Podcast: A Mindful Fourth Trimester with Guest Sophie Burch

A Mindful Fourth Trimester with Guest Sophie Burch

Season 1, Episode 8

In this episode I'm joined by guest Sophie Burch and we talk candidly about life as a new parent of a baby. The feelings and emotions you might encounter at this time, tools and techniques to make this time positive for yourselves. Sophie works extensively with women throughout the perinatal period and her wise words are a must listen for any pregnant or new mothers.

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TRANSCRIPTION

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I know right now you have no idea what to expect from birth, what it's going to feel like, how it's going to pan out.

And so what you thought was going to be this glowing experience of pregnancy has turned you into a bunch of nerves.

Well, you were in the right place because I am here to hold your hand as you prepare for the birth of your baby through the birth-ed online course, the course that gives you the information you thought you were going to get from your antenatal appointments and didn't.

The birth-ed course opens your eyes to everything you need to navigate your pregnancy and birth choices so you can feel confident, informed, and ready to take back control.

Available worldwide for just £40 or $50, sign up now via the link in the show notes.

Welcome to the birth-ed podcast, where we open up conversations about all aspects of pregnancy, birth, and parenthood, so you feel fully informed, confident, and positive about what this journey might entail.

I'm Megan Rossiter, founder of birth-ed, and your host here at the birth-ed podcast.

Birth-ed offers comprehensive, positively presented antenatal and hypnobirthing classes, both in person and online.

So if you like what you hear, be sure to come check us out on our website or social media.

Don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes.

Believe me when I say we will leave no stone unturned when it comes to preparing you for your pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.

Before we kick off today, I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about the courses offered by birth-ed, because we are actually a little bit more than just a pregnancy, birth and parenthood podcast.

We offer in-person courses in the UK and an online course which is accessible worldwide.

The birth-ed course is totally unique in that it offers both a comprehensive antinatal preparation, so covering everything, all your birth choices, possible interventions, decision-making tools, your pain relief options, your birthplace choices, optimal positioning, kind of everything that you might want to know about having a baby.

But also included in that is a full hypnobirthing course, so giving you practical tools and techniques that you can use in labour to help you feel calm, to help you feel comfortable.

And ultimately, the whole course is there to get you to a place where you feel confident and excited about giving birth.

Thousands of parents have accessed the birth-ed courses now, and time and time again, they're getting in touch to let me know that they had the positive birth experience that they set out for, in whichever way ended up being the right way for them and their babies on the day.

So if you're enjoying the podcast content, but you're thinking you might want a few more kind of practical ways to prepare for birth, then you can visit our website or drop me an email for more information.

Okay, so back to today's podcast.

Hi, welcome back to The birth-ed podcast.

I'm joined today by Sophie Burch, who is a hypno CBT therapist specializing in the perinatal period and women's mental health.

She's worked in the birth and baby world for 13 years, is also a hypnobirthing teacher, baby massage instructor, a roma therapist, and mum to four boys, including twins.

Thank you so much for finding time in that hectic schedule to fit me in today.

Well, thanks for coming along.

This is great fun.

I'm down visiting Sophie in Kent today, so we're gonna go and hit the beach later, if we've got time.

And the sun's shining.

And the sun is shining.

So a good day to kind of talk about, this episode is kind of gonna focus on the kind of journey from being a pregnant mom or a parent expecting a baby into the kind of first early few months of parenthood.

We sometimes talk about this as the fourth trimester.

You might have seen this written down.

You might have heard of it.

I remember when I was pregnant, finding it very annoying, but they had the word fourth and trimester next to each other because trim means three.

But I've kind of gotten over my aversion to the phrase now.

So, Sophie, just explain to me, what do we mean when we talk about the fourth trimester, even though it maybe doesn't make too much sense.

Yeah, I think it essentially means, well, it used to mean the first six weeks, eight weeks.

Now it's kind of the first three months postpartum.

It is quite blurry as to when it ends, really.

It's about transitioning into parenting.

And for a baby, obviously, it's that important time of getting to know mom and dad and vice versa.

So it's that, it's when your hormones are rebalancing.

So Alexandra Sacks in America has recently made matressence, that idea of matressence.

It's really important about understanding how the hormones are rebalancing themselves.

So that also has been put into the fourth trimester time.

Obviously, that goes on for a while as well.

I like the idea of there being a fourth trimester, even though, yeah, I agree.

Maybe because it helps us to understand it a little bit more about this time being very much part of the whole experience of pregnancy, birth, and re-adjustments.

Yeah, and I suppose something that is interesting, I guess, about something that I find very interesting about humans is that there's a kind of theory that actually human babies are basically born too soon because we walk upright, we require quite small pelvises, because as a species, we're quite intelligent, we have quite big brains, and we have quite big heads.

So there's a kind of thought kind of backed up by that science that actually humans are born earlier than they would have been kind of in terms of evolution, and human babies rely on their parents for survival for a much longer period than any other animal.

You know, giraffes come out, and they can kind of walk around, and human babies come out, and they require essentially a mother for everything, to eat, to feel safe, to be protected from everything.

And that is the kind of the period, I suppose, that when we're talking about the fourth trimester, it kind of takes that into...

Yeah, yeah, that really makes sense, actually.

And, I mean, I think that goes through life, doesn't it?

I need the mothering.

And it's the connections, isn't it?

And I often refer to that fourth trimester time as still being a kind of an invisible or umbilical cord that is still very much...

You know, that baby very much needs everything that it still needed when it was in utero and growing, except it's outside of you, but in terms of attachment and the needs there are really huge, especially emotionally and psychologically, for both baby and for parent.

And that just doesn't end with the fourth trimester.

Obviously, that continues through, as they are, you know, until they become very independent child-to-child relationships.

Which is, what, 30, 40?

So, that kind of new mum thing and the fourth trimester thing are actually quite different, because I still feel, I've got a three-year-old, I still feel like a new mum.

I don't know if you still feel like a new mum of a teenager, but you're a new mum of whatever stage your child is at that is new to you.

So a kind of new parent goes on forever.

Yeah, I like to see it more as early parenting.

And just as learning new skills as you go along, things that are, especially with the work that I do, things are going to help on an emotional and psychological level to help you to deal with the curve balls and the challenges as they arise.

And to know that that will happen and to live in a world where you are kind of accepting a little bit more and sort of lowering expectancies ever so slightly.

Fourth trimester is painted to us by the media as a time where you see a picture perfect of beautiful-looking, rosy mother with perfect-looking baby and equally rosy father standing next to them.

This idea of it being like that all the time in reality obviously is so very different.

It does affect us enormously emotionally, and then of course coupled with the tiredness of the lack of sleep.

And the challenges of a newborn, I bet this is a whole new thing.

Even if you've had a baby before, if you've done it before, this is a new baby.

It's a unique experience again and again.

And understanding that the fourth trimester, when you've already got a little one and you're bringing a new baby into the world, will be different from the first time round.

And I think, you know, lots of people have expectations of, you know, the second time and third time, that it will somehow be easier because you've done it before, but in some ways, it isn't.

And so kind of looking at that time as a whole and reflecting perhaps on your previous experiences and understanding perhaps what you can do differently next time and what really matters to you most.

So in the work I do, we talk a lot about the relational elements of in pregnancy, but also postpartum.

And that's relationship with self, primarily, it starts with you, and then relationship with your partner, if you have one, and family, close family.

Then you've got friends.

And then also we look at relationships of work as well, because many, many new parents are entrepreneurial.

They're working from home, working for themselves, and how that sort of fits into the equation, or you know you've only got a certain amount of time before you have to go back to work.

And that isn't something that many people consider about how that's going to make them feel.

So in the fourth trimester, it kind of brings all of this up to the surface.

So it's really useful to take some time to look at that and to work through it.

So let's take it kind of right, right back to basics.

The kind of first few weeks after, whether it's your...

And I suppose, I don't know, I have only had one baby, but I imagine that period is somewhat different with a first and a subsequent baby because of the kind of extra demands that a toddler or a young child would kind of put on your day-to-day life.

But I always think of that as something that I really remember really fondly, and I know my mom talked about when she had us, is that those first few weeks, it's like time stands completely still.

Like day could be night, night could be day.

You don't know what time it is.

You eat when you're hungry, you sleep when you're tired, if you can.

And it's like you don't know why there's still news on the TV.

You don't know why everybody on the street isn't stopping to kind of congratulate you because your entire world has just kind of completely shifted.

And that's a lot to get your head around.

So in those first few weeks, what can we be doing?

What can we kind of be considering during pregnancy to make that fast, like kind of super, super big transition as gentle and easy as possible for ourselves?

Yeah, I mean, I think in the busy world that we live in these days, we're very, very busy.

And also technology makes us very busy.

And it's about reflecting on how you're going to feel when you slow down, when time stands still in that way.

Because that can bring up a lot of emotion for people.

And they won't know where it's coming from.

It's just this feeling of restlessness, this feeling of I should be doing something.

What can I do to make this better?

This kind of anxiety that sits there that you think, where's this come from?

Why is it here?

So it's about reflecting a little perhaps in pregnancy about how you can take time to slow down before you have your baby.

Or if you can't for whatever reason, then how you can do that postpartum.

So it's using simple skills like mindfulness, for instance, that help you to be more aware in the moment, be more present, that help you to sort of slow things down ever so slightly.

When you talk about mindfulness for somebody that's not really experienced, what does mindfulness mean to you?

I think for me, mindfulness means peace and sitting with emotion.

It's about not trying to change anything.

It's not fighting anything.

It's understanding that thoughts are just thoughts.

It's reflection on stepping back.

It's an observation of life.

So being in the moment, being more present, it doesn't necessarily mean sitting and being zen like a Buddha.

Sometimes when you have the stereotypical...

If you haven't practiced mindfulness, if you're not familiar with it, you're like, I don't think I want to go and sit there and listen to music or sit in silence and meditate.

But it doesn't necessarily mean that.

No, it's about taking micro moments of time so that you can live life more moment by moment and appreciate it.

So it's about, when you do that, when you still the mind, you can bank those moments a lot easier rather than rushing through.

And so that's why it helps so much with people who experience anxiety, for instance, because with mindfulness, when you're slowing that thought process down to observe what's going on, it enables you to sit with it, not fight it, rather than kind of dive in and really absorb yourself with it.

Of course, then we know what happens, which generally makes us feel worse.

So mindfulness, especially with postpartum and with parenting, it's more about being aware.

Yeah, and would you say, because we're quite, just as a species, particularly kind of in modern day, we're quite kind of forward-thinking, we're always preempting, when's the next sleep, when are we going to do weaning, when's the next beat, and does that kind of take away a little bit of the relentlessness of it, would you say?

Yes, yeah.

And because when you're being mindful and you're being in that moment, you can't be going back in time in terms of all the things that have happened that have made you feel the way you're feeling, and essentially you wouldn't be speeding into the future as well.

So it's just about being more present.

And is it just a case of in that moment just being aware of that, or are there kind of active things that you can reach for, that you can do to make you feel a little bit more mindful in early parenthood?

Yeah, so I mean, if you're taking a mindful approach, it's essentially mindfulness is a form of meditation.

So if you're not wanting to go really deep into that, then you're taking a mindful approach.

So you're using mindfulness, the idea of mindfulness, and being aware as a tool to get you into a place where then you can think more clearly.

And you can say, oh gosh, silly me, I'm kind of rushing ahead of myself.

Or, you know, actually, is it doing me any good reflecting on all of that stuff that happened right now?

What's the best thing for me in this moment?

So it helps you to be more problem-solving and more proactive in that way.

So to sit with the emotions and understand them, where they've come from and why.

And then to kind of go into more of a, perhaps a cognitive behavioral exercise of kind of writing stuff down so that you can then reflect on it.

So writing down emotions, writing down problems.

What crops up for you?

Yeah, so it helps, I mean, especially in early parenting, perhaps if you've had an experience of birth that wasn't what you were expecting, then that can leave you with all sorts of thoughts and feelings that are cropping up, and emotions in terms of guilt, shame, you know, blame, all sorts.

And so when you're practicing using mindfulness in that way, you're able just to sit with that and say, you know, was that really my fault?

Yeah.

What do I need to do in order to make myself feel better in this moment right now?

It can be very healing.

Yeah, absolutely.

I was chatting to a mum actually just recently, and she ended up, she was saying that she ended up having a birth that wasn't what she had wanted, what she had pictured, what she had imagined.

And those feelings that you mentioned, kind of feeling guilty, feeling sad, kind of mourning that, and feeling like she did something wrong.

And I suppose mindfulness is great in that, because having the, there's nothing wrong with feeling those feelings.

And I think it's like people feel that, oh, but I really wanted this to happen, and it didn't, but I got what I wanted.

It was still positive, or it was still okay, it was still safe, everyone was healthy.

I should be feeling grateful, I should be feeling happy, but I don't.

I don't feel grateful, I don't feel happy.

And I think it's acknowledging that those, it doesn't mean that you didn't have a positive birth, it doesn't mean that you did anything wrong, but you are allowed to feel sad, you are allowed to feel disappointed.

I remember we planned a home birth, and I was desperately disappointed that we didn't get it.

I still had a very positive birth, but you're allowed to, your feelings are always valid, like you're allowed to feel whatever you feel, and I suppose that is where mindfulness comes in.

Yes, because it helps to prevent us from shelving stuff that perhaps we do need to deal with in those moments, because the more we can do that, the more empowering it can feel as well.

So yes, it's kind of, it helps you to be more forgiving with yourself.

Early parenting is a time when you are very vulnerable, probably at your most vulnerable.

And with vulnerability comes shame and guilt and all of these emotions, anger, resentment, because it's so raw.

And it's an emotion that, as we grow up, we're sort of taught that being vulnerable isn't a great thing to be.

Yeah.

And the more we can understand that vulnerability does have its place and that it's okay to be vulnerable, especially in early parenting, the easier it feels to allow the emotions to come as they need to.

And all emotions are great, actually.

It's good that we feel these things.

If we didn't, then, you know, we are a very different world that we live in.

Yeah.

And I appreciate that some of these emotions are very overwhelming and can be very scary and bring up thought processes that you would never have dreamt of before.

And if that's the case, then, you know, mindfulness also in those moments can help you to reflect on the fact that it is just a thought that's happening.

It isn't real.

Yeah.

And that, you know, if things are escalating and getting, you know, too much for you in terms of the intrusive thoughts that are coming up, then, you know, then perhaps it's time to be able to kind of have the courage to then say to somebody, Yeah.

Can I talk about this?

Yeah.

Whether it's a friend or a professional.

It takes, that takes a lot of bravery, doesn't it?

And it can take people years to reach the point where they feel like I'm happy to tell somebody this feeling that I've potentially been feeling for a really, really long time.

But when people feel like they're ready to make that shift, like you've done a hell of a lot of the work even to get to that point.

Yes.

And most of us don't talk about the things that make us feel ashamed.

Yeah.

Because we're afraid of what it means.

And we, you know, most of us have seen things in the media or heard stories, you know, awful stories of things happening to people.

Especially the big thing with being a new parent, the biggest fear is having a baby taken away from you because you're having certain thoughts.

Yeah.

And the reality of that is, you know, it's very, very rare that a baby will ever be taken away from you.

Yeah, and I suppose the fear of that, if you're in a place where you're feeling ashamed and you're feeling fearful, the fear of that probably gets blown out of proportion because of the emotions that you're having, not because of the rational part of your brain actually thinking that it's unlikely.

And I think the more we can understand that there is a level of normality in all of this, there's a fantastic woman who's a clinical psychologist called Dr.

Boyd, who has recently done some research, and it's all about these intrusive thoughts that we have as new parents, and looking at what the normality is in that, and obviously, you know, when it crosses the line into being something that is a little bit more concerning.

But the majority of us that have, you know, that wouldn't dream of telling anybody the fact that we've held on to our baby as we're walking down the stairs and actually thought about what would happen if we dropped them, for instance.

You know, we would never say that to anybody, would we?

We'd be like, oh my god, they're going to think I'm terrible.

But they're going to think I'm crazy.

But actually, it probably is cross mode, not with the intention of ever doing it, but just with the kind of hypothetical.

Because it's basically our protection mode kicking in.

So that's what our brains are doing in that moment.

As we're walking down the stairs, we're realizing that we have to be, bring in the safety mode.

Yeah.

And so those times when we're very vulnerable, our brain is kicking into that gear of keeping us safe and our baby safe hypervigilantly all the time.

So some things may feel very extreme in terms of the thoughts and the feelings that you have in order to ensure that that happens.

Because at Evil Inutionary, we are still built to protect ourselves from, say, the toothed tigers that are going to eat us and our young corner, even though, you know, that doesn't, obviously, thank God, happen anymore.

But our brains are hardwired to do that.

Yeah, exactly.

And especially in early parenting, we are hugely protective of our young, so that will bring up all sorts of things.

So again, that's why techniques like breathwork and relaxation and using elements of mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy is really useful because it helps us to realize when perhaps our stress levels are so high that it's not realistic, and we can take stock of that and take a few moments to just say, hang on a minute, is this where I need to be right now or not?

And our children, when we have a screaming baby in our arms, our children, to us, are like that saber-toothed tiger that is going to attack us, because our brains kick into that gear, and we are, as much as we love them, we're also going into that protective mode.

And of course, that's when the shame and the guilt and everything comes up, because you're thinking, why am I thinking these thoughts and feeling these feelings?

And I love this little thing, but my god, it just won't stop crying.

What can I do about it?

And then you're feeling hopeless and useless, and all of that comes up.

So if you can just take a game, just take a moment or two to take stock, and lower those cortisol levels by doing something so simple like breathing.

Conscious breathing is like it switches on your inner calm.

It lowers the stressor hormones and helps you to think more clearly.

So talk me through conscious breathing then.

If somebody's listening right now, and they've got a screaming baby, what literally can they do with their breath just to get them in a better calm?

I mean, the difference between, obviously, automatic breathing and conscious breathing is that when you're automatically breathing, you're just breathing to stay alive.

And conscious breathing is breathing with intent.

So you would be taking a moment to make sure that the breath you bring in is slightly longer, slightly slower, and that you notice how you are breathing.

So with conscious breathing, we talk about it being a diaphragmatic breathing.

So we essentially would breathe more from our belly as we expand our diaphragm.

But you don't have to do that.

If you're very, very stressed, and your cortisol is really high, you're going into that fight-flight-freeze or fawn adrenaline response, in those moments, you just need to be able to breathe fully and easily.

So if you can breathe through your nose and out through your mouth, that can be enough.

So you would breathe in for as long as you can, and then you would pause and notice that pause, and then you let the breath come out, and you double the amounts of breath as it comes out.

So it's like elongating that breath out.

It's almost like a big sigh, so let it come out, and then you notice as soon as you've done that, take a pause, and then you're in again, in through your nose.

So as you get used to doing this, you do it at your own pace.

There's no real right or wrong with this, because what's happening as you do this with intent is you're switching on your parasympathetic nervous system.

That's your calm down.

So it lowers the cortisol, and it brings up your serotonin and your dopamine and the general feel good.

It also helps to lower any pain amazingly.

Breath is incredible.

So you think about it, you're bringing in all that lovely oxygen that the body needs.

Every cell in the body needs oxygen to function properly.

So if we're breathing in fully like that, you are giving yourself a bit of a superpower in that moment.

And then as you exhale, because we lengthen the exhalation slightly longer than the inhalation, we're really able to let go of anything that the body doesn't need.

So everything that comes in must go out.

So if you're doubling the length of time or just breathing slightly longer out, it really helps to kind of let go.

And that can also help on a mental and emotional level as well.

So you can really think about as you're exhaling, not only are you letting go what your body doesn't need anymore, but what your mind doesn't need.

So like, actually, I'm just going to let go of this stress.

I'm going to breathe out the anger.

I'm going to just let go of whatever it is that I just don't want or need in this moment.

And by the time you've done three to five of those, your cortisol levels should be a lot lower.

And you naturally feel a little bit more relaxed, so your shoulders and your jaw will be more loose and less tense.

It's the first thing to go, isn't it?

And especially when you're holding a baby in your arms, and of course, they will sense that.

So, and they mirror your breathing, especially in the early days.

So if you can breathe slowly and with intent, then they'll be calming down a little bit with you.

It might take a bit longer, obviously, for them to calm down, because they can't self-regulate.

But if you can show them that this is the way to do it, rather than being very tense, physically as you're holding this baby in your arms, which we all do, because when you've got a baby that's crying and you've tried everything and it won't stop crying, it's very hard not to be tense.

But if you can just take some time to do that, then it will be really, really beneficial.

And it might then give you the clarity of mind to think, actually, in this moment, I just need to put my baby down.

Yeah.

I need to go and take a few moments for myself.

Or hand the baby over to somebody else that's there, if they are there.

And just think more clearly about it and say, you know, maybe use some affirmations.

I use language, a lot of power of language, reaffirming to yourself that this is okay, in this moment, we're doing the best we can, and this isn't normal and natural and babies cry, and this isn't personal and all of that.

Because of course, if you're neocortex, your brain is thinking that that baby is a saber-toothed tiger, then we have to be rational.

But it's very hard to be.

Yeah.

And I suppose that, you know, that play, I can see this being very beneficial for wrestling with a three-year-old.

And I think something that's kind of important to consider is that actually those difficult periods, the difficult moments throughout, well, the whole of childhood, but particularly throughout that kind of first few months, that first year even, does come at different moments to different people.

And it's okay to actually find some bits really easy and lovely and enjoy them and then find other bits really difficult.

And something that I know we kind of found, the first six weeks, I remember thinking, God, what was everybody talking about?

This was so easy.

And we were just lucky.

We had this baby that slept and was pretty content.

And then for us, God, 16 weeks came, and it was like a different child.

And all of those things had been so, so beneficial at that point.

And then we had friends who those first few weeks were just like torture, and they found them so, so difficult.

And I think that's something that we don't tend to talk about as parents, as mothers, is that, say, like, you are allowed to also enjoy bits of it and find bits of it fine and okay.

Or if just because you're finding one bit difficult when somebody else is finding another bit easy, it does not mean that theirs is going to be easy forever.

You will have your moment when your bit is everything's going well and swimmingly, and they'll have their moment when it's swapped.

And what can be very useful is when you are meeting that resistance, is to see if you can reframe it and be inquisitive about it.

It's like, why am I not enjoying this?

Where's this coming from?

Sometimes it can be coming from something from your own childhood or fears that you have that have been with you for a long time.

It's like, why am I really not enjoying this moment?

What is it about it that I'm not enjoying?

So you can be quite proactive about it.

See, what will make it better?

How can I make it better?

And if I can't, well, that's okay.

And that's fine.

So having a bit of a problem-solving attitude to it, which helps to build your resilience a little.

And sometimes it's a really practical thing.

When you're in that heat of crying and feeding and sleeping, no sleep, and it's a bit relentless, it's very difficult to step out and go, actually, if I had somebody that I could talk to about this, if I made a new friend, if I had half an hour to myself, if I took the time to have a bath every single day, so coming up with those practical things is quite difficult.

I don't know if you do this with clients, but something I always talk to with people that I'm working out at Italy is to write down, if you listen to this whilst you're pregnant, write down whilst you're pregnant things that you do in five minutes, in ten minutes, in 30 minutes, right now that you enjoy doing that makes you feel happy, because when you're in it, you honestly forget anything that you ever did.

When you work late, it becomes...

It's such a big shift that you completely forget life before baby, and you can't remember where you went, what you ate, whatever you did for enjoyment.

And so just having a list...

Often you spend the half an hour trying to think up something to do in half an hour, and then half an hour has passed, and you completely miss the boat.

I still do this now.

Sometimes my other half might surprise me with an afternoon off, and I sit there for the entire afternoon, wondering what to do, and then he comes home, and I haven't done anything.

So having literally a list of things where you can go, right, the baby's asleep, I've potentially got 20 minutes, half an hour, that I've got to enjoy, what am I going to kind of do with myself?

The most important thing when you're in that time is to reflect back inwards and look after you.

And this is where self-care comes in so much.

I think lots of people think that self-care is something that is potentially a bit selfish, or that is something that needs to be a grand gesture, like going and having your hair and nails done or having a massage.

But it's far from it, really.

So it's about being more mindful, more aware of taking those small amounts of time, those five minutes or even less, of just savouring a piece of chocolate or making yourself a cup of tea and really noticing how it tastes and really enjoying it.

Exactly.

I love nothing more than to put a piece of chocolate on my tongue and just let it sit and really taste it.

It's so tremendous when you can be more sensory in that way, and it feels very rewarding because suddenly you're like, oh, wow, I'm really noticing this.

It feels enjoyable.

It feels pleasurable.

So these things don't have to be huge.

Or just putting on a little track of an MP3 that's ten minutes' worth of somebody talking to you in a soothing way that's going to help you just to unwind a little.

Or having a walk.

And just noticing your surroundings as if you're seeing them for the first time.

Yeah.

So all of this is free stuff, essentially, that is very rewarding.

And it makes you then feel, allows you to then feel like you've done something for yourself.

Even as simple as just savouring something you're eating or drinking.

Spraying yourself with something nice.

You know, I'm an aromatherapist, so all my clients get given blends to use.

Obviously, you have to be more careful around newborns with aromatherapy.

But just even a little bit of hand lotion and just really breathing that in, taking a moment just to kind of really enjoy it.

Yeah.

It's enough, essentially.

If you do five or ten little things for yourself through the day, then by the end of the day, you feel like actually, you know, I am taking care of myself, but if it does start with you, as much as you've got people hopefully around you that are there to support you, you need to be able to support yourself first.

That doesn't mean to say that you can't reach out for people, but if you can look after yourself, then you'll be more aware of when you're not feeling right, and hopefully have more confidence then to be able to reach out.

Yeah, I think something that's so interesting about being able to kind of look out for yourself is that we often talk about kind of having that support around you, having people to kind of help with kind of practicalities of having a new baby.

But something that I felt in the first few, probably five, six months, and I know that a lot of other people feel, is that actually the thought of leaving your baby with anybody else, often even seeing anybody else hold your baby, it's like somebody's ripped your heart out.

And so being able to, not to feel like you have to accept that help in a way of, here's my baby, please look after them, but accepting that help in other ways, and meaning that you can still look after yourself and be with your baby.

If you want to be, for some people, they absolutely do want a day away that they can kind of go find their head space, but it's also totally normal not to want that.

And so people often talk about the kind of, the village that we don't tend to have that much anymore.

Some of us do, we're very lucky, but others, we often move away from family.

We maybe don't have, we might have local friends, but not that are kind of going to drop everything at the drop of a hat to kind of come and help.

So if we're thinking about kind of accepting that, why to help or building that network of people that can help us, how big an impact do you think that that has on that early parenthesis?

Yeah, it's really useful to reflect on that before you have your baby.

So I do that work with my auntie and auntie groups, the online stuff we do.

We talk about the relational elements of it because that is so important.

If you're surrounding yourself with people that don't make you feel very good about yourself, then what's that going to do?

Especially to that inner critic that is exceptionally loud when you are feeling very vulnerable as a new parent.

So that is so important.

Surround yourself with people that know you well and that you feel confident enough to be able to say, help, but help in this way, rather than somebody that might not be able to help you in the way that you necessarily need.

But you sort of think, oh, well, I kind of better do this.

And at the end of the day, you're both worse off.

Yeah.

So little things for people to do to help is more about, yes, allowing you to hold your baby, but doing a bit of housework or bringing a meal or reminding you or holding space for you.

So much of the work that I do pays part in with my clients is holding space for them, allowing them to feel heard and to feel held as well.

The connection is really strong in that way, and people need that so much.

We need it generally as a human race anyway.

Connection is essentially, as far as I'm concerned, it's where it all starts.

It's what we need.

Oxytocin, obviously that amazing hormone for love and bonding, obviously helps in childbirth and then with breast milk too, but it's the glue of relationships.

And so postpartum, when we're discovering the new version of ourselves, we're going through a transformation, those connections are more important than ever, the ones that we feel we can trust in so that we can be allowed the space to become who we feel we can be rather than these pressures of becoming somebody that perhaps we're not.

So it's about having people around you that aren't going to be constantly making suggestions of the things that you should be doing.

Yes.

Should is a word that should be removed.

It's about tapping into, if you can tap into intuition, and obviously when you're very, very tired, it's difficult to do, especially when you're exhausted in the first few weeks, months of new parenting.

But tapping into what you feel is good for you, for you, rather than what you think you should be doing.

Yeah.

And so in terms of the people that you surround yourself with, they're the people that matter the most, the ones that just allow you to be yourself.

You know what, if you just want to sit here and just have me listen to you, that's absolutely fine.

And I'm not going to tell you whether I think you're right or wrong.

It's completely non-judgmental.

We all need that.

And new parents and partners too, dads, need to have a space where they can just talk about how they're feeling.

And if we had that more, I think it would be just so healing for so many people.

But of course, we're brought up in a society that generally says, especially when men are concerned, don't talk about how you're feeling.

You've got to man up.

You've got to be okay about this.

Everything's got to be, you know, and it's a huge transformation for partners as well as mothers.

So the stuff that I do post-partum really does include partners and signposting.

Yeah, absolutely.

But something that kind of came up there that is quite interesting is that I imagine this is probably similar for a lot of new parents, but for me, a lot of the shoulds, I wasn't bothered by what other people thought I should be doing.

I was quite happy to kind of let that go, but I very much had my own inner, this is the kind of parent that I want to be, and this is how you be it.

And the biggest struggle was letting go of some of that.

Just things are simple as we weren't going to use a dummy.

And oh my god, the amount of confidence and energy and stealth and legal-ness that it took to buy a dummy and give our baby a dummy, and then allow myself to believe that it really...

Honestly, it transformed things for us.

It was the best decision.

One of the best parenting decisions I've ever made, actually, was giving our very sucky baby, who had bronchiolitis and wouldn't feed, a dummy.

I mean, in my head, it was such a big deal giving this baby a dummy.

Now I can look back at it with hindsight and be like, well, yeah, just give your baby a dummy, it's fine.

But I remember it feeling massive because in my head, I had said to myself in my kind of hypothetical parenting, I wasn't going to give my baby a dummy.

And so much of that should and expectation, yes, it probably comes in a kind of subconscious way from the media and social media and all of that.

But so much of it feels actually like it comes from us, ourselves, from kind of within us.

And even if you are ready to kind of dismiss, if a well-meaning stranger tells you that you're crying baby, you should just give them a bottle short, I think some of us can kind of let that go.

Sometimes it does go to heart, but sometimes it is easier to kind of let it go over your head.

But the bits that are really difficult to let go of are the, I said I would never blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I imagine everybody is an incredible parent of their hypothetical children, and then you're presented with a real life human being that isn't the one you thought you were going to meet, and suddenly all of your shits potentially go out the window.

Yeah, I mean, I think, yes, it's about how we're conditioned and what we believe in to then have these expectations.

I mean, we all have expectations, and even when we try not to have expectations, we have expectations of not having expectations.

Oh, dear.

So, yeah, there will always be those times, and there is going to be an inner battle, and we cannot stop that.

It's just how it is.

If you can live more moment by moment and be more aware of the fact that you're going to have to change your mind sometimes over things, then it's being kinder to yourself, essentially, isn't it?

Yeah.

I'm like, all right, well, I thought that that was the right thing to do, but essentially, it isn't.

And it's about forgiving yourself and saying, okay, I can't, you know, I'm not going to get it right all the time in terms of what I believe is right.

And just, you know, okay, I forgive myself for that, and it's fine.

Actually, gosh, you know, life is so much easier now.

I have the same issue when I had Oliver.

He had colic, and he's my eldest, so he's about to be 14 now.

But I took him to a cranial osteopath, and he was a very, very...

Not the cranial osteopath, but Ollie, was a very sucky baby.

Yeah.

And this cranial osteopath was incredible.

He would always calm all down, and just see physically how his little body would just relax.

This is a baby that was just so uncomfortable, and would writhe and wriggle and scream, and his body would go so hard.

And it felt just...

I was desperately sad, and it was very, very difficult to see this little baby that I loved so much, and was recovering from the trauma of his birth at the time anyway, that I couldn't make it better.

And this osteopath said, have you tried to give him a dummy?

I'd like you to.

Absolutely not.

No way.

And he said, well, either you're going to have to let him suckle on you a lot more, or perhaps a dummy is a good idea.

And in fact, he said that in terms of newborns' development, they need to constantly produce these digestive enzymes.

And it's all part of the vagal nerve process, the rest and digest system.

And they're obviously very immature, as you say.

They're almost born before their time.

They need to mature into themselves a little.

And so a lot of babies actually need to suckle 90% of the time.

So, you know, when he told me that, and I understood then, I kind of had that psychoeducation.

It's like, oh, I understand now about the vagal nerve and what it does.

God, that makes so much sense to me.

And actually, the day that I had decided to give him a dummy was when he found his thumb.

So he found his thumb, and he was constantly suckling.

And it was just like, okay, so I don't need to do a dummy.

I don't need to use one.

But son number two had reflux, severe reflux.

And so it wasn't long in when I realized how uncomfortable he was.

I thought this is sort of similar to what happened with Ollie.

And we gave him a dummy, and it helped so much.

So it says, yes, it's just being kind to yourself and kind of educating yourself a little bit more about the realities, kind of what's happening inside those little bodies as they're growing and what's the kindest thing you can do.

I remember my cousin, who had a baby a few years before I had my first, I remember saying, I'm not going to give him Calpol or anything like that.

It was going to be cotton nappies, wooden toys, all of those things, and organic food.

And she said, but if you're in pain, and you can't make the pain go away, you take painkillers, don't you?

And I said, well, yes, I do.

She said, well, why would you put your baby through something?

If we've got something, we can give them.

And it really made me, at the time, I was thinking, gosh, okay, actually, that makes so much sense.

It's about being kinder to yourself.

So we have these core beliefs and these values, and essentially, it's from making judgements over the years of seeing other people parenting and thinking, I won't do that.

I will never be like that.

But the kindest thing is to, again, say, well, what can I do in this moment that's going to make life so much better and easier for us all?

And all those comments that people make of, you're building a rod for your back and all that.

Well, at the end of the day, it's about being in this moment right now, how are we all going to live together and heal and recover and, you know, become the family unit that we feel we need to.

But the thing that helps the most postpartum, without anything else, is understanding about oxytocin and connection.

When I was teaching baby massage groups, invariably the people that would come in who were really struggling with their babies were not connected to them.

And one of the things that I would always suggest was to go home and have some skin-to-skin time, whether that's, say, getting into bed and just having, you know, obviously baby with nappy on, but just having that warmth and that closeness and just a little bit of time just saying to the rest of the world to go away for half a day or whatever it is, or whether it's getting into a bath or if it's just having a bit more sort of kangaroo style skin-to-skin with your baby and really discovering them again.

Because a lot of the time what we do is we put our babies into clothes very quickly, and we only ever have them out of clothes when we're bathing them, and then we're putting it, especially this time of year when it's really cold, and we're not getting that real closeness.

If you're breastfeeding, then you will be getting a bit of that oxytocin time.

And even if you're bottle feeding as well, if you're, you know, sitting there consciously bottle feeding your baby, then you'll get the oxytocin and that closeness, but it's a whole other level when you're having that skin-to-skin and you're doing it with an intent, and it gets those hormones going so high, and therefore you've got that connection.

And people would come back the following week to these groups and say, everything feels just so much better now.

I feel like I have an understanding of them a bit more, and they seem to have calmed down a bit more.

And we're a bit more in the flow.

It feels like we're flowing more.

I mean, how magic is that?

But something that, because of the way we live now, we are putting our babies down a lot more.

We're not having that closeness that nature has designed us for, essentially, that we and our babies need so much.

And those first few weeks, something that I always think is really important to think about is that for most people when their baby comes out, it's not who they were expecting them to be.

So what those first few weeks are for, really, is you getting to know this new little human and them getting to know you.

And babies are very clever.

They have ways of, they've got their own language, they've got their own way of communicating with you.

And when they're born, we don't speak this language generally, so we've got to learn what it is.

And after a few weeks, you see your baby and you go, oh, they feel tired, or they feel hungry, or they're uncomfortable.

And all you're picking up on is, like, teeny tiny, often silent cues that at the very, very beginning, they were probably doing the same cues, but we didn't speak that language, so we didn't kind of understand it.

And those first few weeks now are generally so disrupted with visitors and getting out of the house that we kind of sometimes lose that getting to know each other time.

And I always think that's a really important time to consider for your partner, so particularly if it is a kind of partner that you're in a relationship with, and they've potentially only got two weeks parental leave, if that two weeks is filled with hosting in-laws and friends and family and everybody, honestly, everybody that you've ever known, people that you haven't spoken to for years, will expect to come and meet this new baby, it's in that particularly if there's only that short period off work, which that's a whole other conversation as to how that is so nice.

But to value that and to take the time for those few weeks to just really, really begin to understand each other.

Yeah, I talk about it being in your bubble, and all my clients always say, enjoy your love in.

Yeah.

It's kind of hippie way of saying it, but it's about thinking about being in that bubble, in that close unit, that bubble of love, of unity.

Of exactly that, exploring each other in a way that, you know, and life does, as you say, it slows right down, and everything can wait.

The most important thing is warmth, love, food, and of course, nappies.

But, you know, some people may not feel that even several weeks later.

Yeah.

They might still not feel like they know their baby.

They may not feel connected.

They may not feel bonded.

And that's okay, too.

It takes time.

So again, it's not having too many expectations of yourself, but as long as you are doing the things that nature designed us for, then you'll be helping your baby as well, because a baby's neural pathways, everything is wiring so quickly.

And they're learning so much in those first few months and onwards, of course.

But that time is so vital.

So babies need attachment, and they need closeness and love and warmth.

Actually need it.

It's not them being demanding.

It's that they really, really need it.

And there are quite a few books out there now and lots of research that has gone to show that the kindest thing we can do, even when sometimes it really feels so hard to do and you can feel suffocated, is to be close to that baby.

And that can be very, very hard.

If you're not feeling connected, if you've had a traumatic or a negative birth experience, you're feeling low, you're feeling sad.

And what we do is the adrenaline says, we need to flight, we need to move away from this thing that needs us, that's making us think and feel all these feelings.

But the kindest thing is give it a bit more time, have that closeness as much as you can, and be more mindful.

So find, again, sort of reframing, so find ways to enjoy that baby.

You know, they are so soft and squidgy at this stage, so just, you know, squidge them, touch them.

You can see the power of touch.

It's that oxytocin, it's the endorphins.

Endorphins are our hormones for feel-good, aren't they?

So they, I mean, they're our natural pain relievers too.

So a combination of oxytocin and endorphins, we know that obviously for birth, that's a magic combination.

And it continues, postpartum.

And also, it becomes quite addictive.

So, you know, there's nothing wrong with stroking your baby and touching them.

I think there is.

And some of us, you know, especially if we haven't been around babies, can feel, that can feel a bit alien.

Society, you know, frowns upon, you know, us sort of touching and feeling and all of these things in public.

And so we're sort of conditioned to think, is this right?

Is it normal?

That again can be really beneficial to a baby and obviously to parents.

And that's something that partners can really get involved in as well.

And just totally just absorbing yourself with all their little tiny fingers and toes and the colour of their eyes or the shape of their face.

And it's just amazing.

And it's something that we don't do so much because we're on our phones.

We're watching our favourite series on Netflix.

We are, you know, functioning, doing things that we thought we should be doing in that time.

Actually, the best thing is just to slow it right down.

And that can be hard to do because if you've been very busy up to that point, you could be feeling like you need to do something.

Because your body's conditioned to that.

Yeah, we have to feel so uncomfortable in silence.

I think I probably have noise playing 99% of the day, even when I go to sleep, when I'm listening to audiovisual.

And so to be still and be quiet, actually this morning on the train down here, I didn't have signal on my phone and my earphones weren't working.

So I just sat for the first train ride, for sort of like half an hour on the train.

And it's sometimes an uncomfortable space, basically.

But once you get through the discomfort of it, it can become like a really quite peaceful place.

Absolutely.

I mean, therapeutically, if we can sit with those feelings of resistance and discomfort, they are often the things that are the most beneficial for us at that time.

Yeah.

As much as we will classically try to avoid that at any cost.

Of course we will, because anything for an easy ride.

But sometimes the kindest thing to do is just kind of see if you can push through it.

Because as you say, it can be quite rewarding, can't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, I mean, we've been chatting for ages.

So I'm going to kind of wrap us up.

We might have to do another episode.

So, to kind of finish us off, I normally finish the podcast with the question, if you're going to give a pregnant or birthing woman anything, what would it be?

But since we're kind of talking about this early kind of period of parenthood, let's go with, if you were going to give a new, either a new mum or a new parent anything, what would you gift them?

The understanding of connection, I think, to really tap into that as the number one, the most important thing, and create space where you can connect and disconnect from life, as you know it, just for a while until you feel like you can get into the flow a little bit more.

That would be my gift of just an understanding, an in-depth understanding, and an ability to be able to do it.

Yeah, amazing, fantastic.

So, to kind of finish us off then, if people are interested in what you're saying and they kind of want to find out more, or they want to kind of work with you or get in touch with you, how can they do any of those things?

Yeah, so my website is themamacoach.com, so that's double M in mama, and you can get in touch with me by email on sophieatthemamacoach.com.

And there's a link also through to my therapy work that I do from there as well, so that's sort of perinatal therapy.

It's light therapy that I do, so if I feel that it's out of my remit essentially, then I will always signpost onwards.

But the work I do, I think, especially for early parenting, we don't want to be diving too deep therapeutically anyway, but it's just kind of coping skills, essentially.

So that's what I love to do.

That's where my heart lies.

It's a real passion for me.

You know, having had four children, especially twins, I really know how that time can be.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I've created a new parents' mindful guide, and it's going to be online.

It's virtual as well.

Five pounds of every pack will go towards Panda's peri-mental health charity.

But what I'm doing first off is I'm going to pilot it from the 20th of January for free.

And it's in six sections, so it'll be six weeks essentially for free.

And then anybody that wants to then get it afterwards or, you know, recommend it to a friend, it'll be just 35 pounds.

Fantastic.

Well, that kind of wraps us up for the day.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.

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