The “Motherload": Why Postpartum Expectations are Too High
We all had a great ideal that we pictured in our minds when we thought about having a baby. Most of us imagined that there would be plenty of downtime, true routines where baby was resting and the rest of the household environment could be taken care of, that there would be plenty of hours in the day for the many chores that could be accomplished.
The reality is the opposite.
Baby don't always listen to schedules and, more often than not, right when you start to sit down to accomplish an email, clean the house or prep lunches for the next day is when you need to attend to that little someone. The amount, or ‘load’ of responsibility and burden is usually born by women as the caretakers of the home and even if they're not doing the cooking the cleaning and the daily management of household tasks and schedules they are the ones who are responsible for delegating that task.
This mental load is unfair to mothers who are also going through a full year of recovery from birth and experiencing changes in their body both hormonally and physically. Nursing alone is a full-time job and requires a full extra 500 calories a day (at least!) to accomplish a healthy, hydrated body that can nurse a baby.
Why are we burning mothers and expecting them to not only take care of a child but other children, clean the house, return to work and household tasks while also being a partner, mother, friend, co-op member, sister, and many, many other hats?
The full time commitment of all the different jobs that mothers undertake is overwhelming and instead of expecting them to be done with the same progress and finesse the share needs to be burdened by many other members of the family to keep everything moving forward without completely burning out and overpowering the new mom.
After all, while the mother is the center of the household, a depleted and exhausted mother can serve no one, including herself.
That's where we can come in; having an infant care specialist and postpartum doula on board to assist the entire family with their rest and recovery can help to create systems. We are committed to taking some of the share and load off of Mom. Meals and snacks will be prepped, laundry will be done and cleaning tasks will be accomplished. Mom will have time to fill her own cup and take care of baby while also connecting with the other children that may be present in the home. The full brunt of all the tasks that a new mother can't get to won't also be dumped onto her partner, and he'll be able to resume his work tasks and take care of his family and rest as well.
Whether it's just once a week or a continuous flow of shifts, a postpartum doula can greatly enhance the return to normal and help with all of the little to-do list items in the day-to-day flow of a family’s life!
Bình luận