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Your First Four Weeks with Baby | The Nesting Place: Prenatal Classes & Doula Care

In many cultures, parents are surrounded by support on all sides when they first have their baby. Parents, siblings, extended family and friends hold the baby, cook food, clean, do the laundry, bring groceries and do the yard work to help new parents out. This is a part of their community and it’s just what some cultures do!

In Canada, our culture tends to value independence and often we feel as if we’re ‘not good enough’ or ‘failing’ or ‘bothering’ someone because we need the support that others offer. Asking or accepting help can be very difficult for those of us who have internalized the belief that doing so is an indication of our incompetence in some way. However identifying the ways in which asking for help actually allows us to be the person/mother/father we want to be can make this essential aspect of postpartum a little more bearable.

Let’s just say that asking for or accepting help actually contributed to who you wanted to be as a parent. How would it do so?

Maybe you’d find that you’re able to spend more time with your baby and family, feel less stressed about the household tasks that need doing, are better
rested and thereby less likely to feel depression and are healthier and happier overall.

Parents often struggle with finding a balance between taking care of themselves and taking care of their baby in the few weeks following their birth. An article in “Oh Baby Magazine” nicely summarizes how important it is to make your own health your number one priority, both for your own sanity and for your baby’s quality of life too.

Birth activist Gloria Lemay offers parents a list of things to hand out to their helpful friends and family to give them an idea of the sorts of tasks that are actually helpful in postpartum. Like you, your community of support has their own beliefs (helpful or not) about what offering help means. They may not offer for fear of crossing a boundary with you and may be waiting for you to direct them as to the type of help you need. Gloria’s list includes basic and seemingly common sense things for family and friends to offer that includes “Make us a big super salad” and “come over and give my partner a break so he can have a coffee”
View her list in entirety on her blog: www.glorialemay.com/blog