The first forty days post birth or bringing your baby home is a key time for you and your new baby. This time can feel endless and at times a blur, but this is the time you want to protect. During this time you as a unit will get to know each other and grow in confidence.
TIP 1
Prepare for this time before your baby’s arrival
We spend our pregnancies preparing for our new babies arrival. This may include shopping for new clothes for them, pushchairs, prams, car seats; the list goes on.
What we are less good at being prepared for is ourselves. And In truth, for the first few weeks at least the baby really only needs the bare minimum. They need some nappies, a source of milk, some clothes and most importantly us - their parents.
However what us as parents need is as important as what our babies need. So being prepared for this ahead of their arrival is key to those first few weeks feeling more enjoyable and less overwhelming. Preparation will look different for every family but it may include stocking up on your favourite foods and filling your freezer with batch cooking. It could be simply making sure all your favourite blankets and bedding is washed or even treating yourselves to some new PJs or slippers which are solely for once your baby has arrived.
These little pieces of comfort and familiarity will make the transition in those first 40 days so much calmer and more enjoyable.
I have written a blog on some key items you may want for yourself in your fourth trimester which can be found here.
TIP 2
Prepare friends and family for any boundaries you may have.
And by “may” have, I definitely mean have. I am not going to suggest you don’t see anyone until your baby is 40 days old. What I am suggesting however is that you try to limit how many and for how long.
Often our loved ones are incredibly excited and eager to meet our new arrivals. And so they should be! But a key part is that this is your healing time. Your time for bonding, establishing feeding and most importantly resting. Therefore having a stream of visitors can often feel overwhelming and counter productive.
In order for our new babies to adjust and get used to this brand new world they are in, they need a lot of us. And in order for us to adjust to life with a new baby, we need a lot of them. So suggesting your friends and family visit at times only convenient for you and not for them, and for short amounts of time is the key to finding a healthy balance.
If you are the type of family who are used to people “dropping in” regularly then you may need to be more vocal about your boundaries and wishes than others. Simply explaining you would like to take some time to rest and get to know your baby before you have visitors is a perfectly reasonable and simple explanation to give them.
TIP 3
Accepting help and Support
If your loved ones want to come over and in turn offer to “bring something” by all means ask them to. It may be some food shopping, a couple of meals or just some snacks but let others help. It will be useful for you and make them in turn feel like they have helped too.
As with my tip above, our friends and family don’t need to feel pushed out or unwanted if we have some boundaries around seeing them straight away. In fact usually we do want to speak to them and see them in those first 40 days, but if they can come with the outlook of being helpful and bringing goodies, then thats a win for everyone.
This also goes for offering hands on help. If your partner is back at work or you are doing this alone then asking for others to come over so you can go and have a shower or a nap is a great way to protect your early days and ensure you feel the right balance of parenting and some self care.
TIP 4
Staying Low Key
Before we have our babies it is hard to know how we will actually feel once they are here. I would always suggest aiming to stay fairly low key for the first 40 days.
We don’t want to find ourselves fully booked socially and feeling worried or anxious about cancelling. I would aim for nothing and then you can always decide after a few weeks that you actually do want to go and socialise, but by this point it is on your terms. And will feel much more manageable.
Some nice little goals to aim for which you can incorporate with being “social” are walks with friends, pub lunches and breakfast dates. These are all great as they have a time limit on them and means you are only preparing to leave the house etc for a couple of hours rather than a whole day.
TIP 5
Hire a doula….!
Of course I am going to write this…
But honestly, hiring a doula does not mean you a committing to hundreds of hours of support and thousands of pounds.
It purely means you are already sourcing someone who is there to hold your space and remind you to take it slow. You may only have your doula for a few hours a week. But what you have is the knowledge and reassurance that you are fully supported in your first 40 days.
Natalie x
