Motherhood is often described as beautiful, joyful, and life-changing. All of those things are true! But motherhood emotions can also feel intense, confusing, and unexpected. Preparing for the emotional rollercoaster of motherhood can make a big difference.
In this episode of the Postpartum Prep Podcast, I spoke with matrescence coach and motherhood mentor Jenaveve. She answered real questions about preparing for the emotional rollercoaster of motherhood.
If you want the full conversation, be sure to listen to the full episode!
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
Why Motherhood Emotions Can Feel Like a Rollercoaster
Many expecting mothers hear about the physical changes of postpartum. Fewer conversations happen about the emotional experience of becoming a mother.
But the transition into motherhood is a huge life change. You are meeting your baby and adjusting to a new identity. Your daily life changes overnight. Because of this, motherhood emotions often come in waves.
You might feel excited about your baby. At the same time, you might feel nervous or overwhelmed.
Jenaveve explains that these mixed feelings are completely normal. Motherhood often includes “both-and” emotions.
You can feel joy and fear at the same time. You can deeply love your baby, and also miss parts of your old life.
These emotional contrasts are part of the matrescence process. Matrescence describes the transition into becoming a mother. Understanding this transition can help you feel less alone in your experience.
See also: What is Matresence? Understanding the Emotional Transition Into Motherhood
Is It Normal Not to Love Every Minute?
Many mothers hear the same message:
“You should enjoy every moment.”
While the intention may be kind, this expectation can create pressure.
The truth is that motherhood emotions include a full range of feelings.
Sleep deprivation can affect your mood.
Hormonal shifts can affect your emotions.
New responsibilities can also feel overwhelming.
Because of this, many mothers experience moments of frustration, sadness, or exhaustion.
These feelings do not mean you are doing motherhood wrong.
Jenaveve encourages mothers to see emotions as messengers. Instead of pushing emotions away, you can become curious about them. Ask yourself what the feeling might be trying to tell you.
Sometimes emotions signal a need for rest or support. In some cases, professional support may also help.
If sadness, anxiety, or rage feel persistent, consider speaking with a perinatal mental health professional. Support does not have to wait until things feel severe.
Pregnant? Download your free postpartum prep checklist!
The Pressure to Be a Perfect Mother
Many mothers already start feeling pressure to be perfect during pregnancy.
This pressure often comes from other’s expectations. Social media can make this pressure even stronger.
Online, motherhood often looks polished and effortless. We see beautifully prepared baby meals, creative activities, and matching outfits. But each account usually shows one small part of a mother’s life.
Our brains sometimes combine these images into one impossible standard. Suddenly it feels like we must do everything.
Jenaveve reminds mothers that no one is doing all of it. Each mother focuses on what matters most to her.
Understanding your own values is more helpful than chasing perfection.
Because there is no perfect mother.
And anyways, your baby doesn’t need a perfect mother - your baby needs you.
Why Comparison Can Make Motherhood Emotions Harder
Comparison is a common challenge.
Many mothers compare themselves to others online or in daily life, but we rarely know the full story behind another family.
Another mother might have more sleep, more help, or a different baby temperament. These unseen differences can shape her daily experience.
The age of your baby matters, too. A mother with a toddler may have very different capacity than a mother with a newborn.
Recognizing these differences can reduce unnecessary self-judgment.
Preparing for the Emotional Side of Motherhood
Understanding motherhood emotions before your baby arrives can be powerful.
It helps you expect a wide range of feelings, and reminds you to treat yourself with compassion.
Motherhood is not about becoming perfect, it is about growing into your role over time. You and your baby will learn together.
For a deeper conversation about motherhood emotions, listen to the full episode. Jenaveve shares practical insights about matrescence, emotional preparation, and letting go of the perfect mother myth.
You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
Ceridwen
Welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. My name is Kheridan. I'm your podcast host and your guide to preparing for a smoother start to life with your new baby.
Here on the Postpartum Prep Podcast, we talk about all things preparing for life after birth. We talk about feeding your baby. We talk about sleep.
We talk about mental health. And today on the podcast, we have Jenaveve. Jenaveve is a matricence coach and motherhood mentor and she is doing a Q&A for us on the topic of preparing for the emotional roller coaster of motherhood.
Hi Jenaveve. Welcome to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. Or not welcome because we just did.
Welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. Thank you. I'm so so delighted to be here with you.
Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to have you here too. We've been having so much fun.
And we did just record a whole other episode about mindset preparation, nervous system preparation for motherhood. So be sure to go check out that episode as well. Today though, we're talking on this episode about preparing for the emotional roller coaster of motherhood.
Jenaveve, did you have anything you wanted to say about why is it even important to prepare for this or kind of what does it even mean the emotional roller coaster of motherhood?
Jenaveve
Yeah, I think it's something that we hear a lot about when we are expecting and maybe don't understand all the ups and downs that are going to come with being postpartum having a new baby or even adding to your family if this is the second time or third time around and the emotional roller coaster is like can be surprising if you're not expecting some of the different emotions to come up and I think it's just can be really helpful to kind of talk through that ahead of time and know what you might expect.
Ceridwen
Yeah, and we had some questions today. I feel like first of all, I feel like we actually covered kind of well some of those ups and downs in our main episode. So definitely go check that out.
But today we have some questions from you guys about on the topic of preparing for the emotional roller coaster of motherhood and Jenaveve is kindly going to answer these questions for us. So the first question was is it normal to feel excited and terrified about becoming a mom at the same time?
Jenaveve
Yeah, absolutely. It's such a big change with a lot of unknowns and it's normal to feel excited and like excited about meeting your baby and maybe excited about birth and like all you're going to experience and also feel nervous or terrified maybe about what is coming. Those feelings are real and motherhood is a lot about learning to live with that both and like the tension between what feels like kind of opposite emotions or feelings as in like you can be experiencing more than one thing at a time.
You can be happy and sad. You can love your baby and being a mom and miss or even grieve your old life too. Like it's all in the realm of what is expected.
Ceridwen
And also normal and acceptable. Yeah. I feel like I liked this question and I wanted to ask this one with Jenaveve because I followed her for a few years now I think and this was something I think you had spoken about.
I think you've spoken about several times on your Instagram and I really I think about it now actually like in my day-to-day life a lot and I really benefited from seeing those posts that you had made and so I loved that. I thought this question was the perfect one to ask you. The next question is what if I don't love every minute like everyone says I should.
Jenaveve
I mean, I think this goes along with kind of the first question in a way of sort of builds on that like we might expect ourselves to love every minute or maybe that's yeah what you've heard if people are telling you that especially I feel like this comes up a lot of times people who maybe whose kids are grown now or the ones who are like, oh you'll love every minute you should like treasure this time which like yes, they're saying because now they have the perspective on like what it's like when you're no longer in it, but when you are in it, like it is okay to experience a full range of emotions like and getting really Comfortable with allowing all of those even those like uncomfy ones and and feeling them like trying not to think your way out of them. It is a big expectation to love every minute, but that might not be a reality. I mean if it is I love that for you, but yeah, it's especially like thinking back to the hormonal changes immediately postpartum and the lack of sleep like it will likely lead to some crashing out over something over something small or like it could be something big but all of that is to be expected and I think the more we can appreciate our emotions as messengers and really think about I just said, you know not to think your way out of the emotion, but we do want to be thinking about what is this trying to tell me so that is what you can even start practicing now if you are still expecting and I think the other thing that you and I have kind of talked about or like that goes off of another question that was suggested that we didn't answer is like when to know if it is a problem like that maybe you're not loving every minute and I would say that if you are experiencing like persistent feelings of sadness or even just like that like meh feeling about everything or like anxiety or rage that troubles you and like is affecting your daily life like those are signs that you could benefit from speaking to a perinatal mental health specialist finding someone with specific training a therapist with specific training could be so beneficial and you don't have to wait until it's like bad enough to get that help or support.
Ceridwen
I love that note. Thank you. And I am something that you had said actually made me think about our previous episode and talking about my trust is and how much essence kind of gives us some language to explain what we're going through and I spoke about how it could help us to we kind of both spoke about how it can help us to express it to ourselves and the other people around us.
And I think that kind of goes hand-in-hand with just like accepting and validating in yourself and what you are feeling and knowing that it's okay to have that full range of everything that's going on. But if you want to hear specifically about the matress inside of things make sure to go and listen to the full episode on The last question today for our Q&A episode is I already feel pressure to be the perfect mom. How do I cope with this?
Jenaveve
Yeah, it's such a good question and thinking about this before becoming a mom is like amazing because I think it's so many of us enter motherhood and then realize that we have all these ideas about what it means to be a good mom. And then if we feel like we're not measuring up to them, that's when we can get kind of mean to ourselves. That's when we're judging ourselves.
That's when we think, you know, everybody else is doing better at this than I am. So already recognizing that that pressure to be the perfect mom is really coming from outside of you. It's not pressure that you are putting on yourself.
It's really these like external expectations, whether it's from like what you learned or saw growing up, what you think society expects from you. I think the perfect mother myth is just like so pervasive. We see it everywhere and we think like we should be able to be that but it's a myth for a reason and that we can have high standards for ourselves, of course, but we really need to be clear on our own values and where we want to put our focus and our effort the most in our motherhood and that is going to serve us far better than trying to reach this like perfect ideal version of ourselves.
Ceridwen
Yeah, and I mean that yeah, just like you said there really is no perfect mother and the perfect mother doesn't exist and all that really matters is I think being the mother that you are and like that's that's the most special thing is who you are. And who you want to be.
Jenaveve
Yeah, and who you want to be. Like you may not feel like her, like this like the mother you want to be in the beginning and that's okay too, but knowing like who you want to be as a mom and making sure that that's rooted in like what is really true for you. Like as you said, like who you are.
That's yeah, that's what's going to be most helpful.
Ceridwen
Yeah, I think I feel like this was like honestly, I feel like I kind of unlearned this perfect mother myth when I was already about like a year into motherhood, but it really changed everything for me when I stopped having that like constant guilt and like constant thinking in my brain of like I should be doing XYZ differently and like actually just like resetting to like who am I and what is my reality? Who is my baby?
Because that's another big part of like how you show up in motherhood is responding to who your unique baby is and I think I also think so many, you know, in the main episode I asked you like if you could go back and say to your pregnant self, like what would you tell her? So many people answer that question by kind of saying like just not to have so much pressure on themselves and just like focus on being more present and sometimes that doesn't look like what we envision the perfect mother to be. But then kind of when we look back, we think it was never about trying to be perfect.
It was always what mattered most was kind of your process with your baby and with the moment.
Jenaveve
Well, and it makes so much sense that we would want to be like this perfect version of ourselves for our baby because we just love them so much. It's like I want to be like the best for you. But you know, your baby doesn't need the perfect mom.
They need you. Yeah, like you are uniquely suited to your baby and like as you said, temperament plays like such a big role as well, like who you think you're going to be as a mother and who you actually are, like it has a lot to do with your baby's temperament. Yeah, your baby's temperament, how it actually feels to be a mother to that specific baby.
And I think what can be especially hard in modern motherhood is our access to social media and like what we see while we're scrolling. I know like in my experience, I saw a lot of like yeah, like perfect images of what motherhood could look like like babies in or toddlers even and like these matching outfits and you know, like family smiling and seeming like they're just like everything was going so well for them. And then when my experience felt like a much messier than that, that's yeah, when we start to question ourselves.
So recognizing that what you're seeing on social media is not the whole picture like those are like a moment in time and maybe you don't even know what's happening like outside of that immediate frame or like what was brought into that moment. And also when we see it like we follow so many different types of accounts and so like there might be the mom who's you know, like making all these like beautiful baby led weaning meals for her baby. There might be the mom who's like crafty, you know sharing ideas for like how to play and like sensory ideas and things like that.
And you know, the list could go on of like all these things you might see and our brains don't really separate them to realize these are all individual people like that isn't their thing. They enjoy doing it. Like that's what they've landed on.
That's as you said, like that's who they are as a mother. So no one is doing all of that, but like we see it and we think okay, I have to be doing like the meals, the crafts, the like sensory bins, the you know, they have to be like dressing my baby in these ways or whatever dressing myself. Like I follow all these like outfit inspiration and it was like wow, like they look so put together.
But that's because that's what they love like they love fashion or they love these ideas and it's okay. If like that's not true to you in your season and it's like the things that you would prioritize.
Ceridwen
Yeah versus what other people prioritize. I also think one big thing for me was like especially when it came to like the perfect mother thing is like I followed one account in particular where her children were actually older like at least two years older than mine. And so I was always comparing myself to her and now, you know, I have a two-year-old now.
I am like what I the capacity that I have now as a mom of a two-year-old is nothing like what I had as a mom of a 12 month old and also like all the things kind of I was seeing them do those are not, you know, a 12 month old might not need those things in the same way and like I kind of was always judging myself because we weren't doing the things that they were doing or but it was just we were just living such different lives in many ways.
Yeah, and the perfect mom. Yeah, I think social media is a great thing to mention because it does give us like this image of what a perfect mom looks like like we literally can see what we think this perfect mom looks like and constantly, you know, especially I know so many people are breastfeeding their baby all day and just kind of scrolling in Instagram and you're seeing just this onslaught of yeah, perfect, but also social media and I'm sure you can relate as someone who also like use a social media like kind of to create content a lot of what you see on social media is so not like it's very kind of staged sometimes not always but it can be especially when it's like actual content creators. I'm sure a lot of their stuff is somewhat staged and at least and it's we're comparing ourselves to this staged idea.
Yeah, it's no one like that's a lot of pressure, especially when you're a new mom.
Jenaveve
Yeah, for sure. I think you made such an important point there too about like thinking about how the age of your baby and and how far you are into motherhood and that's all going to influence how you actually can be and and what you are going to be doing in that different stage how much capacity you have whether you know, you may be sleeping in like a totally you may be sleeping totally different amount of time than another mom and even if you are like find yourself comparing to other moms with babies your age like again, it may be like maybe their baby is sleeping more.
Maybe their baby has a different temperament. Maybe they have more support from family or they have a nanny or something that you're not seeing. So even if it's not on social media and you're like seeing people at the park or restaurant or wherever else and you're you find yourself kind of making up these stories almost about them and like what their life might be like because yours by comparison doesn't seem like it fits that that's where you know, you can see this myth popping up again of a perfect mother and kind of catch yourself and say wait a minute like I don't know her full story and you know, I need to focus on my own.
Ceridwen
Yeah, we never know really kind of what's going on. Yeah, when they're in their own home and you're not there and they're kind of doing their day-to-day life and it could look so different from what your day-to-day reality looks like. Yeah, comparison is like such a big trap, isn't it?
Not really in motherhood in general. Yeah, I feel like we could talk about this all day and I feel like this is like I'm just thinking like this is like the conversation that I needed when I was like in the first year with my baby, but we do have to wrap up now. That was the last question.
But if you want more of Jenaveve and me head on over to our last episode. Like I said, we were talking all about mindset prep for motherhood. We touched on matrescence.
We talked about nervous system regulation as a mom all really great helpful things. I think that I would have really benefit benefited from if I'd heard before I had my baby so head on over there next Jenaveve before we end. Can you let us know where people can find you if they want to learn more from you or work with you?
Jenaveve
Yeah, so my website is a great place to start. That's a momafriend.com. It has a blog as well as a free audio resource and people can find more information about working with me on my website and then I'm also active on Instagram and friends and you can find me there at a mom a friend as well and that's am am a friend.
I know people tell mama differently.
Ceridwen
So I feel like I got to say that but you can find me there and if you've listened to this episode, please send me a DM and let me know amazing and I will also make sure to link all of Jenaveve's all of Jenaveve's links in the show notes. And if you are listening today, thank you so much for listening. And if you would like to submit a question for a future Q&A episode be sure that you're subscribed to my email list because I share all our upcoming all our upcoming Q&A topics in my email newsletter and you'll also get updates about new episodes and you can subscribe to my email newsletter by downloading my postpartum prep checklist, which I will be sure also to link in episode description.
If you're new here, also, please make sure you're following and subscribed and if you would like to leave a review that would be amazing because that's what really helps podcast to grow and I just really want to share all of this with all the new moms out there who could benefit from this conversation. If you know a new mom or if you know a pregnant mom or expecting mom or even grandparents sometimes could benefit from this kind of conversation. If you know anyone that would benefit from this conversation, please feel free to pass this episode on to them and otherwise I will see you in the next episode and thank you so much again Jenaveve for joining us today.