New parent power

Defying the opinion avalanche post-baby

If you’ve ever watched What to Expect When You’re Expecting, there’s this brilliant line; “there’s no such thing as ready, you just jump on a moving train and try not to die”. Life after birth can definitely have those moments but I do feel that we can be ready for some parts of the parent journey. I think the world has set us up for what to expect when we’re expecting, however it is what comes after that is the longer journey.

You’ll find that you, your partner and those in your inner circle will have expectations. It might be an expectation to exclusively breastfeed, that the birth parent stays home for a year, or maybe someone decided they need to advocate for your baby to be on a dummy early on. It’s a lot to navigate for any parent trying to filter through the choices and opinions. There are so many expectations on ourselves and those around us to do things their way because of course it was the “right way”. Unfortunately, despite the thousands of books out there, no one book out there is the “right way” to parent.

So how can we make space to work out what’s best for our family and navigate our own expectations?

Joey from Canberra has shared that she and her husband talked frankly about how they wanted things to look. They worked out the roles they’d play; who would do the housework, how night wakes were shared and what they could do to ensure they kept their own relationship strong.

When I asked mums what was most important to them in terms of others opinions, it was that their choices were respected. Unfortunately that didn’t translate through to when their babies arrived. Sophia, a first time mum said “People felt as though because we had a new baby then they had a new baby. That they were entitled to hold her the whole time they were over, or felt it was okay to come at anytime of the day/night.”

Thoughts from other mums:

“We don’t want pictures of our baby on social media but grandparents think that they have the right to post them”. - Melissa

“Grandparents thinking that they could just show up to our house without calling/messaging ahead to check that we were ready for visitors”. - Harriet

“Friends would tell us we should have a strict routine to encourage longer sleep times. It sometimes felt like that was the only option and an expectation”. - Jess

I encourage you to talk to your partner and work together to paint a picture of what you’d like life after baby to look like.

Sarah of Canberra and her partner shared some thoughts. “So before we had children we talked a lot about our values, and styles of parenting etc. which included topics like feeding, discipline, finances, schooling, language, and as we saw children and parents doing things we’d talk about it later.”

Share your plan with your family and friends. Know your boundaries and remain a team. Work together to give you and your family the best outcome. Know that things change and you’ll become confident in following your gut instinct about your kids and what is best for them. It’s ok to change your ideas, expectations and values and if you stay true to what you believe, you’ll be all the better for it.