Nothing can prepare you for motherhood. Sure, the ups and downs of having a new baby are well-documented, but it’s all moot until you experience it for yourself. No one understands that better than Shay Mitchell, the actress and entrepreneur who welcomed her first child, Atlas, with her longtime partner Matte Babel last month. Although Mitchell is no stranger to multitasking—having balanced television roles on the Netflix thriller You and the forthcoming comedy Dollface with running a thriving travel accessories brand, Beis—she admits that the realities of raising a newborn take some getting used to. “I got three hours of sleep last night, so it was a good one,” she says with a laugh.
On the phone from her Los Angeles home, Mitchell is upbeat and endearing, quick to crack a joke about engorgement (you’ll have to Google that) and praise her friends for the sound parenting advice they’ve given her. Like many millennial moms, she’s had to adjust her schedule, stepping back from the demands of constant work to enjoy Atlas’s earliest moments fully. “I find myself being a lot more present, and I’m just looking at her every single day. You reflect on how fast time passes when you’re forced to slow down,” she says. “The surprising thing is how much I enjoy this calmness.”
Maintaining inner peace can be tough, but for Mitchell, taking the time to reflect has made all the difference. “When she’s awake, we just kind of have a chill moment together,” she says. “I’ve had to reprioritize my work time with her schedule, and that’s been interesting for me. Before it was all about my schedule, now I work once she falls asleep.” The pressure to attempt to do it all—and do it perfectly—is all too real for working moms, and Mitchell has dealt with her share of self-doubt. “There is a lot of stress and anxiety,” she says. “I’d heard all these things from my friends saying, ‘You’re going to second guess a lot of things you do, you’re going to feel guilty when you leave her.’ [It’s been all about] just taking the time to get ready and be by myself to [say,] ‘Okay cool, now I can handle this, I’ve got this, so many people have done this before me, and so many people have felt the same way.’”
Those quiet moments can take the form of a five-minute shower, reading a good book, or indulging in one of life’s little luxuries. “It’s putting on a nice nightgown if I’m staying at home, which is most of the time now,” Mitchell says. “As much as it is hard because you just want to put on that old T-shirt that’s right next to the bed, I really do try, I have a shower, I put on a beautiful lotion and a nice robe, just something that makes me feel like myself; and then I can continue throughout the day.”