I Thought I Was Ready.
For the postpartum mother who prepared carefully and is still struggling.
We see a familiar pattern surface around 10 to 14 days after a baby is born. The house is in order, the baby gear is set up, books and hospital discharge paperwork cover the countertops, the freezer is stocked, the support team is in place, and the parents are still struggling.
Our doulas arrive sometime between 8 and 9pm, and at this time of year, the last rays of sunshine are leaving the home and the Hatch lights around the room begin to illuminate. She knows about “day/night confusion” in newborns and has already set her smart lights to adjust accordingly to support her baby in finding their sleep rhythm. It’s been two weeks since her doula started and she’s beginning to open up to her. We hear this from new moms, time and time again: this was the time of day they used to look forward to before, but now it feels like looming dread.
The modern mother is equipped with knowledge and has been successful in many other areas of life through preparation and hard work. She has friends who share well-meaning advice and precautions, she’s read all the evidence-based information she can get her hands on about how to care for her baby, and she is resourceful and has planned her postpartum with intention, care, and excitement. Many of these mothers delayed starting a family until later in life, whether by choice or through a long fertility journey. She thought she was ready. And now she feels shame that she dreads this time of day, and worries that she should feel grateful. She wonders if there was more she could have done in pregnancy that would have made these initial weeks better.
This is the story we hear over and over again, and we expect it. These families prepared. More carefully than most people prepare for anything. The process that worked everywhere else, school, career, marriage, was the one they applied to this. And then the baby came home, and the books had the strategy but not the nuance. Babies are not textbook cases. What works requires practice and intuition built in real time, not a chapter someone else wrote. What she did with all that preparation was lay the foundation for a supported fourth trimester, but it was never meant to bypass the process of learning.
We aim to help our families see that the day they become a parent is the day they become a student all over again. They studied for the exam, passed the test, and now it’s time to practice. It’s this reframe that, when it lands, we can hear a deep exhale and a steadying breath.
The learning curve to parenting, and more importantly to embracing her new normal, is a process. And with education, the right support around her, and a willingness to actually use it, she can begin to navigate postpartum as a student. She knows she won’t get it right out the door, or all the time. She remembers what it’s like to be at the beginning of something new. Our families who can make this mindset shift are writing a new narrative for their postpartum, not that of perfection or bypassing pain, but of a woman at the beginning of something she can’t yet see the shape of.
There are times we see some families unable to take on the “beginners mindset” and that is often where the challenges actually reside. We see it show up as well-intentioned new moms overly critical of how their partners are caring for baby. Or parents who can't fall asleep, despite being exhausted and having a doula on duty for exactly that reason. Sometimes it's more subtle, like endless scrolling or ChatGPT threads asking the same question over and over again hoping for "the answer."
New parents who are stuck in this cycle of overthinking and the belief that the right answer is just one more prompt away, are often the ones we see suffering the most. They have all the information but are struggling to lean onto the support system they set up for themselves in pregnancy.
Babies were never meant to be happy and quiet all the time. They’ve come from a utopian experience (all of their needs were met in real time when in utero) and once they are born, they get to begin their journey of a true human experience, which comes with trials and tribulations. They experience hunger, cold, desire, aches and pains, and so much more of what makes us human. Our job as parents isn’t to remove the struggle 100% of the time for our baby’s, but to trust that when we've met their needs, sometimes life is still hard and that they can be resilient through that too (just like you are!). And that can be hard for a new parent to accept that sometimes babies are just fussy and that it will pass. Which is exactly why in those moments we lean on our support system to reassure or take over baby care, even if just for a few hours.
Postpartum was never meant to be free of pain and doubt. Those feelings are not a signal that something went wrong. They are the signal to lean on the foundation you built.
If you’re pregnant, your only job is to set up the foundation.
When you’re postpartum, your only job is to use it.