You step over the threshold into your newly created family sanctuary known as home; you’ve been through a lot. Your mind and body have performed one of life’s most magical physiological rituals, and it’s utterly exhausting. There’s a whole world of changes going on and it’s difficult to pinpoint how you truly feel.
Each of my immediate post-partum experiences, after my first baby, are pretty positive and similar, and that’s because I knew I had to step up and be honest with myself about how exactly I wanted it look and feel. With my first baby in the hazy July of 2010 I was overwhelmed, there were too many people and naively, I set no boundaries. I didn’t know how to navigate this special time because there simply wasn’t the space to figure it out. Lesson learned.
My experiences with my subsequent three babies were a whole new world. I knew that if I wasn’t headstrong with the values that were important to me, I’d lose it. There seems to be an eerie fixation in modern society on the separation of mother and baby, and this very notion begins in those early days and weeks. It’s natural and biologically normal to hold your baby all the time; if people ask to hold baby you can, with confidence, say ‘no thanks, she needs to be on me’.
Life feels a little bit in limbo when you first bring baby home. And that’s okay, figuring things out together and getting to know your baby. Learning to breastfeed without interruption and the freedom to take yourself and baby off to bed for an hour is so important.
You may, or may not, have heard of the ‘golden hours’ immediately after delivering your baby. A period of intense bonding time where skin to skin happens in a quiet, calm space. Where your little one may receive their precious share of umbilical cord blood, and they begin to route for their milk.
Think of the first 2 weeks at home as the ‘golden weeks’ whereby you have no visitors at all, except for one or two people for physical support if you need it, who you love and trust. If you can avoid it, don’t leave your home. Deep rest with baby will nurture the foundations on which your everlasting connection will blossom. Hormones are surging at this point and there will be times where you feel utterly euphoric and like you could take on the world! That’s a great feeling, but resist the temptation to do too much, or leave the house unnecessarily, instead simply breathe, be present and enjoy the sensation. You may also experience times of sadness, or ‘baby blues’ as they have been known. This is so normal and just like the clouds in the sky they will pass giving way to light again. Sit with these feelings instead of fighting them; what an honour it is to be human, knowing that this is biologically typical and women around the world are riding the same rollercoaster.
I’ve always used this time to lounge on the sofa, with baby on my chest, and catch up on my reading. Or start a new Netflix series with my husband. It’s such a great opportunity to rest, and one that we are rarely afforded in our day to day busy lives.
Newborn babies really are such lovely simple creatures. To be fed and kept warm with a fresh nappy is all they really need. To have plentiful physical contact with mum, and dad, as much as possible will be beneficial for all including regulating baby’s temperature, breathing and heart rate. Every minute of skin to skin, or physical contact, strengthens your motherly bond; you’ll grow to love completely, and protect, this beautiful part of you that is now Earth side.
I look back on the Golden Weeks with my children and they are some of my most precious memories. The creation of a whole other person and a brand new family dynamic.
Aren’t families so fluid? Never static and always evolving.
What are your experiences of immediate post-partum life? Is there anything you would do differently in the future?
Sophie x
The Local Mama Blog Editor
Comments