5 Fresh Tips to Help You Prepare for a Supported Postpartum with Motherhood Coach Jessica Hill

Oct 27

Learning how to prepare for a supported postpartum can be overwhelming, but you’re not alone! Check out these 5 Fresh Tips to help you prepare for a supported postpartum with Motherhood Coach Jessica Hill.

The Parent Collective offers prenatal education and early motherhood support programs designed to help expectant and new parents find local community. Our prenatal education series, taught by registered nurses and midwives, sorts our participants by community and due date to help them develop a support network for early parenthood. The model we follow is inspired by our founder's personal experience having her boys in the UK. She and her husband had the benefit of a program called the NCT which has been running prenatal education for over 70 years and organizes participants by neighborhood and due date — allowing all couples to form support networks prior to their babies being born.

You can learn more about Jessica Hill on her Fresh Starts profile.

5 Fresh Tips to help you prepare for postpartum:

Find a community in pregnancy, preferably in person even if you don’t access it right away.
Create a list of postpartum support services – you may not need them but in the event you do, it will make accessing help much less stressful if you have the research done already.
Talk with your partner about division of labor. Very little attention is given to how your relationship is going to change and how much work is going to be added to your plates after a baby. We know from research that women take on 72% of this added work so being mindful of that and talking about how you are going to approach this next chapter as a team can help stave off burnout, disconnection and resentment.
Communicate with your support system (parents, childcare, partner, friends) about your boundaries in those early weeks from hospital visits to feeding to how they can be most helpful. This will save you a lot of frustration. Remember you are the one having the baby, and while family and friends might be excited, you need to prioritize your new family while you are healing, learning to feed and respond to your baby and grabbing sleep whenever you can.
Let go of some of the myths of motherhood that society and the media (especially social media) tell us. They do mothers no service, setting you up for thinking you are failing. Phrases like: ‘breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world’ or “Motherhood should come naturally.” “I should be able to do it by myself.” “I should enjoy all parts of motherhood.” “I need to sacrifice my own needs for my children.” And to that end, curate your social media diet to be accounts that make you feel good. If they make you feel less than, anxious, like you are failing – click the unfollow button. You don’t need that energy in your life.