How to Garden with a New Baby in the House

Gardening with a new baby begins with giving yourself grace. And using strategies to keep your kids safe and your sanity intact.

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I was surprised the other day when a friend with a new baby messaged me to ask how in the world she, as mom of a new baby (that isn’t supposed to use sunscreen or bug spray before they are 6 months old), could ever get anything done her garden? She hated the total chaos growing outside her window and was not sure what to do.

I was surprised because…

1. She seemed to think I had gardening with young kiddos figured out.

and

2. She hasn’t seen my garden lately.

I will preface what I say here with what I told my friend: it’s so much easier for me to tell someone else to do this than to do it myself, but–

You have to give yourself grace. And then give yourself grace again.

You can only do what you can out in the garden when you have a new baby. It may not be much.

I’ve loved gardening for as long as I can remember. It’s not a chore for me. It’s part of my Zen, part of what makes all things right with my world.  It was devastating to me as a new parent when it hit me that I no longer had hours of time at my disposal to spend doing the things I loved, the things that fed my soul. For me gardening is one of those things. It’s also one of those things that if you don’t do it, eventually the neighbors are annoyed.

The year my son was born, I couldn’t do any of the spring cleanup in the garden. I couldn’t see past my big belly! I tried to tell my husband as best as I could what to do. Up until that point we each had our “own” garden spaces in the yard. I absolutely hated giving up control of my part. That was my first realization that big changes were ahead and it weighed heavy on my heart.

After my son was born, I had high hopes of “gardening as usual”. I had visions of a peacefully napping newborn and me getting all Zen working in the garden. It didn’t take long for that idea to fall crashing to the ground. My son would pretty much only nap while in my arms. If I did get him to sleep away from me, it might last 5 minutes, or 45. I never knew. I didn’t think I’d ever see my garden again. Combined with the post-partum hormone roller coaster ride, I was a mess.

Plus I had the same dilemma as my friend today: babies shouldn’t use sunscreen or bug spray before they are six months old. I could find some shade but then the bugs seemed worse in the shade.

I had a number of ideas during these weeks. I bought a lightweight wrap for carrying my son and tried to plant the vegetable garden. What a nightmare.  Turns out its really difficult to crouch down and plant anything with a baby tied to your chest. And they don’t like it one bit either.

This lasted for five minutes, tops.

I sat my son in a swing and rigged up some shade with a blanket across the top. That lasted about five minutes before he was upset. And I couldn’t just keep working with him screaming his head off. For one, as a breastfeeding mom, hearing your baby cry makes your body want to feed your baby. Now. Maybe I’m just not tough enough, but breastfeeding or not I can’t stand hearing my baby cry like that, when all they want is mom.

I thought about using the stroller but he was too little for the regular seat and would need to sit in the carseat on top. The whole setup just seemed way too hot, even in the shade.

My husband didn’t seem to really get it. At one point he said something about ordering mulch and how I could spread it during the day since I was “just home with the baby”. Since then he has argued that he only said that as a joke. If he did, I didn’t hear it as a joke at the time. I just heard that I should be doing more. My garden kept growing and so did my frustration and anxiety.

So what did we do with our garden that first summer as parents?

We barely kept our heads above water.

My husband did most of the gardening, and I was inside with our son. I despised the gender specific roles of mom working inside and dad working outside that were creeping up on us.

Out of pure necessity and desire to avoid annoying the neighbors we hired someone to mow our yard that first year. My husband works long hours during the week and it takes at least 3 hours for him to mow and trim our whole yard. He wanted to spend that time with me and the baby not behind a lawnmower. I hoped that the weeds in the flower beds would not look quite as bad if at least the lawn was mowed.

I’m not sure why we continually put up the kiddie corral. We never got our son to use it. My friend’s daughter was staying with us for a few days in this picture and she loved playing with him. I gardened a lot in those few days!

I also naively thought that the following year would be much better for gardening. After all, our son could be slathered in sunscreen and bug spray so that would solve all our issues right? The only problem was the following year he could WALK. And walk everywhere he did. There was no way he would stay still in one place long enough for me to really work on anything. We even bought one of those portable fenced in circle “kiddie corrals” but he just drug it with him.

Our daughter entered the world in May 2016 and we were a little more realistic this second time around. As a bonus she was much better at napping than her brother, so I did get to do a little more in the garden. I picked a couple of projects to tackle in the garden– the vegetable garden and two containers of annuals by our garage. The rest of it got the bare minimum of care to keep the weeds from going to seed.

Unlike her big brother, baby girl enjoyed siestas in the shade.

The truth is a lot of my garden has suffered from me not doing everything when it needs to be done. But I’m realizing that’s okay. I’m reassessing and finding out I really don’t want a garden that needs constant fussing over.

Don’t get me wrong– I want to work with the plants and have that satisfaction, I just need to simplify. I’m learning how to enjoy the space. Before we had kids we built a garden with a bench but never stopped working long enough to sit on the bench. I finally sat on the bench when my son was a baby.

• Let someone else do it. We continue to have someone else mow our yard. I realize this may not work for everyone’s budget, and maybe you find your Zen behind a mower. We didn’t think we could afford it and were pleasantly surprised (jumping for joy actually) when we realized it would fit our budget.
• Be a team. If you and your partner both enjoy gardening, tag team your time in the garden while the other keeps an eye on the kids. Make this an actual discussion with times attached. Don’t just disappear into the backyard while the other person isn’t looking.
  

  A kid-size wheelbarrow is tons of fun.

• Use babysitters. Since you will be home, this is a great job for a child in your neighborhood that is looking to gain some babysitting experience. Sometimes you just need to do a job from start to finish in one swoop, if for no other reason than your own sanity.
• Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Just say no to plants that need special maintenance and constant attention.
• Buy a water table. This toy keeps my kids busy and in one spot longer than anything else I’ve tried. And it’s portable so you can move it around the yard to keep the kids in view.
• Designate a “kids only” area. I hope one day that this area will include some plants, but right now this area is the “digging area” with assorted child-sized garden tools and trucks. Unrestrained digging is pure joy for my son.
• Kid-size garden tools. My son loves having his own tools. If he’s not using them to dig holes (see above) he loves being “big” and helping.
• Identify the gardening activities that you love and do more of them. Reduce or eliminate the things that are just chores. I reduced the number of containers I plant so I don’t have to worry about watering them.
• Break projects and tasks into steps. I have to consciously work on this because it’s not how I naturally tend to work.  I want to just go do it until it’s done but that’s not an option most of the time. It’s frustrating for me and I have to push myself to keep moving forward.

At first I felt like I was giving up having a garden after having kids, but with time I’ve gained new perspective. What I see now, four years into my parenthood journey is my garden is changing, but in a really healthy way for me and my family. I used to try and grow everything, and exhaust myself keeping up with it– but I’m not sure who I was growing it for, since I never stopped to enjoy it. As much as I love gardening, I was turning it into a giant never-ending chore.

Would I go back to gardening how I did before I became a parent? As much as I would appreciate the hours of uninterrupted time, I have to say no. The truth is I love the simplicity that is emerging from my garden. I am figuring out what it feels like to enjoy the space rather than think I need to be constantly doing something. I wouldn’t change that for the world. Parenthood is a funny thing. It’s affecting parts of my life in ways I never ever could have predicted. And I love it.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to Grounded and Growing today and receive your copy of “15 Tips to Become a '15 Minute Gardener'” so you can spend less time working ON your garden and more time enjoying being IN your garden.! It’s absolutely free. When you join the Grounded and Growing community, you’ll finally take the garden off your “To-Do” list and allow yourself time to enjoy your garden and savor the peace and serenity there. I tell subscribers about new posts as soon as I hit ‘publish’ and send weekly-ish updates on what’s going on in my garden– good, bad AND ugly.