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peaceful parenting

Finding Your Peace, New Parent Edition

50 Comments / Mom Life / By
parenting

When becoming a new parent, we often create a lot of expectations for ourselves, our partners, our support system, and our new small humans without even realizing it. We are relieved when these expectations are met. On the other hand, it may feel like you are being let down or abandoned in your greatest time of need when these expectations are not met.

I am a big advocate of having a healthy understanding of what to expect when the small roommate arrives. I think a great place to start is developing an action plan with your partner to optimize your recovery and help navigate the emotional, mental and physical turmoil of labor, delivery, and the fourth trimester.

I will admit through my own experience that knowing what to expect and then experiencing it are two very different things.

We lose our peace when:

  • our expectations of motherhood, or even parenting in general, don’t align with our reality
  • we are not on the same page with our loved ones and other caregivers of our children
  • we lose ourselves

It’s quite easy to exist in a bubble of anxiety and function in this “new normal” of sleeplessness and stress. It’s more difficult to challenge ourselves and ask open, honest questions to those around us to facilitate a more cohesive and peaceful environment.

As a new parent, you must protect your peace.

PREPARATION

hiking with baby

When preparing for the birth of my son, I felt I had done as much as I could to really understand what was going to happen to me, what would happen to my baby, and how my partner and support system would be needed to help me recover. I read all the books, sometimes more than once. Of my favorite books, my partner and I then listened to them on audio together (he’s not much of a reader). We discussed our opinions, how we could help each other, created an action plan, and prepared to do our best when our little one arrived. Our doula was instrumental in filling in the gaps with pertinent information that related to my own mental and emotional health, best communication for my partner and I, and more preparation for the fourth trimester.

You can read more about how doulas are beneficial to a mother’s birth process here.

Side bar: Often times, all of the preparation is done for labor and delivery without much of a thought to the fourth trimester for the new parent. My goodness, what a disservice to the mother. We must talk about the fourth trimester. It’s critical to have a support system and action plan in place.

By not preparing for potential issues that can arise in the fourth trimester, it can feel tremendously overwhelming, defeating, and depressing. Troubleshooting will happen, your baby will do unexpected things, and despite your best intentions of preparation, it will be hard. It will be really, really hard.

So yeah, I attended the classes. I talked openly with other mothers. We made a list and contacted people in our support system. You get the idea.

BUT THEN, HE CAME…

WHAT HELPED ME

I think the work that my partner and I put in during the pregnancy was paramount for my recovery and helped alleviate many new mother worries and anxieties that otherwise would have festered. I didn’t fuss about funny noises, breathing patterns, or is he getting enough breastmilk. I followed other mom discussion boards closely and realized that while, yes, all of our babies are distinctly different but, also, we all were noting similar behaviors, sleep patterns, and weirdness. So I let those things go. I preserved my energy and protected my mind from unnecessary concerns.

All of that to say, I stand beside the recommendation to prepare as best you can, in whatever way that looks like for you.

IT IS STILL HARD

Despite all of the preparation, it is still hard for many reasons.

  • You are healing from birth injuries and the shock of what your body just experienced. Bleeding, cramps, perineal discomfort.
  • Hormonal crash. Aviva Romm says, “The postpartum hormone drop is considered the single largest sudden hormone change in the shortest amount of time for any human being, at any point of their life cycle.” This is significant.
  • Fatigue
  • Discrepancies in parenting expectations with your partner
  • Overbearing family members or other caregivers
  • Breastfeeding issues
  • Sweating and hot flashes
  • Swelling everywhere… everywhere
  • Baby blues
  • Overwhelm
  • Difficulty bonding with your baby
  • Achiness
  • New baby that is latched onto you 24/7 and requires every ounce you have to give
  • … and more 🙂
Disclaimer: These thoughts are coming from a mother who sustained a very intensive birth process, endured birth injuries, navigated complications with healing, struggled with nursing and prevailed, and had a fair amount of family drama in those early days (by the way, all of those things are very common).

EXPECTATIONS

mom and baby sleeping

If something is not working for you, your baby, or your family… pivot, accommodate, adjust, try again.

What is the saying… “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Let go of what you thought was going to happen and embrace the truth that is your reality.

Our culture is notorious for layering unrealistic and idealistic expectations on mothers. Imagine scenes of labor and delivery seen in movies and how that compares to your actual experience. Imagine the recovery process and all of the things you didn’t know would happen because we often don’t discuss openly the gory reality of healing after birth. Imagine the slender new mothers and babies that sleep (quietly) through the night. Picture the new mom peacefully breastfeeding her newborn. Breastfeeding, ha.

Our peace as new parents is often stolen from us before the baby even arrives because of what we might expect to happen. What we think will happen and what happens often begins to diverge as soon as labor begins. We feel confused, flustered, and it is the beginning of a vicious cycle. When baby does arrive, our expectations will likely continue to be different from our reality and may even result in a sense of failure as a mother or new parent. Being a new parent is enormously difficult, that is the truth.

So, how do you find peace in parenting?

How do you find peace with who you are as a parent, who your baby is as their own individual human, who your partner is as a critical support person in the family system, etc?

LETTING GO, FIND YOUR PEACE

Let go of what you thought would happen. Let go of what you wanted to happen. Let go of how you thought your baby would behave. Let go of who you thought you would be as a new mother.

  • Your baby doesn’t sleep through the night? Okay, most don’t. And won’t for a long time.
  • Breastfeeding is terrible? Yes, it hurts in the beginning. It’s almost never easy.
  • Your body is different? Yes, you will be soft and changed for awhile… maybe forever.
  • Labor and delivery was a whirlwind or things didn’t go as planned? Yes, this is common.

When I let go of what I wanted to happen and what I had pictured happening, I found my peace again. I learned to trust myself and my instincts. I learned to trust my partner and my baby. I connected with the natural rhythm that I wish I had known of from the time of conception and felt calm, confident, and proud of who I was.

I stopped listening to what social media told me and stopped watching highlight reels of other people’s lives that were (gasp) unrealistic.

You are the perfect mother or parent for your baby. You are exactly what that baby needs. But you must serve yourself, love yourself, and forgive yourself so that you may fully serve and love your baby.

You find your peace when you let go of control and trust yourself. Trust your baby. Trust your partner.

It sounds so simple, and yet I have to be intentional every single day this very thing. It seems the little ones change almost day to day which means we have to be flexible, understanding, and aware as parents. They need us to change with them and grow with them. It’s hard, because as humans we are creatures of habit. Once we have something established that works, we want to cling to it and keep it the same. But they don’t stay the same and what works one time may not work in a few days. 

So, all I can say is let go of self-imposed expectations. You just might find that by being kinder to yourself as a parent and by being gentler with your babies, you find your peace again.
peace

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For a lovely sleep resource, check out Taylor Kulik here!

50 thoughts on “Finding Your Peace, New Parent Edition”

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