I may have been one of the very few pregnant women who wasn’t worried about postpartum. How bad could it really be? Sure, I’d be exhausted – that I knew. But I’d be fine! I’ll be on maternity leave, I can dedicated all of my time, every day, to my child. I can handle it!
Well… now that I’m out of the fourth trimester, let me tell you – I want to go back to my pregnant self and really prepare her. Since I can’t do that, here I am, helping all of you expecting mamas out. Learn from my mistakes. Here are the things I had wish I had known about postpartum. Hopefully they better prepare you!
Disclaimer: I had a vaginal delivery with no complications, thankfully. All of the below is from that perspective.
8 Postpartum Struggles I Wish I Knew About
You Won’t Bounce Back In Three Days
No, I’m not talking about your body and weight, but I’ll get to that in a second. I am a fairly healthy, active, 33 year old. I never experienced any sort of trauma or surgery before so I had zero experience in what a recovery was really like.
I thought that I’d have my physical strength back in about three days, maybe four postpartum. Boy was I wrong! Try maybe three or four weeks, which is when I finally felt strong enough to carry my newborn up and down the stairs.
Don’t Even Start With Me About Weight
“The weight will just melt off, especially if you’re breastfeeding!” Sure, the first 20 pounds came off within the first couple of weeks. But that other 30 I gained? I’m still waiting for it to come off, a few months postpartum.
Yes, I could be better at exercising, but I’ll be honest – I am so hungry all the time from breastfeeding. They tell you to eat 500 extra calories a day if you’re breastfeeding, and I definitely am!
Ask For Help
I will admit I knew I was going to need help postpartum – but I didn’t realize how much help I’d really need. I was taking care of my new baby – I needed someone to take care of me while I recovered! It’s not weakness if you ask for help; you’re actually doing the best thing you can do both for yourself and for your baby.
If you don’t recover and get your strength back, you can’t take care of that baby. And let me tell you, you are going to forget to take care of yourself because you’re constantly focused on the baby.
Having my husband and my mother take care of dinner each night was truthfully the only way I got fed – cooking was the last thing on my mind, which isn’t good because I needed food to ensure my breastmilk supply was strong and healthy.
The Diapers and Itching
I knew that leaving the hospital I would also be in a diaper. But no one told me how bad the itching could get down there. By a couple of weeks postpartum, and wearing the diaper for that long due to still bleeding, it was so itchy.
Ice packs helped (Frida Mom knows what she’s doing!) but oh my goodness, I will never knock my kid’s diaper rash. Also, you probably have seen it on TikTok, but make a caddy in your bathroom with everything you need for your diaper – Tucks pads, Dermoplast, and some other creams the hospital gave me were my go-to.
The Car Ride Will Hurt
The first car ride home postpartum is something I will never forget. It really is a beautiful memory of my husband driving and me sitting in the backseat with my new baby boy. But one thing I will also remember is how in pain I was in. Oh my GOODNESS especially when my husband went over a bump or rough road, it really hurt.
Be prepared, and if the hospital prescribed you ibuprofen or any other sort of pain medication for postpartum care, take it! And don’t just stop taking it when you’re discharged, I made that mistake and it wasn’t pretty.
You Will Be Emotional
I will say I was not an emotional person before getting pregnant. Those first couple of weeks postpartum? OMG I cried at everything!
“You’ll Be In My Heart” from “Tarzan” came on the radio and I was balling like a baby. My baby grabbed my finger for the first time and I cried. I couldn’t help it! It passed after a couple of weeks, but I do still feel more emotional now than I did before coming a mother.
You Will Be Tired
This is one you know – you are going to be tired postpartum. Not only do you have a baby who’s hungry throughout the night that you need to feed, but your body is still recovering from a huge shock to it. You are going to be so tired. I was not a nap person at all… but I took naps when I could. Even shutting my eyes for 20 minutes helped.
Don’t Forget About All The Other Stuff
A couple of weeks after giving birth, I turned to my mother and said, “it’s not even caring for my baby and taking care of him, it’s all the other stuff that adds up, like his constant laundry, making sure you have diapers, making sure my laundry’s done, making sure we have food to eat, and so on.”
She just laughed at me because she knew – but there’s a lot that you take on when you become a mother – the physical and mental load’s real. This goes hand and hand with what I said above about not being afraid to ask for help – ask for help, especially with those things.
Final Thoughts on Postpartum Things I Wish I Had Known
Postpartum is hard – don’t knock that. Give yourself time and give yourself grace. It’ll pass and it’ll actually go faster than you think it will, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. You just went through the biggest life change you could, don’t underestimate that. You’ve got this!
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