The positives of staying inside with a new baby

A lot of people are sad and disappointed that they’re not going to be able to have the time they hoped for once their baby was born. You can’t go to classes, you can’t have visitors, you can’t go out and socialise very easily, you can’t access the feeding support you might want, you maybe can’t think about getting into the exercise routine you were looking forward to getting back to…

Getting your head around this being a very different time to what you expected can be hard, and you might need to allow yourself some space to be angry or upset or disappointed. That’s partly why we set up this group, so you can connect with others who might also be feeling similar things to you. Getting some support to help you find your way through these feelings is much better for you than just pretending they’re not there.

Getting our heads round this change takes a bit of time, and it’s OK if it doesn’t happen quickly. It’s OK to be sad or angry about how this time is going to be different to how you hoped and expected.

When you have allowed yourself space to be angry or upset (screaming under the water in the bath, throwing a tantrum on the sofa, drawing an angry squiggle drawing with a black pen are all ways of physically letting some of that go), it might help you to feel more in control of this situation if you start to find ways of seeing it as an opportunity. Here are some ideas:

1.     This might be time to recover

It’s interesting that a lot of practitioners I speak to think that NOT being able to do loads after your baby is born is a good thing. That might seem a bit counter-cultural, and it is, but one of the things that many postnatal practitioners agree on is that rest and allowing yourself time to just hang out with your baby are two of the best things you can have as a new parent.

It’s just that we don’t often get the chance to do that, because we’re bombarded with so many expectations of what we need to do with our babies that we think they need all these things. Or else we see other parents doing things and assume we should be able to do that too.

However you have just given birth, and your body and mind need some space to heal and recover. In many other cultures, mothers are encouraged to stay in bed and just hang out with their baby for at least 4 weeks after giving birth. Maybe there is some wisdom we could take from that.

2.     There are benefits to not being surrounded by other people

What new parents often don’t get, which you and your baby will have, is lack of expectations and opinions. Our society places so much pressure on new mums to be perfect, to bounce back, to recover quickly, to want to socialise immediately. Other cultures think that this is craziness! Mothers are encouraged to stay in bed with their babies and just rest and hang out.

In these very extraordinary times, rather wonderfully you can free yourself from expectations, because ALL BETS ARE OFF. You simply cannot do the things that you thought you could do, not because you’re lazy or a failure or not a ‘good mum’, but because you physically cannot do these things.

And that can be liberating, because it often makes it easier to find your own path when you have less outside influence. If you want to stay in your pyjamas all day, who cares? You don’t need to rush for appointments. You don’t need to feel that you should make cups of tea for relatives. You don’t have to worry about what guests might think of the presents you haven’t had a chance to unpack yet. You don’t have to feel worried about getting out when you’re exhausted after a bad night. You don’t need to feel a failure because you don’t seem to be as efficient at leaving the house as other people.

3.     Benefits to your relationship with your baby

One of the other bonuses of slowing down and doing less, is that it makes it easier to tune into our babies. Our babies have a MUCH slower response speed that us (it takes them at least twice as long to respond), which means that quite often we can miss what they are trying to communicate because we’ve already moved on to something else before they’ve responded.

If you go online and watch youtube videos of babies imitating their parents sticking out their tongues (there’s a great one here) you can see that even a 10 minute old baby can imitate their dad, if given enough time. But you can see here how long it takes the baby to be able to do that, and this is what we can miss when we’re rushing around.

Babies have got a lot going on and they do not need tonnes of stimulation – quite often you are enough, especially in the early months. If you want to learn more about how incredible babies are, I’d highly recommend checking out the work of Suzanne Zeedyk. Another video that can give you a sense of just how hard your baby is going to be working to develop is this lovely one of a baby learning to roll.

One of the things that I know that people are worrying about is their child’s development, and it can be really helpful to realise that they are ‘programmed’ to develop, with or without loads of stimulation and support. If you’d like to see this in action, I recommend the film ‘Babies’ which came out in 2009 – you can catch it on demand here.

These are just some of the ways that this time might give you opportunities to learn about yourself as a parent and tune into your baby in a very unpressured, unhurried way. Yes there will be bits that are harder and more anxiety provoking, and there is also the possibility that this could also be an amazing start for you and your baby. If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear from you.

Take care – Sarah xx

[I’m aware that it might be very hard to see these opportunities, especially if you are feeling very unsafe, and it’s important not to dismiss these feelings. The most important thing you can do first, is to find ways of feeling more ‘safe’ and I will write more on that soon.]