Mama: The (Unintentionally) New and Improved You

We’re never going to tell you that having a baby is all sunshine and rainbows. There is, however, one major perk: This Mom Life that you’ve been living lately is slowly but surely turning you into a better human being. A more tired human being, but a better one nonetheless. Here’s how:

You Wake Up Hella Early

For most of our lives, we hit snooze repeatedly on our alarm clocks every morning. That changed the day we got human alarm clocks that didn’t come with snooze buttons and went off at the crack of dawn. At first, we hated it. Over time, however, we came to discover that morning (you know, all those hours before noon?) is a sacred time of day. It’s quiet, it’s calm, and the lighting is fabulous. There’s no better time to reflect on yesterday and set the tone for today. Another bonus of waking up early: By 10:00 p.m., you can’t keep your damn eyes open, so you actually go to sleep.

Breastfeeding Forces You to Be Healthy AF

Since we knew that whatever we put into our bodies was going to end up in our baby’s milk, we suddenly became super health-conscious. We try to consume produce at every meal, we get our omegas, healthy fats, and fibre in as frequently as possible, and we’re generally aware of what’s going down the old hatch. We also consume less alcohol and drink a lot more water, which alone has made us look and feel healthier. There’s also the added bonus of breastfeeding burning approximately 500 calories a day. Hello, skinny jeans.

You Walk All Around the GD Town

When you have a baby, you’ll walk. A lot. When we had newborns, we walked out of boredom, and because we needed to get out of the house so we wouldn’t go stir crazy. As a result, we started to accidentally get at least an hour of cardio in every day just trying to kill time. The thing about cardio is that it becomes addictive after a while. To this day, we both crave the rhythm of a good walk and often jump at any opportunity to take a pavement break.

You Finally Whittle Down Your Inner Circle

When you have a kid, making social plans is such a bitch that it very quickly makes you realize who really matters to you. The amount of energy it takes to arrange for a babysitter, pump breast milk, organize all the baby’s stuff, and get ourselves ready and out the door made us extremely picky about who we made the effort to spend time with. The only people left on your guest list will be the ones you genuinely love.

You Clean Your House Like a Boss

Having kids has made us lean, mean, super-efficient cleaning machines. You know how you used to get home from work sometimes, with only a thirty-minute window to clean your house before your friend came over, and you were always shocked at how fast you could be when you had a firm cleaning deadline? Welcome to Mom Life. Except instead of a social engagement providing the timeline, it’s the dreaded end of nap-time.

You’re a Multitasking Hero

Multitasking: If you were good at it before, now you’re a bloody expert. Not only did motherhood show us that we’re able to accomplish a million things simultaneously, but it also taught us that anything we thought required the use of both hands can actually be done with one.

You Become an All-Around Better Person

First, there’s empathy: Having babies made us understand that parenting is hard AF. We now realize that everyone is trying their best, and everyone deserves love and compassion—both other parents and other children.

We’ve also become less selfish: Whatever it takes to make baby feel safe, secure, loved, and happy, we do it, no matter what. Finally, babies are incredibly humbling. Our kids forced us to face the fact that we often don’t know what the hell we’re doing, but for the first time in our lives, we know without a doubt that we’re doing our best, because we’re doing it for them.