Planning Postpartum & The Fourth Trimester

It has taken me to baby number three to realise the importance of how I spend those first few weeks post birth. After baby number one, I played host to friends who wanted to come hold the baby, after number two, I felt the rush to "get back to it" as soon as humanly possible. Join me as I share with you my lessons, thoughts and plans for the fourth trimester this time around. I had no idea how important postpartum really is and encourage you, especially first time mummas, to prioritise you and your baby during this time.

My Top Resources:

BOOKS -

The First Forty Days by Heng Ou

Post-Natal Depletion Cure by Oscar Serrallach

The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson

Village For Mama recipes

FIND IN YOUR LOCAL AREA:

IBCLC Lactation Consultant

Postpartum Doula

Postpartum Food Services (eg. The Golden Month, Meals 4 Mummas)

So let's get into today's episode all around postpartum. And now there's really four areas that I want us to think about when it comes to postpartum or the first six weeks, the first 40 days, fourth trimester, whatever you want to call this time. And the first one is healing. The second one is feeding. The third one is bonding and the fourth point is family adjustment.

So really when we're thinking about healing, if you had surgery, what would you do? You would rest and recover. So why is it when we give birth, do we feel like we are so expected to just get back up and keep going? And when you think about your uterus has just expanded to points beyond, I don't even know that I can expand any further than I currently am right now, but then when you birth your placenta, your placenta is the size of a small dinner plate. There is a dinner plate sized wound in your uterus that needs to heal. So that's why you need at least 7 to 10 days of complete rest, of not doing really much to help ease the bleeding, help heal the placenta wound, but then you also need to take it easy, just like you would if you had a surgery, you would call on your support team, you would call on your family or your friends to help you. You would take really good care of yourself. You've nourished yourself with good food. So we really need to be doing that in our postpartum journey too.

So a few things to think about is who is your main support person and how long do you have them around for? So for me, my main support person is my husband. And he, at the moment, we're planning for him to have two weeks off. However, we are flexible with days and times that he goes back.

So who's my main support person. How long do I have them for and what will their support look like? So this will be different for everyone, especially if you have other children. So there's all these different things that we need to be thinking about and what gaps need plugging and how can we do that?

And then you can look at, okay, well, who is in our inner circle? So we have a lot of our family that live really close. We've got some really good friends that I know would be willing to help us. But what are the things that we need from them. What are those gaps that Pedr or I aren't going to be able to do that they can help us with - meals, cleaning, errands etc

And my thing is that I've taken all non-urgent things off the calendar. So if I don't have to do it or don’t particularly want to, I'm not going to do it. Then I can have an idea of knowing what those first six weeks are going to look like. And know that if something doesn't come with ease or bring us joy, then we're not going to do it.

This allows yourself the time to heal. So it takes six weeks for a uterus to go back to its size and the placenta wound to heal, but it can be longer. It's about 7 to 10 days for the bleeding to start to really ease and also, five days for your milk to come in. But then about six weeks to establish the feeding. 

Another thing that I've been doing this time around is preparing for my breastfeeding journey, because I was not prepared for baby one or two, and so breastfeeding. I didn't have the support that I needed and it didn't happen for us, which is fine. But this time one thing that I would really love to be able to do is to breastfeed my baby. So I've hired a lactation consultant that has come by and we just did our prenatal consult the other day. And she will come over after we get home from the hospital with baby. And so I really set up to have good support from a consultant around that area too.

And then the, when it comes to family adjustment is making sure that Pedr and I still have time together. So even if it is just 10 minutes and we get five minutes each, and to ask each other, how are you really feeling what's coming up for you? What are some things that you're struggling with or what are some things that you're really loving at the moment? What are some things that we need to do to make something easy for you and give them five minutes? And then you can have your five minutes of saying what's really struggling for you or whatever's coming up for you. And the thing is that clear communication is key. So we're not making up stories about what they're thinking or what they're doing or anything like that. It's kind to be clear. So to have clear communication with each other is so important.

And another thing that you can do with your partner is for them to be the gatekeeper. So everything, every visit, every message, everything goes through him in the beginning. So when people want to come and drop off a meal, they can message him. When people want to come and visit. They can message him. And knowing this and having these conversations before the birth is going to help set you up for success. And also having the conversations around, what's going to be our night time strategy when I've reached my limit. So when I just feel like I can't do it anymore, when I want to run away what is going to be our strategy and what's going to be as strategy when the middle of the night and I lose the plot.

This is really important. What is going to be out code word when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I want visitors to leave, but they don't seem to leave but I don't have the confidence or energy to say, get out. So what's going to be our plan there. It's all about having these plans in place before it happens. And the thing is that if you don't think about it, then you don't know.

So as a first time mum, I felt like I had to host people when they would come over. People that don't normally care would want to come over and see the baby. Really. They say they want to check in with you, but we all know they want to come and hold the baby. And I would be there a young first time mom with a two week old baby and having to feel like I need to host people - I have to get them something to eat, make them a cup of tea.

So it's having a plan in place to firefight and having your partner as the gatekeeper is such a good way because your hormones and emotions are still a bit all over the place for a little while and that's okay. So to have him as the gatekeeper to say, yeah, you can bring a meal, but it's just not a really great time to come inside. You can bring a meal, we'd appreciate you to drop your delivery at the front door. So that is how you can really get your partner involved in this time as well.

And then for us, we have two other children. So how do we get them involved and help them adjust to having a baby? One thing that they are going to do is when I am in hospital, before they come and visit Pedr is going to take them to the shop, buy a gift from them, for the baby. So they will choose a gift. And we also have bought them a present from the baby. When we go to hospital, they’re going to their nanny and Poppy's and we have a birth day cake for them to bake. Of course the baby can eat it, but we can eat it to say happy birth day for the baby.

So they just small practical things. But the other thing that we're really going to be intentional with is me also having time with my other children individually. That's just with them, whether that's taking them out the back to the park or reading them a story or doing a painting or something like that where it is just time with just that child and me. So it's not too much of a stark contrast to mummy's just with the baby now.

And then just some one more thought that I wanted to touch on was food. It's so important, and I get a little bit annoyed at the food that we get offered in hospitals after we have a baby, but because you want to eat warm, slow, cooked, easily digested foods, your body doesn't really want a cold yogurt and a ham salad sandwich. It wants food to help nourish and fuel it and help replenish all the nutrients and everything that's currently depleted. After you give birth, your body's craving food to help bring that back. So there's a book called the first 40 days that goes into a lot of detail around foods and what kind of foods we want. There's also lots of beautiful services that are available, where you can get postpartum meals delivered to your door that are made, especially for women in their postpartum season.

And then just some final tips as well. What are things that we need help with? Okay, well, we're going to need help with cleaning. We'll probably need help with groceries, with food, with folding, the washing, with doing washing things like that. Write down a list of the things and goes back to what I was talking about at the beginning, what gaps need plugging, write down a list of those things and ask people what you need and they will happily meet you there.

And I know that this is a really hard thing, and I found it even now really hard and knowing how important this postpartum season is and knowing how important it is to calling your village and have them help you. But it is so hard because there is such a stigma with needing to be able to do it all ourselves. And I believe that we really need to break this stigma that this needs to be the new norm, that these conversations and this expectation needs to be the new normal of early motherhood. Not of - You just have a baby and you're back at it the next week.

And my last tip is to have a list practitioners that you might need ready to go before the baby comes. So things like a physiotherapist, a lactation consultant, a psychologist, or a counsellor, a baby nurse, things like that. This way, it’s ready to go, so you're not then trying to find someone late at night. You can go to your little list and go, okay. I need to see a lactation consultant, okay, who was on my list, I'm going to contact them. 

That’s just some of my thoughts and little lists of postpartum/fourth trimester, what I'm doing, what I'm going to focus on because we really deserve to rest and replenish our body in this time. So I hope that that has helped you, particularly if you are at a first or second time mom or third or fourth, it's not too late to prioritise yourself in your postpartum time. I definitely wished that I did it earlier. But we know better, now we can do better.