Bring the fourth trimester out of the shadows
Updated: Apr 20, 2022
I am just going to come straight out and say it.
The Fourth Trimester is overshadowed by the event of birth.
Disclaimer: I totally get birth and all that comes with it should have love, energy and support. It’s an epic event that changes a woman forever. There are different experiences for different women, with some left with scars physically or emotionally. I do not want to downplay that in anyway. I went through two births myself.
What am I saying is this though…
Birth makes up one part of you becoming a mum. A vital part albeit but it is still one part. One event that leads to a life of always being postnatal.
Yes we give some thought to a baby list and what needs to be brought from the shops. Or a friend may share their story. You will ask your mum questions about what happened when you were a baby. You may sign up for NCT classes which give a very light touch to when the baby is here. But we don't properly cover day-to-day postnatal life. We do not get under the skin of it.
What I see so much of is that when baby is brought home and the postnatal fun really starts women are unprepared emotionally, expectations and reality do not come close.
It’s a multi-faceted time – recovery from birth, working through any trauma from birth, new family life, caring for a baby, adjusting to a new life for you as a mum, we feel vulnerable, exposed learning new things, phases, new dynamics in relationships, feelings of guilt perhaps if you have an older child and where your attention goes. And all this of course on reduced sleep for a good chunk of time.
Like I say I don’t want to take anything away from birth but what I would like to see is that we talk postnatal before being postnatal. That we act proactively. That we give ourselves a chance, an opportunity to be in a better place when postnatal life arrives in all its wonder. Prepared. Informed. Confident of our choices. Our overwhelm is reduced.
I would love to start making changes about where our focus is when we are pregnant. Get that balance between antenatal prep for the birth (reducing anxiety here would be great too) and then prep, planning and real understanding for the first 12 weeks. Have a positive start. The best start.
Resources to help;
Last week I wrote a blog on dialling up the excitement for those early weeks. Important to basks in the wins and celebrations too !
There are books written on the Fourth Trimester ; authors such as Kimberley Ann Johnson and Susan Brink to name a couple
Sarah Ockwell Smith does a fab article on it.
I wrote a blog on it too - Baby always wants to be on me.
I can also help you prepare like no other, feel in-the-know and confidence raised with an Uplevelled! Session!
April
PS you can also access Settling how-to's for a Newborn!