HOW WAS YOUR POSTPARTUM EXPERIENCE?

My postpartum experience was very difficult to be honest, it was nothing like I expected. I thought it would just be this beautiful down time with my baby, but it was painful healing, I was quite traumatised post birth, I was experiencing a lot of nightmares and anxiety. I remember for the first few weeks when the evening would start I would get the biggest anxieties knowing that night is going to be here soon. I would feel so anxious about the dreams I might have that night and also how many times I would be awake. Looking back on it I think I was in fight or flight mode for over 12 months. My son is currently 21 months and I only feel like I’ve relaxed and found some balance in the last 2 months, as he only started sleeping through the night at 19 months when I stopped breastfeeding. 

HOW DID YOU PREPARE FOR YOUR POSTPARTUM?

I did a lot of birth prep, I read a lot of pregnancy and birthing books and did hypnobirthing, but I did NOT prepare at all for postpartum, at least not in the way that I needed to. The only thing we did was to get whatever we needed for Sunny, I didn’t do any preparation for myself, for my body, nothing, and wow I would do it soooo differently the second time around. There is not enough education and emphasis on how mothers NEED to take care of themselves post birth, probably why we are seeing such big numbers of post patrum depression. 

WHAT DID YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING?

The sleep and lack of energy was the most challenging. It just went on for so long, like I said Sunny only started sleeping through the night at 19 months. From 0 - 7 months I did all the feeding as Sunny wouldn’t take a bottle, so night time pretty much was just me and Sunny, and for most of that time he would wake up every hour if not more to breastfeed. We co-slept which made it easier because it meant I didn’t have to get up every time, and my husband did all the nappy changed, but after 7 months my sleep deprivation hit a new point where I realised I was getting really dark intrusive thoughts, and at that point my husband took the baby to his mum’s for a week every evening, so I can get some uninterrupted sleep. But my body was so used to me waking up so often that even without Sunny not being there I still woke up like 6 times every night. I did feel a bit better since I didn’t breastfeed at night during that week, and that made me realise how breastfeeding is really depleting me. I didn’t want to stop, so that was when I started to look into postpartum supplements! Up until that point I didn’t take anything, I was so naive thinking I’ll be fine and that my body will cope. Things improved a little bit, the supplements definitely helped, but the following 12 months were still really challenging as the sleep continue to be non-existent, and Sunny was obsessed with breastfeeding and that is all he wanted to do. At 8 months he started to go a childminder which mean for four days a week I was breastfeeding way less during the day which is probably the only reason I was able to do some work, but after few months I got fired and it was a mixture of me being exhausted and not doing the work to the standard that the work place expected, and also not having the support and flexibility from the workplace that I needed as a new mum. I needed to be able to work from home more, so I can sleep in in the mornings to regain some energy before work started, and I requested more days at home, but the office was really inflexible and they made me travel an hour in and hour back 3 out of 4 days. It is so frustrating as a new mum to see how the system is not set up to support mothers and how everything is actually making being a mother MORE difficult, but that’s a topic for another day! 

IF YOU WERE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN IS THERE ANYTHIN YOU WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY, WHAT LESSONS DID YO UTAKE AWAY FROM YOUR PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE?

I would do it completely different. All my energy and time, and money would go into investing into my body and my healing post birth. I would make sure there is plenty of delicious food for me to eat, not just for the first week or two, but for the first 4 months at least, I would rest way more, I wouldn’t rush to go out there and for everybody to come meet the baby. It’s crazy we spend a small fortune on so many things for the baby (most of what are NOT necessities and the baby does not need for months and months, like toys and books and way too much clothing) and really we should be taking at least half of that budget and investing it into our mental, physical and spiritual well being. 

WHAT ARE YOUR 3 TOP TIPS THAT YOU WOULD PASS ON TO MOTHERS SOON TO BE POSTPARTUM?

My top advice would be :

• Mama your health is the most important, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Happy healthy mama = happy healthy baby. 

• Don’t let the baby marketing fool you into thinking you need all the stuff for the little one, you actually need very few things for the baby, so don’t waste your money or “stuff” rather reinvest it into your health, because yes our bodies are miraculous, but they really need our help regaining strength post pregnancy and birth. 

• Ask all your friends to NOT buy random baby gifts, create a list of everything you need for the baby and for yourself. And tell your friends and family that if they wish to get something to get it from the list because this is the best way to support you. After birth we had so many people send stupid gifts for the baby, from random baby clothes that we did not need to soft toys that my son still has never played with, but one of our friends instead of sending baby “stuff” he sent us 3 dinners from Pasta Evangelist, and oh my gosh it was delicious, it was exactly what we needed as tired new parents: good food! And this is what I do now for all my friends that have given birth, and they all come back and say wow so much nicer receiving delicious food than random baby shit.