the New Mom Monday series! A series about moms and their advice to new moms! Books and videos can only teach us so much, but there’s something special about hearing from real life moms. Honest, true, and always beautifully inspiring!!
♥ What’s your Name?

Pragati Siddhanti

♥ Tell us a little about yourself!
I am Pragati—am the co-founder and partner at Be For Beauty. Earlier in 2016, I relocated to the picturesque city of Basel, Switzerland with my 6-year-old daughter and a workaholic husband. After giving up my 6 figure salary and role as an IT manager in India, I decided it was time to take a leap of faith and dedicate this time to grow and hone both our babies, Niyati and Be For Beauty.
♥ How many kids do you have? What are their names and ages?
I have one daughter who is 6 years old. Her name is Niyati
♥ How do you find your “me time”?
While this is something I really struggle with especially after I moved from India to Switzerland but I still manage to squeeze in a lot of “me” time as I always plan my days, weeks and months in advance. I use a calendar to track all my appointments, I make sure I have laundry days marked and I have all the different bags (gym, ballet, school etc.) ready and packed in advance. I seriously plan my meals along with my outings. Even if it’s an hour in the gym, my “me-time” is extremely important to me, and frankly, that’s what keeps me sane.
♥ What is the best baby related book you’ve ever read?
I have read a lot of story books to my child even when she hadn’t started speaking, however, I am not a big fan of parenting books. I do read up blogs, and advice by fellow mamma’s through a number of FB groups I subscribe to.
♥ What’s the most useful baby product you have? Why do you love it?

When she was a little baby, I swore by the bottle steriliser that I had bought from mother care and the swaddle that I used to carry her in while putting her to sleep. It really worked like a charm for us. But now, nothing really, I would really like alternates to netflix and the tablet.

♥ If you could say something to yourself when you first brought home your first baby, what would you say?
I was really unprepared when I brought her home from the hospital. If I could say something to myself, I would say, “Wish you’d have read up more about how to raise a baby vs how your pregnancy is going to be.” In other words, I would have really loved if I had been more prepared for this sea change that happened to me. I was overwhelmed and I went through serious postpartum depression.
♥ How much planning did you do before your baby was born, and how do you think that it helped or didn’t help?
Like I said in my previous answer, I wasn’t prepared and that hurt me quite a bit. I had to rush to the baby stores time and again as the things I had were never enough and I had a very reactive approach to a new born child. I would have loved being more confident and proactive with her. This is when I had learned the importance of planning ahead. (Not at my corporate job, after all this was the most important project I was ever going to manage ;))
♥ What do you believe are the top three pieces of advice a new mom or someone trying to conceive should know?
1. Plan a child, be ready – emotionally, mentally and physically. It’s not easy dealing with unplanned and accidental pregnancies.
2. Whether you go to those fancy birthing classes or not, make sure you have a lactation specialist by your side. That is more important. Giving birth is an organic and natural process, a woman is sub-consciously trained to do a good job at it – I didn’t practice any of the breathing techniques I learned and I sincerely believe that these classes are over rated.
3. Be prepared to welcome a new member in the house – nothing is ever going to be the same. You will never have the luxury of time so use those 9 months of pregnancy very wisely.
♥ What is your best memory so far of being a mom?

I really say this from my heart, every day with a child in your life is a blessing. Every year gets more fascinating than the one that went by. I don’t know how to pick one, every time she tells me that I am the best mom in the whole wide world, I am overjoyed. Not cuz of the oscar that she keeps giving me, cuz I know that all mothers are the best mothers but that she appreciates all the little things that I do and that she reciprocates the love.

♥ Give us the short form version of your birth story.
Giving birth to Niyati has and will be one of the toughest things I have ever done in my life. I still feel that I almost died but then I came back to life because I was a mother and the journey called life was just about to begin. I was past my due date so I was induced, I was obviously anxious as I was late and I was trying all home remedies to go into labour – however nothing was working. The contractions started but the dilation didn’t – hence I was in labour for a good 28 hours. The pain became excruciating during the last hours, the epidural didn’t work as it was put in quite late and I pushed for really long before she arrived. My husband and my sister were right by my side, I really had no love for anyone at this point as I was delirious with pain by the end of it. But when I saw her, she completely took my breath away, I was still being sewed down there when they wrapped her up and got her to me. She was perfect and an absolute miracle!
♥ Lastly, for fun, define motherhood!

Motherhood is not for everyone, motherhood is extremely exhausting and rewarding at the same time. Like a wise woman once said, “Having a child is like having a tattoo on your forehead”.

To hear more from Pragati be sure to visit her blog Be For Beauty and follow her on Instagram.

If you would like to participate in New Mom Mondays please feel free to message me by using my contact form! I would love to not only feature you on my blog but learn from your answers, as I’m sure many readers would too! 
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