Amy’s story highlights many of the struggles new mums face – balancing social connections with the exhaustion hindering their ability to seek them out, the fine line between support and overwhelm and simultaneous feelings of love and fear. Plus some wonderful words of wisdom for mums entering this stage of their life.
Postpartum Expectations
“I thought that physically, healing from birth was likely to take a long time so I knew I wouldn’t put any pressure on myself to get back into shape or be physically active again until I was ready.
I’ve always loved kids, especially babies, and have considered myself relatively competent at soothing so I went into parenting quite confident – this lasted about an hour!
I thought I’d be tired but that between myself and my husband, we’d both find a way to stay well rested enough to cope and function normally.
I thought breastfeeding would be easy and felt confident after pre-natal classes. I had no appreciation of how restrictive it would be on my own life (i.e. that going out for a day and missing feeds would be too uncomfortable to make it worth while!).
I expected that both myself and my husband would instinctively know what to do and that we’d naturally split baby chores without us having to talk about what needed doing.
I’m a natural introvert and have always needed at least a little time to myself each day to decompress so I was a bit worried about how I would feel having a little person to take care of with me constantly.
I truly believed that the post natal period would be a time of nesting, baking and having plenty of time to put my feet up, watch telly, journal etc.
Postpartum Reality
Once the initial shock of giving birth had worn off, I was pleased to find that the lingering rush of love, joy and pride I’d expected to come with a newborn was as magical as I’d expected it to be. But it was combined with a sense of panic, fear and self-doubt that I wasn’t expecting. That blind sighted me any my husband.
People had warned us about the sleep deprivation but despite this I was absolutely crippled by how intense the tiredness was, especially in the first few weeks. I’d never experienced anything like it. Coupled with this was the fact that everyone around us (even including my husband at times) seemed to believe that the only way to get through this period was to carry on as normal and so I felt pressured into attending bbq’s and get togethers when I was absolutely dead on my feet.
Often I was torn because I did want to go out and socialise, particularly once my husband had gone back to work so I didn’t feel isolated and so that my little boy got social interaction, but I struggled to enjoy it once I was out as felt so tired and broken. I’d go to mum groups and wonder how everyone else seemed to be functioning so normally when I felt like a zombie.
I was lucky in that physically, I healed pretty quickly but I think that was another reason that people expected me to jump back into normal life so quickly when I perhaps hadn’t healed emotionally. I since told myself that if I go on to have anymore children, I won’t feel pressured to go out and about before I’m ready. I’m now pregnant again with my second so it’ll be interesting to see if I feel strong enough to uphold that this time around.
I was amazed to find that I seemed to struggle to settle my own baby far more than I ever had with, say, my nieces and nephews.
I felt I had to give the baby constant attention 100% of the time otherwise I felt guilty and neglectful (plus they would cry). I also worried about things like having too much TV on in the background and what this would do to their development. This meant that I felt quite low a lot of the time as wasn’t able to enjoy the things I used to around the home.
Postpartum Support
Before our little one was born, we received tons of advice from family and friends about how you shouldn’t let visitors overstay their welcomes, take offers of help, ask guests to do their own washing up etc. etc. But the people that gave this advice were the worst culprits of all these things!
Ultimately, we were very fortunate in terms of being offered support and couldn’t have coped without it but without wishing to sound ungrateful, this support was usually offered on their terms and didn’t necessarily end up being particularly useful. For example, people would turn up out of the blue to offer to lend a hand during nap time. This either meant that they’d inadvertently wake the baby or that they would eat into time that I could be napping myself and I’d feel the need to have to sit and entertain them instead.
Having become parents later in life meant that both of our parents are older and so we felt conscious of asking for too much help from grandparents in case it became too much. They did go above and beyond though.
Local Connections
We are very lucky in this area to have many local groups accessible to us but in the post natal period, I just didn’t feel as though I had the energy to attend and socialise properly meaning that I never got to build up the social connections that I would have liked to. This also made me feel guilty as I worried that my son wasn’t getting enough social interaction either. Mum and baby yoga was a God send as it allowed socialisation in a less pressurised environment.
I felt very supported by the post natal midwife team but not by the Health Visitor.
Postpartum Pearls of Wisdom
Prepare yourself for feeling bone-achingly but embrace it and hibernate as much as you need to for as long as you need to.
Don’t feel that you have to engage with the baby every single second of the day when they’re awake. It’s ok to take some time to yourself from time to time and allow them to entertain themselves, provided they’re safe, calm and you can keep an eye on them.
Don’t berate yourself if you can’t figure out why the baby won’t stop crying even when you’ve tried absolutely everything, just respect the fact that this is normal for some babies.
Stop reading so much online guidance – whatever you choose to do as a parent will be considered right by some sources and wrong by others. As long as your actions are driven by love for your child (and if needed, for yourself) then you will be doing right by your family.
The sooner you accept the fact that life has changed and you can’t power on as normal the easier it will be to take a breath, roll with it and enjoy the experience.
When you open up and talk to other mums, you’ll be amazed (and reassured) to hear how many of them feel exactly the same.
People will tell you to enjoy the moment as it goes so fast (and it does) but that’s easier said then done so don’t feel guilty for not being able to live in the moment when things get challenging.”
Thank you so much to Amy for sharing this honest account of the fourth trimester and beyond. If you would like to have your story featured please do get in contact.
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