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you have to feed your baby every 2-3 hours, and it can take an hour to feed, burp, and change them. if they're fussy, you'll be holding them a lot. by the time you're done with all that, it's time to start the cycle all over again.

when they're napping, you'll be so tired from not getting long stretches of sleep that you'll want to nap too.

Well, I had several times where I couldn't shower because everyone left and it was Wombat, husband, and me. He went to school and I didn't have anyone to watch Wombat. When I needed to take a shower, I ended up bringing her into the bathroom, laying blanket on the floor, and showering. Once she can walk, that'll make it a lot harder. And if I had 2 or more, I don't think I'd ever get a shower.

Despite the fact that I totally found this to be true, I don't have a great answer. And I had the exact same question before I had DS. (I was like "seriously? don't babies sleep all the time? I will have so much time during maternity leave! I should, like, learn Spanish. Or knit a sweater.")

For me, a big issue was nursing. Newborns are supposed to eat about every two hours. That's two hours from the time you START nursing. And here's the deal- you can spent 30-45 minutes nursing every time. So let's look at a given day, starting at 8 AM. Baby wakes up, wants to eat. You nurse till 8:45, then you do a diaper change, maybe an outfit change, get a drink of water, and now it's 9 AM. You'd like to put the baby down, but baby is fussy, so maybe you try the swing, or the bouncer, or rocking, and let's say you finally manage to put baby down after 20 minutes. Now it's 9:20, and you have 40 minutes left before you're supposed to start feeding again. You could shower, but maybe you'd like to sleep, since, you know, you're exhausted, and you only sleep in 40 minute increments like 5 times a day. Maybe you're hungry (scratch that- you're nursing, so you're totally hungry), so you throw together some food. Maybe you take the trash (which piles up quick with those dirty diapers) out, or you do some laundry (also piles up quick), or check your email. Maybe you go to the bathroom (which also takes longer for those first couple weeks post-baby). Maybe the baby screams every time you try to put him/her down, and you say "screw it, I will just sit here on the couch holding the baby because at least now s/he is quiet, and I will wait here in relative peace doing nothing until s/he wakes up again."

I guess my point is that, if you are lucky and can put the baby down, you might get like 12 separate blocks of about 40 minutes each in which to do things other than directly address the baby's needs. And if you spend 8 of them trying to sleep, that only leaves four (or 160 minutes total) blocks of your day when you can eat, pee, put your contacts in, get dressed, feed the dog, do the laundry, read the mail, call your mother, etc. Oh, and if you want to pump to help build up your milk supply, that can take up as much time as you want, but I probably did about 30 minutes/day during those initial weeks. And this is all assuming you never have to leave the house.

Re: showering in particular, I think the other issue is that if you finally get Junior to sleep downstairs in his swing, if you are a paranoid new mother like I was who assumed that CPS would come take my kid away if I let him cry for more than the time it took for me to spring 15 yards to pick him up, you may be loathe to leave him there by himself while you're inaccessible in the shower.

I feel like for my next baby, I'm just gonna wipe myself down too every time I change a diaper and hope that gets most of the grime off

lozza explains it better. you do have short stretches of time, but there's always something to do whether it's napping, eating, cleaning, cooking, blogging, etc. showering then falls lower down the priority list.

I was TOTALLY the type of person to scoff and say, "Psh, how can you NOT have time to shower?". Then I had a baby. I was LUCKY if I could get a shower every 2 days.

Now, with LO being 3 months old, I get my daily shower now but not when I want to (I love morning showers). I take my shower betweene 7-10pm when baby has been fed and hubs is putting her to bed. I often go to bed with wet hair and it sucks. But, it's a shower and I'm not going to complain!

It really depends on the day. Somedays, yes. She's not napping and she's fussy and she's grazing and eating all day long. So no, I don't have time to do anything. I'm lucky if I get to eat something myself. And then by the end of the day when my hubby is home, I don't want to shower. I want to sleep!

But on good days she'll go to bed around 7:30, hubby and I will watch some tv, and I'll shower after that. When she was younger (she's 3 1/2 months now) my mom would come over a lot and watch her for me so I could shower. But often I'd opt to do something else instead. Like sleep. Showering just never was my priority. Because I'd rather sleep.

I still don't understand how people can't carve out enough time to shower, dry their hair and put on clean clothes and I have a 2 month old. There is more than enough time, you just have to make it a priority. Have I put him in his bouncer on the floor of the bathroom and he's woken up while I'm all wet and started crying? You betcha. But you know what? I got done, he got fed and we're all happy at the end of the day.

I think it depends on the day. Some days can be really bad so you'll be too tired when you do get a chance to shower. I think most people would choose just to go to sleep rather than shower. You may just have to sneak it in whenever you have a spare moment so the time of day you shower can change daily vs. pre-kids when most people take showers at a consistent time of day. Having said all that, showering is important to me so I always chose to shower!

Reading @Lozza's description reminded me of my first month as a mom - so true. Since I rarely left the house, showering fell pretty low on my priorities, especially since i had limited mobility and needed my husband's help to get in the shower.

I would say the first month I missed a couple of showers. My daughter had a rough first couple of weeks and I was exhausted, healing, and sleep deprived. Most of the time during the day when she slept she slept for small intervals at a time and most of it was on my chest. When she would sleep in her crib , I would usually pump, try to throw dishes in the dishwasher or clothes in the laundry, use the restroom ( which when you just had a baby, this takes much longer than normal )or take a nap myself. Husband was working 60-70 hours a week, helped when he could, but was also exhausted so I didn't get much relief.

I was one of those people who didn't understand how people didn't have time to shower, and now that my daughter is 10 weeks, I'm still one of those people. I guess it really just depends on the baby and the Mom's priorities, but I have time for a shower every day. I generally try and get it done after her morning nursing time before we head downstairs for the day.

I was one who laughed too. Then I had baby Bear. I learned REAL quick. You have SO much to do and showering seems to be last when you could do laundry or clean up a room.

I also used to laugh at moms who were SO busy.

Hmph. Never say never I learned again.LOL

I always found time for a shower. It made me feel better to clean myself up. I would bring DS and put him in a bouncy chair in the bathroom while I showered. Then I could keep an eye on him, and if he started to fuss or cry, I could talk to him, look at him, etc, while I hurried up. when he got a little bit bigger, he showered with me, which he loved and so did I.

Showering I can do ... most days. But drying my hair has become the luxury to end all luxuries, ha!

But yes, it just depends on your priorities. I work from home, so if LO is napping, that comes before personal hygiene, unfortunately. And sometimes there are rotting dishes in the sink. Or maybe I want to eat (crazy, I know!)