How to Have a Smooth Postpartum Transition: How to Prepare for Life After Birth

Welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. My name is Ceridwen. I am your podcast host and your guide to preparing for a smoother postpartum transition.

Today, I want to actually talk about what a smoother postpartum transition really means. I think if you're a first-time parent and you've never actually gone through postpartum before, you might be wondering why you even need to prepare for a smoother transition in the first place. But that's the whole point of this podcast, is helping you prepare for a better postpartum experience.

So, I want to share this episode with you today to help you understand why a postpartum prep really matters, what a smoother postpartum transition really looks like, and some practical steps you can take to really set yourself up for this smoother transition. Before we really dive into this episode, I just want to invite you to take a moment, take a breath, and just connect in to how you're really feeling about the postpartum journey ahead of you. How do you really feel when you think about how your life is about to change and the unknowns of what life with your baby might look like? However you're feeling right now, it's okay to just honour where you're at.

Maybe you're feeling slightly overwhelmed by everything that is to come. Maybe you're excited to finally meet your new baby. And most likely, I'm sure you're probably feeling a combination of both and so many more emotions along with them and that's entirely normal.

It's okay to feel mixed emotions about the journey ahead. And honestly, just building that awareness of how you're feeling is in itself going to be such a tool for you to be building that connection to just checking in with yourself, how you're feeling. Is there anything that you need in this moment while we begin to talk about preparing for a smoother postpartum transition? As we begin this episode, I just want to share with you my own hope that this episode is going to help you to feel more grounded and give you more clarity as we start talking about preparing for life with your new baby.

Now, before we start talking about actually how to have a smoother postpartum, I wanted to tell you actually a little bit about why I created this podcast, the Postpartum Prep Podcast. Because I think it can help you to get a better sense of why I think postpartum preparation is so important and some of the challenges that can come about when we don't prepare. And I wanted to share with you a bit of my journey because that's really what got me into this work and why I'm so passionate about helping pregnant moms to prepare for a smoother postpartum transition.

So I'm going to take you back to when I was pregnant. I did all the preparation that I could when it came to birth. I read all the books.

I went to, I think I took like three courses in birth prep. Like I was really into birth prep. And I did end up having a birth that felt really empowering and didn't have any complications.

And I really felt just very lucky for that birth experience. I knew a lot of it was down to luck, but I also felt really grateful for all the time and energy and intention I had put into my birth prep. I'd really invested in the birth experience and I felt very grateful for that.

And although there's no amount of preparation that's going to entirely dictate how your birth experience goes, I did feel like a lot of what I had learned helped me. I did feel like a lot of what I'd learned before birth did help me in having a good birth experience. Then came along postpartum and that was a different journey entirely.

I had a really difficult start to breastfeeding. I honestly had periods where I felt like my brain was about to break from the level of exhaustion I felt. I felt a lot of loneliness and isolation.

My physical recovery after birth was not easy. I had stresses in my relationship and ultimately I did end up experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety. It was just, it was quite a journey.

I think maybe one day I'll record a whole episode about my own postpartum experience, but as you can imagine, it's pretty, pretty tender. A lot of tender topics there for me to talk about my personal experiences with, but I wanted to just paint a little bit of a picture for you right now because I want you to understand where I'm coming from when I say that after birth, all I could think of was, why didn't anyone prepare me for this? And that's actually not an uncommon thing. I actually hear that all the time from new moms.

Obviously not everyone has such difficulties as I did. And as some of the moms I work with, obviously in my job as a mother baby wellbeing consultant, I specialize in helping when things go wrong, whether that's with breastfeeding or sleep or mental health. My job is often picking up the pieces.

So of course I'm seeing moms who are having a more difficult experience, but I still think no matter what, I think there can be things that new moms are left scratching their heads. Like how could no one have told me about this? And I think there's, you know, I think sometimes it's partly, we just don't know how to talk about it. But I think sometimes it's actually also, it's such a broad topic as well.

It can kind of be hard to cover everything. I mean, I know this is something I used to say when I was pregnant, I was like, well, I can't possibly be prepared because I can't be prepared for everything. There's only so much I can do to prepare.

And it's true, like there is only so much I can do to prepare and there is only so much we can tell new moms. And there is a lot of learning that does just come on the job. And it's also obviously not every mom is going to experience the same postpartum.

In fact, most moms are not going to experience the same postpartum, but there are some really common threads. So there might not be the same challenges or the same experience, but there are definitely some common threads. And that's really what I want to use this podcast for, is to help you explore those really common threads, those things that most moms do ultimately experience in some way after birth.

And I really hope to just build up this podcast so that it can become just a really comprehensive resource for you as you're entering life with your new baby. I'm so excited because we actually, I've been lining up guests. We're going to start having guests on the podcast.

And these are like real experts in the different areas of life after birth, from baby wearing to mental health, to sleep, to nutrition and postpartum recovery. And I'm just so, I'm so excited that I'm going to get to share this with you because I just know that this would have made, even just for me personally, this would have made such a difference. If I had, you know, I talked about how much I prepared for birth.

How much did I really prepare for postpartum? Not a lot at all. And that's probably because I just didn't know where to start. Like I said, I think because it is such a huge topic, it can be kind of, there's, I always say like postpartum is not just the last chapter of the birth book because that's what I often found is the learning that I did do, it was like the last chapter of the birth book kind of touched on postpartum.

And what I wish I'd understood is postpartum is not just the last chapter of the birth book. It's an entirely new book altogether. I have a dream of one day creating this book, but for now we've got this podcast, which is awesome because I get to share this with you for free so that you can really have a smoother, calmer, more restful fourth trimester and ultimately just a smoother start to life with your new baby.

Which brings me to what does it really mean when I say a smoother start to life with your new baby? What does it mean to have a smoother postpartum? What does it mean to have a smooth transition to life after birth? Now I actually used to have a postpartum prep course. There's many reasons why I stopped offering it. Um, partly because I wanted to be able to, instead of just sending you to that course, which you would have had to pay for, I really wanted to be able to make this podcast like a no gatekeeping zone.

Like I really wanted to be able to just give out all the best advice that I could, all the best tips without having to gatekeep because I am actually trying to sell you my postpartum prep course. Like I wanted this to be, I wanted this to be it for you guys. Sorry, if you can hear my voice has like kind of shifted, it's because I could hear my son was waking up and I'm trying to keep recording without waking him up.

So you have a whole different tone for this part of the podcast. Um, where was I? Oh, I was talking about how I used to have a postpartum prep course that I no longer offer, but when it came to that course, there were really like three, like this course was like comprehensive as much as I could possibly tell you about preparing for life after birth, preparing for a smooth transition. And there were really three, like I could distill it down to really three key areas of what to do when it came to preparing for postpartum and how it contributed to a smooth transition.

So when it comes to what is a smooth transition, these are the three really key areas that I've found from, from the families that I've worked with and from all the training I've done in working with postpartum families, as well as obviously reflecting on my own postpartum journey. So these are the really, the three really key when we're asking what is a smooth transition. These are the things that I have seen and that I know really lead to a smoother transition or that, that really make up a smooth transition.

The three qualities, let's say, of a smooth transition. The first is having realistic expectations. Now I've talked about realistic expectations on the podcast before in episode 13, where I talked about the four types of postpartum prep.

So to hear more on realistic expectations, definitely after you've listened to this episode, of course, go back and listen to that one. But when it comes to realistic expectations, this is really shown in research over lots of domains when it comes to postpartum wellbeing, from mental health to breastfeeding to your relationship with your partner. It's shown to help increase, help you to have a smoother transition in all these ways.

And I'm sure there's more. So when I talk about having realistic expectations, I mean, this is kind of what we're doing on this podcast, right? We're talking about what does life after birth really look like? What are babies really like? What do you experience as a mom after you've given birth? So how do we set realistic expectations when it comes to preparing for life after birth? Now, the best way is just learning as much as you can about... Now, let me just actually stop myself before I get too far into talking about learning, because there are a lot of resources out there that I absolutely do not believe are helpful when it comes to learning for life after birth. When it comes to actually learning about what to realistically expect for life after birth, there's a lot of resources out there that will help you learn about life after birth.

The resources that help you learn about what to realistically expect after birth are more limited. When it comes to learning about what comes after birth, I would just say be cautious who you're learning from, especially if it's somebody trying to sell you something. If it's coming from a company that wants to sell you something, or even an influencer who wants to sell you something, that would be my first caution with being more wary about whether they're portraying realistically what to expect after birth.

I think the best way to learn realistically what to expect after birth is to talk to your real life friends, family, people who've actually been through it. Ask them what was the fourth trimester like for them. What did they not expect from life after birth, whether it's in terms of their postpartum recovery, or their baby, or how they felt mentally and emotionally, or their relationship.

I think talking to real people is the best way to get just a realistic understanding of what life after birth can really be like. Obviously everybody's situation is going to be different. I'd also say it's surprising how quickly people forget what it was really like, and especially, you've got to love them, but especially our parents.

Almost everyone I talk to has some story about how their parents seem to have completely forgotten what it's actually like to have a new baby. So I guess if you're talking to people about what life after birth was really like for them, there's still a reason to take things with a grain of salt, but I guess there's also, it just makes it even more important to talk to maybe moms who are currently going through it, or have really just, only just come out of the baby stage. If you can talk to someone who's currently going through it, I think that's probably going to be the most enlightening thing for you.

A great way actually to do this would be to see if there are any mom groups in your area, because first of all, most mom groups will happily welcome you if you're currently pregnant, and that's just a great way for you to start building your village, right? To start building your network of other moms, so you'll already have that there for you after you give birth. And then also, it's a great way for you to actually get to talk to people who are currently going through it, learn realistically what it's like. You're not even, you're not even looking for advice here, you're literally just looking for like, insight into what it's like for them.

And you know what, they might even be really happy to have the chance to talk about their own experience, and just to have someone who genuinely, genuinely just wants to listen to them, and isn't just there to listen to them talk about how great life with their baby is, but who's really there to listen to how they really feel. I also have a lot of plans already, I have a few episodes already in progress where I am planning to include quotes from real moms about their experiences. I already have some like, quotes that I'm so excited to share with you guys, so be sure you're following, or if you're listening to this episode in the future from when I'm releasing it now, take a look through my podcast episodes because I should have several episodes with real moms talking about their experiences.

The last thing that I wanted to say about realistic expectations, and how that can help you to have a smoother transition. Now, the realistic expectation, the one that I want to share with you today, is the expectation that it might not always go smoothly. And this might seem counterintuitive considering I'm trying to teach you how to have a smooth postpartum transition, but I think actually, when it comes to unrealistic expectations, you know, we see all these portrayals of the fourth trimester in movies and in social media especially, and what you often don't see are the journeys where it doesn't go smoothly.

If you do get the chance to talk to any moms, you might hear examples of postpartum experiences that did not always go as planned. And rather than that needing to scare you, I think, I hope it would A. just be more motivation for you to do the things that you can do to set yourself up for a smoother transition, but also maybe there's like a amount of mindset work that can go into developing like an openness and a curiosity and a gentleness and maybe grace for yourself and for your baby and for your partner around life after birth. I think we often talk about this actually for birth.

We talk about flexibility and our ability to shift as things with birth shift and our capacity for tolerating uncomfortable situations and just in the same way that all of that is helping you prepare for birth, all of that can help you in preparing for postpartum as well. And I already have, I know I keep talking about the future of this podcast in this episode, but I'm just really excited about it right now, so forgive me for that. But one of the things that I do have planned is I have some guests who are going to come on the podcast to talk more about mindset work, mindset preparation for postpartum.

So I'll leave that as a little teaser here for now. And let's move on to the second part of a smooth transition, which is preventing problems from occurring in the first place. Now, there's a couple aspects that go into this.

First of all is obviously the learning, all the learning that you're doing, all the realistic expectations that you're gathering. All of this is going to help you to figure out more about what you actually need to plan for and what you need and what practical preparations you need to take when it comes to preparing for postpartum. I think it's the very first episode of this podcast talks about how learning before you give birth, learning about what to expect in the fourth trimester, learning about what's normal, what's not normal.

I talk in that in the first episode of this podcast about how that can help to prevent problems from occurring. So you can go listen to that first episode of this podcast. As a reminder, all of these episodes that I'm kind of pointing to you, YouTube, because I realize I'm pointing you to quite a few other episodes throughout this episode.

So these will all be hyperlinked in the show notes. They'll be linked in the episode description. So everything you need to know will be there.

Just coming back to how to prevent problems. So yeah, first learning about birth, sorry, learning about what comes after birth is going to help with preventing problems in the first place. The next part is planning, creating.

Oh, I'm going to direct you to another. I'm so sorry. This episode is just turning into me directing you to other episodes.

But we did talk in, was it the last episode of? Yes, in the previous episode of this podcast. So episode 14, I walked you through basically the postpartum plan template that I use for when I'm working with families. I walked you through how to create a whole postpartum plan.

So planning ahead is going to help you to prevent problems from occurring in the first place. So go listen to that episode. And then the last part of preventing problems is actually taking practical preparations to prevent problems.

So let me give you a really basic example that most people actually nowadays, I find, do think about before birth, which is freezer meals or whether or not you choose to do freezer meals. It might just be setting up a meal train or it might be budgeting for meal delivery or however you decide to navigate it. Preparing in advance, taking those really practical preparations to make sure that you're going to be well nourished after birth can help to prevent all sorts of problems, whether that's just preventing the problem of after birth, you get to the end of the day, you don't have anything to eat for dinner and you don't know what to do and you're hungry and your baby's crying and now you're arguing with your partner about what to eat, like whether we're preventing just like situations like that or we're trying to prevent bigger issues like just like not getting enough calories to support your energy and your mental health and your nutrient stores by meal prepping or meal planning or taking preparations or taking practical steps to prepare in advance before you've given birth.

You're just preventing some of these challenges from arising after birth. Now, the last part of having a smooth postpartum transition. So, so far we've covered learning about realistic expectations.

We've also touched on preventing problems from occurring. The last part of a smooth transition is knowing what to do when you do face challenges and for the most part, this is going to look like knowing who to turn to because like I said, we cannot, no matter what we can do, we're not always going to have an entirely smooth experience. That's just realistic.

We can do all that we can to prevent problems and to help the transition to life after birth not feel like such a shock to the system. We can do all we can but there's just going to be times when there are challenges that you can't have foreseen or prevented and that doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. All that it means is you're probably going to need some support and the beautiful thing about having support and knowing who to turn to is that it also means you'll be able to better trust that even if things are hard right now, it's going to get better because you'll have the support to get you there.

This is really about creating your village and I talk a little bit more about this building your support system in episode 13 to direct you yet again to another episode but just to give a little bit of an overview of different kinds of support that might help you to have a smoother transition. First of all, it's going to be friends and family and maybe even neighbors just kind of knowing like who can you turn to if you need someone to pick something up from the supermarket or if you're desperate for a nap or you just really need someone to talk to and come over and have a cup of tea with you. Then on the other side of it, there's professional support so people like who's going to help you if you're having trouble with breastfeeding or if you have questions about your baby's sleep or you need mental health support.

Maybe even professional support like cooking and cleaning because that practical support is also very helpful after birth. Maybe my toddler just woke up so I'm going to have to end this episode here but we did make it through the notes I'd had about this episode so I hope that I've covered as much as I can. I'm going to have to go but remember to check the show notes for all the other episodes I mentioned throughout this one and if you're not already subscribed, make sure you subscribe and I'll see you in the next episode!