The joy and excitement of welcoming a new life into the world bring unparalleled happiness, but it’s essential to recognize that the postpartum period can be a rollercoaster of emotions and adjustments for both partners. As your significant other embarks on the incredible journey of motherhood, your role as a supportive partner becomes more critical than ever. In this article, we’ll explore meaningful ways to assist your partner after giving birth, creating a supportive environment for her physical recovery and emotional well-being.
Understanding the Postpartum Experience:
Before diving into assistance strategies, take the time to understand the physical and emotional changes your partner may be experiencing postpartum. From hormonal shifts to sleep deprivation, gaining insight into these aspects will help you approach the situation with empathy.
Encourage Rest and Recovery:
The postpartum period requires ample rest for physical healing. Encourage your partner to prioritize sleep, and when the baby sleeps, consider taking on household tasks to allow her the opportunity to rest without worry.
Share Household Responsibilities:
A seamless transition into parenthood involves sharing household responsibilities. From diaper changes to meal preparation, being actively involved in day-to-day tasks not only lightens the load for your partner but also strengthens your bond as co-parents.
Emotional Support and Active Listening:
Emotions can run high during the postpartum period. Be a compassionate listener and provide emotional support. Allow your partner to express her feelings without judgment, creating a safe space for open communication.
Meal Preparation and Nutrition:
Nourishing meals are crucial for postpartum recovery. Take charge of meal preparation, ensuring a balance of nutritious foods. Consider preparing meals that can be easily reheated, simplifying the dining process.
Assist with Baby Care:
Active participation in baby care fosters teamwork and shared responsibility. Whether it’s bath time, diaper changes, or comforting the baby, being hands-on with childcare allows your partner moments of respite.
Arrange for Supportive Networks:
Encourage your partner to connect with support networks, such as other new mothers, friends, or family members. Attend parenting classes together or explore local parenting groups, providing a sense of community and shared experiences.
Create Moments of Relaxation:
Establish moments of relaxation for your partner. Whether it’s drawing a warm bath, enjoying a cup of tea, or simply having a quiet moment to herself, creating opportunities for relaxation contributes to overall well-being.
Celebrate Small Achievements:
Celebrate the small victories in parenting. Whether it’s successfully soothing a fussy baby or achieving a full night’s sleep, acknowledging these moments fosters positivity and shared accomplishment.
Be Patient and Flexible:
Every postpartum journey is unique. Be patient, adaptable, and understanding. Recognize that there will be challenges, but your unwavering support makes a significant difference.
Assisting your partner after giving birth involves a delicate blend of understanding, empathy, and active participation. By fostering a supportive environment that prioritizes physical recovery, emotional well-being, and shared responsibilities, you contribute to a positive postpartum experience for both your partner and your growing family. Remember, navigating this journey together strengthens the foundation of your relationship and sets the stage for a beautiful parenting adventure.
When you are single people tend to leave you be, like you’re a sad hermit, once you get married you receive marriage advice, then if you have a kid, you receive a flood of unwanted parenting advice. Keep in mind, I never really asked anyone for advice, neither did my partner, but you will get it from family, friends and even complete strangers while you’re at the post office.
So why do people become a helpline that you didn’t call once you have a child? I have found it much worse among older people, especially strangers – as their memories float back to perhaps a brighter and happier time with their own children who no longer talk to them – a time full of parenting tidbits that are likely to be pointless at best, or potentially deadly to your child due to its out of date nature. Well, I guess this is growing up – eventually reaching an age where you grab random strangers in the street, desperately trying to pass on your pearls of wisdom.
So what the hell would I say to a young person 30-40 years from now, or even my own child?
Cargo pants should always be in fashion.
Pop punk should only be your gateway punk.
Oh wait, this is supposed to be about parenting not the start of a rant about how all the music I like is now “classic music” and “retro”.
Try not to die
I cannot emphasise this enough when starting your journey as a parent. If you wake up each day (or night depending on how awful your child’s sleep patterns are – FYI mine sleeps through all night, sucker!) and haven’t passed away in your sleep, then you’re there to take care of your little one for at least another day.
You don’t know what you’re doing – nobody does
The thing about parenting is that nobody really knows what they are doing, if they did there wouldn’t be so many terrible adults in the world would there? I would say “be yourself” but I don’t know you, what if you’re an awful person? In that case I would have to say pretend to be someone else. During the pregnancy, we literally had so much conflicting advice from midwives, people we know, the internet and from the weird landlord that hated women and immigrants that it was best to just let nature take its course. Believe me, if something is wrong your beautiful little bundle of screams will let you know.
Use money to buy time to yourself
A great thing we found is called a “babysitter”. The first time they came and looked after the precious, it felt like I had been released from some sort of bizarre torture chamber where you had to care for another person, but they couldn’t verbalise their needs, only scream them. As a writer, it’s obviously a little harder when someone is screaming while you are writing. Silence is a parent’s best friend. But don’t be fooled into thinking family is the answer, they will want to talk to you or something when they come to take care of your child, pay a professional, they don’t mind if you don’t talk to them. Family members will think you’re rude, and if they are parents they will probably want to care for your child with outdated voodoo that I mentioned earlier.
Believe nobody, not even Daderoo!
We went to a class, it was a single class, to prepare for precious… one class. I remember during University I did an entire semester on just the golden era of screen musicals, you know Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – and I wasn’t even gay, just filling in units for my degree. So basically, I am more prepared to write and produce a studio musical than I am for rearing a child. Even then, the things they taught us extended to practicing putting on a nappy, wrapping precious in a cloth and seeing how baby should face before they shoot out.
None of these things are particularly useful. It would have been better to see how to properly secure your baby to the side of its cot, or how to capture all your baby’s vomit before it coats your carpet (I actually mastered this on my own by making my arms a sealed upper pooling area, by crossing them and holding them close to my chest, using the baby as a barrier, just like a traditional water reservoir.) Whatever weird, helpful, untrue or dangerous advice you’ve been given, remember you’re the parent, everyone else is just waiting for you to screw up – so they can offer their pearls of wisdom.
As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and while I did have the best of intentions to write about my experiences during and after pregnancy, the reality of a new little person in my life threw that into a special kind of chaos.
Our little baby girl Alexandra arrived almost a year ago now, and that is how little free time I have these days. But, as you can see, I am trying to start again with many of my writing projects as Mum and Baby are having a sleep.
However, despite the lack of writing on what was meant to be a great writing exercise on having our first child, I am now armed with experience, anecdotes and solutions to real problems.
I’m not talking about those birthing class problems (believe me, they don’t really cover jack) but actual useful problems, such as feeding, soothing and surviving.
If you don’t believe me, you can check and see that my last post was just under 12 months ago, conveniently just before this gorgeous addition to our family arrived.
While we have had our ups and downs, stress and a whole lot of messes, I feel more able to cope with the extremes that life can throw at you.
I guess it’s because I now have someone that I can shield from the stresses and problems in the world, and that makes all the hard work and sleepless nights worthwhile.
Enough about me though, because it’s my beautiful wife who is the real hero. I will be writing a bit about our birthing experience (pending approval from my wife obviously) and I hope our “not according to plan” experience and our emotional roller coaster might provide some insight to expecting parents out there, oh, and Dads of course!
Remember, if you are lucky enough to have a partner there with you during the pregnancy (guy or girl) there are many who don’t. Be a team, support each other, AND make sure you check back to my blog for more articles and even some recipes to save you a fortune on over packaged baby food.
