Emotional Days After Birth

You are headed home from the hospital with a new baby in tow. You are excited to get out of the hospital, but you’re nervous to be on your own for the first time with a new baby. You’ve made all the preparations, so you should be ready with everything that’s needed, but it’s still unclear what life will really be like now that you have your first child. Your life has just undergone a complete overhaul which you may not fully recognize yet.

With such a massive change in your life, your emotions and feelings are going to be all over the place. You may not recognize it immediately, but emotionally the next few days and weeks are going to be filled with change. While you’re feeling this, your partner is feeling the same as well. You need to try to take a step back when you can to recognize that you’re both going through changes, and you may have very different ways of processing that.

Beyond the emotions of a new baby, you’re also adding sleep deprivation for both parents, and a huge physical change for the woman that just gave birth. These three factors make days after giving birth some of the most emotionally charged times of your life. If you just take one of these factors, emotions will be running high. Put all three of them together, and it’s going to require extreme patience from all.

If you’re not the one that just gave birth, then you need to think about the woman who just did. She just had a human baby (your baby) delivered from her body. This is absolutely an incredible part of life, but it will also be extremely emotional for her. Her body spent 9 months creating and supporting that life, and then in a few hours has given birth. That is not something that you can deal with in a couple of days, and you need to support her in every way possible.

This means that her thoughts and feelings need to come first before anyone else’s. If your parents or her parents are trying to put pressure on you to come and see the baby, but she’s not up for it, then you need to respect that. If they want to watch the baby or do something else, then so be it. Yes, they’re excited, but give her some time to recover from an exhausting whirlwind of events for a couple of weeks.

If able, help her to sleep as much as she can to be able to recover. Hopefully you’ve been able to get some time off of work to support her in that, but if not, then when you are home then encourage and help her to actually sleep some. Short stints of sleeping will make you extremely tired and don’t help with the emotions that are running high. Support her in sleeping when she is able to.

If you’ve just given birth, then do your best to express how you’re feeling and what you need. Don’t hold your emotions inside to fester and then have a huge meltdown of some kind. Communicate your feelings and what you’re thinking as clearly as you can. It’s extremely difficult, but make sure your partner really understands how you’re feeling. They should be listening to you, but help them to understand how they can support you in this emotional time.

Communication is key in any relationship, and immediately after birth it needs to be as good as it has ever been. Be open and honest with each other, and realize that you’re now a family and your family comes first. Make them a priority and make the emotions and well-being of everyone your top priority. Don’t let outside people and pressures push you to compromise the trust of your new family.

The days and weeks immediately following birth are going to be exhausting and emotional. Respect and love each other, and communicate effectively. Love your baby and love each other.