Kiddipedia
Like all transitions, motherhood marks a changing of the season. The old pre-baby season makes way for the start of a profound new journey as a family. And the early days of the motherhood season is one of the most impactful changes you will experience – bringing swings of both high and low emotions.
Welcoming a new baby is generally seen as an exciting and joyful time, a time for a celebration of new life and a time of wonder. Yet, it’s also a time of great uncertainty, fear, shifting dynamics in relationships, sleep-deprivation and raging hormones. It can also be a time of grieving your past season – a life with relative freedoms, predictability and control.
So I’d like to suggest four essential ingredients that can help smooth the path between the changing seasons to motherhood.
- Connect in with yourself.
When you bring a new life to the world, who you are can be put on the backburner. You find yourself responsible for a little baby who is wholly dependent on you. Their needs and wants come first. And this can be a difficult adjustment to make.
And amongst the raging hormones and the uncertainty of taking care of a little human, fears and inadequacies rise to the surface. As well as a major heart opening of the kind you may never have experienced before.
It’s important to hold space to honour these feelings. To look inwards and understand the expectations you’re carrying with you. To identify the fears and blockers that you are carrying. To reach out for help if you need to. To find the things that make you still feel like you amongst all this change.
Remember that how you feel is valid and it’s OK to feel the way you do. But also remember that it’s OK to ask for help if you need.
2. Connect with your baby.
This might seem obvious because your baby is the central focus in the transition to motherhood. However, making a conscious effort to connect using different senses can be helpful in setting up lifelong positive attachment for your baby. It also helps you in your transition as a mother.
You can start forming connections early during pregnancy and then continue those bonds when baby arrives. Studies have shown that babies remember the songs and stories they were told in the womb, and these can elicit calm when they are earthside. You can use the sense of touch to communicate with your baby in the womb through gentle massage and tapping. When the baby arrives, skin-to-skin touch promotes oxytocin, helping you and your baby fall in love. Massage provides great comfort, helping baby relax and sleep longer.
3. Find your ‘village’.
There is an African proverb that I’m sure you’re familiar with. It takes a village to raise a child. Well, I believe it also takes a village to raise a mother.
The transition to motherhood is one of the most profound and stressful transitions in our lives. You don’t need to go it alone. Find people who are also going through the transition to motherhood, or support the transition. Find people who ‘get it’ – and with whom you can provide mutual support. Find people you can laugh with, cry with, commiserate with, celebrate with and go on a journey with.
Your village may be online or in person, or both. Or maybe it is seeking professionals to help you work through the changing season or any problems you may be experiencing, such as sleep, feeding or postnatal depression or anxiety.
4. Play with nature.
A sense of clarity comes with spending time in nature. Nature is proven to be healing and nurturing. Studies have shown that just spending 20 minutes in nature can help revitalise your whole being. There is a host of benefits that come with the smells, sounds and sights of nature – nature relaxes, calms and soothes, reducing stress, anger and frustration.
Not only do you experience those benefits, so too does your baby. Plus the sights, sounds and colours of nature are naturally stimulating for your baby.
In my own experience I have found that when I feel out of sorts, stressed or overly emotional, just getting out and spending time in nature provides clarity and a feeling of being grounded. This doesn’t need to be anything too adventurous. Even spending time barefoot on the grass in your background is beneficial.
The changing of the season to motherhood will always be challenging. But taking time to consciously incorporate these four ingredients will help you make your transition a lot easier.
Have you incorporated any of these ingredients into your own transition to motherhood? Make sure you comment and let us know what you have found to work in smoothening the path in the season change to motherhood.
You may also like to read:
5 Things to let go of in parenting that will save your sanity
You know you’re a mum when – part 1
