Postpartum Prep Beyond the Postpartum Checklist: The Missing Piece

Hi and welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. I'm Ceridwen, your podcast host, and we've had a little break between this and the last podcast. Reason being, I just needed some time to like recalibrate behind the scenes and one of those big changes was I stopped offering my postpartum prep course and there's a couple reasons. First of all, I found myself just constantly feeling like I wanted to add to that course. It never felt completed and what I realized is it's because it's very hard to make a generic postpartum course that should suit anybody because everybody's situation is so different and I constantly wanted to add, you know, if this is your situation then this and I just thought this is not only so overwhelming for the person viewing this course to see like all these different options of what could possibly happen and if this happens they should do this and blah blah blah. Um it's not only so overwhelming for them but it just isn't the nature as well of how I like to work with families because I like to not just be like this is what you should do, I prefer an approach that's way more collaborative which is way more actually what do you think you should do and then how can I best support you to have you know the most positive outcome with what you want to do and what your vision is and so I actually stopped offering the postpartum prep course and instead I now offer postpartum prep sessions so we really can dive deep into your unique situation and your specific concerns and what you really want your postpartum experience to be like.So that's number one, that's the first reason why I stopped offering my postpartum prep course. The other reason is I didn't think anyone was even going to buy it because now that we have ChatGBT I think it's really easy to just go on there and search give me a list of everything that I need to do to prepare for postpartum and it will bring up a list and you think great I've got this um I'll just follow the list I don't why would I need to buy someone else's postpartum prep course um and that's a really valid really really valid point um and especially when you know you're trying to save money anywhere you can because you know it is expensive all the different costs that come with welcoming a new baby why would you buy a postpartum prep course when you could get this list for free on ChatGBT um obviously you know my course was very much rooted in my perspective of how we can support mothers and babies to thrive through connection but for the reasons I said before as well about wanting to be able to make postpartum prep a way more personal experience I just decided I would let go of the course. Another change that I was making behind the scenes was I started using Pinterest more I got like really into really into Pinterest over the summer I really liked that Pinterest just didn't feel as stressful as Instagram even in you know personally when I'm using social media Pinterest would be the app that I would go to when I just I didn't want to just see a bunch of people just fighting all the time and Pinterest was the app that just felt like the comfort app do you know what I mean and that's kind of a platform that I feel like fits me as a creator too I would way rather be on the comfort app um obviously I still use Instagram a lot but Pinterest is just it just feels like a nice corner of the internet for me right now at least and one thing that I did find really interesting when I was going through Pinterest um in the beginning I was kind of setting up my boards on and I wanted to put together a collection of different postpartum prep checklists and guides and you know seeing these checklists and then I kind of started reflecting obviously I was reflecting as well on chatgpt and how that's kind of you can really easily make your own lists there and I started to feel like something was missing and I just figured out what it really is that I feel like is missing from these checklists or schedules or routines or lists of things to buy um whatever you'll see on Pinterest and chatgpt and even in my old postpartum prep course the thing that I feel like is missing is you know they tell you what to do but they don't tell you how to choose what's right for you and your baby and not only they don't tell you how to choose these lists also make it seem like you don't even have a choice at all like this is just what you should do or have to do and that is just not it for me that's not the vibe because as a new mom understanding that you do have a choice in everything that you do first of all that's a much more empowering stance to take but also no one thing is gonna be right for everyone and so while these lists are I do think these lists can be really helpful for you know if you're a first-time mom and you have no idea what about anything to do with you know what do babies need or what are some strategies for taking care of a baby they can be really helpful but they do only scratch the surface because everything every item on those lists every item on a postpartum prep checklist or on a newborn care strategies it's not just something to check off the list it's a choice and I think we don't even recognize that sometimes when we're you know especially as first-time moms when we want to do you know what what is just best for our babies we look at these lists and we just think okay this is what I should do with my baby and when you see it laid out on a list like that it kind of does feel like it is something that you should do or that you have to do but in reality you are choosing each action you are choosing whether you realize it or not and it does matter that you realize it at least this is what I believe because that's a huge part of parenting in general it's all these little choices about how we raise our babies it's about being intentional about how we raise our babies and when we're making choices with intention it's not just about how we make that choice it's the intention to be making a choice at all that is intentional choice that's what I mean when I talk about intentional choice and when we use these checklists they're great for practical prep but when we use them without intention when we just follow the list because the list says so we're really deferring towards someone else's judgment and opinions of what we should be doing with our babies instead of tuning in to our own inner wisdom as mothers and this was really my journey as a new mom all these all this overload of information I think it really did mess with me as a first time mom because I wanted to be a good mom I wanted to do what was best for my baby I wanted to do everything right and if these lists are telling me that this is the right way to do things then I'm going to listen to this list and I started trusting things I would read on the internet and in books I would start trusting them more than my own instincts and a big part of my journey over the first two years of motherhood ended up being this journey back to trusting myself and reclaiming my own inner wisdom as a mother and getting to that point honestly once I truly arrived in this place where there's really nothing anyone can say that's gonna disconnect me from my trust and my confidence in my own intuition just makes me feel so much more easeful in the experience of mothering I'm not stressing all the time about what I should be doing or worrying about whether I'm doing the right thing and just tune in to myself tune in to my baby who's now a toddler and you know if I can feel that it feels like we're doing the right thing then I'm just going to trust that and that for me is what it means to connect to your mother's intuition when you connect to your body and your intuition you literally can feel what is right for you and your baby and you don't need to just follow what someone else or what chachi bt says is right and learning how to tune into your mother's intuition that's the postpartum preparation that chachi bt can't teach you how to do because it's not something that you can teach with words it's something that you just have to feel and this is what I think a lot of people don't understand about mother's intuition we don't understand what intuition really is because we are just so disconnected in generally in society from the concept of intuition we just don't even understand what it really is we hear people talk about it about mother's intuition it kind of gets treated like this vague abstract idea as if almost like a random thought just pops in your head out of nowhere and we call that mother's intuition but that's not how I see it the way I see it intuition is actually a very real tangible thing it's something you feel in your body it's a grounded embodied sense of knowing and when you prepare for postpartum from that place you're not just following other people's ideas of what you should do you're learning how to listen to your body and your baby in a very real very felt way and you're learning how to connect with your mother's intuition and the thing about mother's intuition as well that I just think is actually really cool is that it's basically there whether we listen to it or not it's more about bringing in the trust entrusting our mother's intuition and bringing in the ability to listen but mother's intuition like I said it's there whether or not you're listening to it it just happens naturally throughout the course of pregnancy and postpartum because becoming a mother is inherently this embodied journey of just true inner knowing think about the way your body just knows how to create your baby and then after they're born there are so many ways that your body just knows how to keep your baby safe and keep them fed and keep them warm and close and loved imagine as an example imagine how good it feels to hold your baby that good feeling you feel is literally your body telling you do this more and that's because it's good for you to be holding your baby and it's good for your baby for you to be holding them we know from research that continuous skin to skin is one of the best things you can do for your baby or doing skin to skin as much as possible is one of the best things you can do for your baby it's so important for things like it regulates their breathing their body temperature their heart rate it helps them their nervous systems to feel safe and calm and then it also helps to grow their brains and also benefits for breastfeeding associated with skin to skin so when you feel this really good feeling when you're holding your baby that's literally your mother's intuition saying we need to keep doing this and all you have to do is listen to that good feeling newborn care is actually quite simple when we just learn to listen to our bodies another example is for a lot of moms when their baby cries their milk will actually start leaking and that's literally your body saying hey maybe your baby could do with some milk your body knows how to care for your baby you just need to listen there's also all this really cool wiring that happens in the brain of mothers where you learn to be able to read your baby in a way that no one else can and that is also part of your mother's intuition and that's also why we just can't defer every decision to a checklist on the internet or chat gpt or other people's advice because only you know your baby best and only you can tune in to your inner knowing of what feels right for your baby and that's why i believe that building confidence in your own instincts is such an important part of preparing for life with your new baby and even though we're talking about postpartum prep here i also quickly want to add that knowing how to tune into your body and make choices from that place can also be so critical for birth as well the problem is as women especially we are often raised to be disconnected from our bodies we're told not to listen to our bodies it's not that we lose this connection but intuition can be a skill to practice and that's why i talk about it as being part of postpartum prep is learning how to reconnect to your inner wisdom to your body to your ability to really trust in yourself and so that's why i created a guide a free guide for you to help strengthen your connection to your mother's intuition and it teaches you step by step how to make choices that are grounded and aligned with your inner knowing it's not just about listening to your body i know i've been talking about that a lot information is still important i have a whole i have another episode i think it might even be the first or the second episode where i talk about the importance of information information is absolutely key especially in certain settings like medicalized settings where common practices might not actually be aligned with what evidence and research has shown is most supportive information can be key and this is if you've ever heard the term informed choice that's what we're talking about you deserve first of all to be allowed to make that choice but second of all to have the evidence-based information that helps you to really make that choice from an informed place you deserve the right to have that information but there's also pros and cons to everything and this is where we really need to be able to listen to ourselves to our mother's intuition to our inner knowing so that we're able to sort through our options to figure out really what feels right for us so my free intentional choice guide walks you step by step through this process of connecting to yourself gathering your options and how to tune in to your inner knowing to help you make that decision and i offer some reflection prompts to help you learn for yourself how to find that place of inner knowing and that connection with your body and that connection with your mother's intuition so this guide is definitely going to be helpful if you're preparing for postpartum and it's also going to be helpful if you're preparing for birth because like i said tuning in to your body during birth can be such a source of not just empowerment but it's a tool for birthing your baby listening to your body your body knows how to birth your baby and we can get all caught up in our thoughts and there's a moment where you just have to come back to yourself and let your body do its thing like i said we do sometimes need information and especially you know if you're in a hospital it can be really empowering to have some information in your pocket but it's also in the moment sorting through okay i've got these choices now am i going to make this choice for myself or am i going to let the doctors make this choice for me and if i am going to make this choice for myself i might have this information but how do i sort through my options and decide what's right for me and if i'm going to try and trust in my mother's intuition how do i even listen to my mother's intuition how do i listen to my inner knowing how do i listen to my body's wisdom and that's what this guide is for so if you're curious to learn more um this guide is completely free all you have to do is i'll i'll link it in my show notes and you can go download it and i'll end this episode now so you can just go download it but before we do i just want to invite you to reflect on how you're actually feeling during this episode what is it like for me to invite you into a connection with your inner knowing what thoughts what feelings does it bring up for you because sometimes this can really challenge us or sometimes it can make us see where we haven't listened to our inner knowing or it might feel really empowering to know that you do have all this wisdom inside you if you'd like to share your reflections with me i would love to hear you can send me a dm on instagram and we can chat because for me this isn't just about telling you what you should do this is a two-way you know i want this to be a two-way conversation of this is my philosophy but how does it actually resonate for you and i really really want you to know that it's okay to tune in with your body while you're listening to this podcast and actually see how this sits for you how does this resonate for you and i would also love for you to let me know thank you so much for listening today don't forget to get the guide in the show notes below and yeah i'm really really excited i'm planning to be doing weekly podcasts now my son is now in preschool yeah i'll be back next week i'm pretty sure i'll be back next week and yeah i'll see you then thank you so much for listening