As I prepared for my maternity leave, I found myself slightly overwhelmed. I had all these things to do: prepare for a baby, prepare Alex for a baby, prepare at work for my maternity leave and oh, right, sell a house and move. The one thing I found I actually wanted to do was write, which worked out well in preparing this blog for maternity leave. I wrote and wrote and wrote. The words flew from my fingertips like bats fly out of caves.
Just so we’re clear, in this analogy:
words : fingertips :: bats : caves
Alas, not everyone gets possessed by this urge to endure a form of “blog nesting”, so I thought I’d mention a few great ways to prepare your blog for maternity leave.
1. Ask for guest posts – this is self explanatory. Ask your friends to guest post for you. Ask strangers. Ask your mom. It doesn’t matter, just ask them.
2. Repurpose your old guest posts – take posts you’ve previously written for other people and put them up at your own site. It’s like brand new content! Just go with it and hope no one notices. (Except the person whose site it ran at. Ask them in advance if you can re-run it because that last thing you need on your maternity leave is someone being crabby about words you wrote yourself.)
3. Participate in #iPPP and Wordless Wednesday – let’s face it, you’re going to have tons of photos of the kid anyway. You’ve probably taken most of them with your phone. Use them. Pretend it’s new content. This counts.
4. Participate in Just Write – this is a weekly writing meme that let’s you write whatever you’d like, stream of consciousness style, no editing. Let’s face it, when you’ve got a newborn, editing is the devil.
5. Do nothing – it’s not called maternity leave for nothing, suckers.
These are great tips even if you need to take a break for some reason. I'm glad you came up with that list because new post, old post, guest post…I'm just happy visiting your blog. Enjoy those cute little boys!
Great tips, girlfriend!
{I especially love the last one! It's okay to take a break, RIGHT??}
Guess who just bookmarked this?
Although I'm not sure I can resist the allure of my blog, even after the baby is born. I know, I'm insane like that.
You forgot to plan to leave snacks out for people who come by.
I vote for do nothing. Which is kind of ill named b/c you aren't doing nothing, just nothing with the blog.
Take a break, kid. But I do agree with Bossy Betty – where are the snacks? This is a problem.
# 5 for the win!
One day I too will be on bloggy maternity leave soni need these tips! You need a pinterest button for this shiz!!
Great tips! I think my maternity leave days are over, but you never know right.
I seriously have a problem opening up my blog to guest posts. I think I have a control freak/possession problem!
Enjoy your boys
Every time I see a picture of your baby I have to start chanting like a lunatic:
youarenthavinganotherchildyouarenothavinganotherchildyouarenothavinganotherchild.
And by “you” I mean “me”.
I am not.
But you definitely should. They are that cute.
And I'm not even kidding.
Works for any kind of extended leave, actually but definitely when a newborn is involved. You're doing a great job at all of this. And the baby looks so adorable! Congrats!
Great tips for anytime one needs a bloggy break!
And that picture? ADORABLE!
I forgot everything you said when I saw that picture. Seriously? Why is he so cute and tiny. Look how his toes are spread out. I want to bite them.
You just added that photo, didn't you?
So stinking cute! I bet he smells amazing. Enjoy your leave, friend.
I vote for taking really cute pictures of your precious baby and just posting them from time to time.
I love that Evan has dog clothes. If there were cats? We'd need to have a chat.
I was reading this thinking “you know, I understand those who need to write to feel sane & stuff . . . but, well, it's a baby, nobody is going to say 'screw you, you didn't post for a month after your kid, so I'm not reading you anymore,'” so I'm glad you ended with that one
And your kid is a cutie pie.
Did you say something??? Because I got to the picture of your pumpkin…and i lost all thoughts in my head but awwwwwwwwww.
Xoxo
I'm just going to say this: sweet, sweet baby! Awwwww, is right!
[...] faced lie. When I disappeared and had Evan, I had 36 posts scheduled including an explanation on how to prepare your blog for maternity leave. That did not include the iPPP posts I hurriedly scheduled when I had free time. In short, I [...]