We are not only giving birth to our child – we are also giving birth to a new version of ourselves.
The fourth trimester – the first 12 weeks after your child enters this world – is one of the most radical transitions your body and mind will ever go through. It is a sacred transformation filled with both/and moments. Deep connection and unavoidable isolation. Reverent joy and deep grief in losing your old self. Fierce love and crippling anxiety.
In Rochester, we have a village of doulas, lactation consultants, organizations, and other mamas who have traveled this journey before. Let’s dive into some things to expect during that fourth trimester.
Sleep Deprivation in the Fourth Trimester
To preface, every baby is different. There’s a lot of advice, opinions, and approaches for how to respond to your baby when they are waking during the night.
Bridget Strub, doula and owner of Wildflower Birth, shares about her experience of sleep deprivation and the compassionate posture she learned to have with herself:
“My husband and I began a regimented approach to help our firstborn sleep through the night. However, once we started, there was something that felt off to me. I now know it was my intuition – an inner voice that I could trust – that my baby needed my presence and body to regulate.
I remember lying in my bed, listening to my daughter cry, and a biological reaction in my body made it impossible for me to bear. My husband stated, ‘If this isn’t working for us, let’s do what feels right.’ I picked up the book we were using to walk us through this method and chucked it on the floor.
There are so many expectations to ‘get it right’ and find ways to get our baby to sleep through the night as fast as possible. We forget that our babies are biologically wired to sleep on us; their nervous systems are regulated when they feel and smell us. When my firstborn only wanted to have a contact nap, I remember feeling so trapped. I wrestled internally with my anger. It was a journey of learning to surrender to the season we were in and what my baby needed.
A root problem with sleep is that we have desperate parents who are sleep-deprived trying to find a solution. What we really need is our villages. We have a vision of what this time should look like: keeping the house clean, cooking the meals, and having our partner go back to work as soon as possible. We have set up unrealistic expectations because we are used to measuring our worth by how much we produce. But that isn’t what we need postpartum. Everything in us is wired to be in community, receive support, and stop measuring our worth by how much we accomplish.”
Tips from Bridget:
- Prep your space with blackout curtains, favorite snacks, extra water bottles, and a cozy feeding station for those middle-of-the-night wakeups.
- Chuck the book or the advice that isn’t aligning with your intuition and trust yourself.
- Lower the bar on chores, responding to text messages, and keeping the house tidy.
- Ask for help from your village. Ask for a meal train, food that can be added to your freezer stash. Create a chore list (or anything else that can be taken off your plate) for your fridge that friends can look at when they come over, so you can focus on your bonding time with the baby.
The Mental Load of Motherhood
Even with all the joy that comes with welcoming a little one, the mental load of motherhood can be overwhelming. One in seven women experiences postpartum depression, and 11-21% experience postpartum anxiety. Up to 75% of women get postpartum blues, with mood swings, crying, and anxiety. Just because it’s common doesn’t make it less disorienting.
Melody Falcone, a previous HR Business Partner who transitioned to be a stay-at-home mama and Airbnb host extraordinaire, shares her personal story of having postpartum anxiety with her second child:
“Postpartum anxiety can be crippling. With a newborn baby that cried close to 95% of the time, I was sure something was wrong with her. I researched, I panicked, I was anxious. I feared that if I neglected the smallest of details, my daughter would die. Doesn’t every mother worry like this? It wasn’t until I talked to my sister-in-law that postpartum anxiety was brought up. I was shocked – I had never experienced anxiety or would consider myself an anxious person. But there was something that clicked into place when she said it. I reached out to friends and family members who have struggled with anxiety. They provided tools and resources to help (and most importantly, I stayed off ‘Dr. Google’). I leaned into my gut, went back to counseling, and learned about more holistic options to help my little girl thrive.”
Amy Slocum, owner and operator of Soul and Body Movement, also had a difficult transition into motherhood. Out of her painful experience, she is now helping other mamas learn how to embody movement that rewires the nervous system. She shares:
“One of the things that surprised me was how much I needed the positive energy of other people to surround me those first few weeks. I thought I’d want it to just be me, my husband, and our baby. When I got hit with the baby blues, I realized I needed people around me — to borrow their joy when I couldn’t feel it myself yet.
As a dance and yoga instructor, I desperately needed something familiar and a physical embodied practice to ground me – to remind me who I was outside of being a new mom. Nourishing my body with gentle somatic movements keeps me grounded and steady with my kids. Today, these yoga practices are still my lifeline. I created an online yoga studio to support other mamas who need that lifeline too. It’s all about bringing ourselves back to center.”
Tips from Melody and Amy:
- Talk to close friends and family members who have gone before you in motherhood.
- Don’t use Google to help diagnose issues; it will likely induce more anxiety.
- Seek professional help from a medical provider or therapist.
- Move your body gently with somatic movements to keep you grounded.
- Sign up for an online yoga class with other mamas to support you physically and mentally.
Breastfeeding Doesn’t Always Feel Natural
Breastfeeding is supposed to feel natural. So why does that mean cracked nipples, clogged ducts, mastitis, problems with latching, and not being able to supply enough milk sometimes? Breastfeeding challenges can make us feel inadequate or defeated, like we are doing something wrong, especially if we are only hearing positive breastfeeding experiences.
Stacey Eaton, mother of six, has experienced her fair share of breastfeeding struggles:
“When I had my first baby at the ripe age of 22, I had put little thought into what breastfeeding would look like. It turned out that breastfeeding was hard: the sore breasts and nipples in those first postpartum weeks, the sacrifice of time and freedom, and exhaustion from breastfeeding on demand multiple times during the night for many months.
I am grateful that my first three babies were happy and healthy, and I was able to exclusively breastfeed them. Then, when baby number four came around, everything I thought I knew came crashing down. His latch felt different. He wasn’t gaining weight. By the time he was found to have a lip/tongue tie, my supply had plummeted to barely half of what he needed, and I never gained it all back. I reached out to my community and was/am grateful for breastmilk donations from other generous mamas that allowed me to breastfeed and supplement with bottles. I felt a bit defeated. But my baby was hungry and miserable, and I was anxious for him to be healthy and thriving.
It was another five years before I became pregnant with my fifth child, and this time I was determined that nothing would ‘go wrong’ with breastfeeding. I had the new pump and dove into the world of flange sizes. I followed all the mom advice on social media. I had all the milk supply supplements. I had the baby checked and rechecked for a tongue tie those first few days. And yet, within a week, my supply was plummeting. Her latch felt off. I was burning myself out nursing and pumping around the clock, using all of the tips and tricks. As time went on, she wasn’t gaining the weight she needed. I had help from lactation consultants and her tongue tie revised, but ultimately, I just wasn’t producing what she needed.
Or in my mind, I had failed. I knew better this time. The first time this happened, it came out of nowhere. This time, I was prepared. I was a seasoned mom of five who knew everything. I told myself I was not going to let my baby down again . . . I was absolutely devastated. Yet again, my community came around me. They provided breastmilk. They gave encouragement and ‘You’ve got this mama!’ and shared their own stories.
I ended up needing to combo feed (breastfeed/donated milk/formula) with my sixth baby as well, but I had learned some things along the way: I was far from a failure. I had, in fact, succeeded in doing everything I could to nourish and care for my baby. While ultimately a healthy baby is what mattered most, I still had to allow myself to grieve the loss I felt.”
Tips from Stacey:
- Don’t hesitate to ask for help from your friends and family.
- Look into a breastfeeding bank local to you: Human Milk 4 Human Babies.
- Meeting in person with a lactation consultant can be very helpful for any breastfeeding concerns you might have.
- Give yourself so much grace – you are doing a hard thing! Allow yourself to grieve if things aren’t going the way you had hoped.
Learning to Embrace an Identity Shift
You’re not just welcoming a baby – you’re welcoming a new version of yourself. Your values, capacity, boundaries, and relationships can shift significantly during this time.
In my first fourth trimester experience, I found myself confined to the couch downstairs due to a high level of physical pain. At my six-week check-up after giving birth, I cried to the midwife, sharing that I still couldn’t drive or walk without severe pain shooting through my body. My disability status was pushed out two weeks during that appointment. I didn’t know it until two months postpartum, but I had retained placenta membranes and a second-degree tear from giving birth that I believe contributed to the constant and intensity of sharp pain. It took over two months for me to notice any relief and to begin physically healing.
During these fresh postpartum weeks, my physical limits were not the only thing shifting. My mental space was being consumed by trying to learn and understand how to care for my baby. Is she latching properly? Why is she crying like something is seriously wrong? What if I trip by mistake and she falls on the floor? The intrusive thoughts that occupied my headspace during the fourth trimester cracked me open to a tidal wave of emotions.
Sometimes I craved friend visits to break up the day, while other days I felt like the company with even the safest of friends felt overwhelming to my nervous system.
Not every friend or family member knew how to show up for me in the way I needed during this time. I lost connection with some friendships simply because I couldn’t keep up and had to say “no” more often. Through every no, there was something sharpening in me: my ability to honor myself and my limits.
The things that mattered deeply to me prior to becoming a mom no longer seemed as important. My desire to have a lot of social plans, extracurricular activities, and put in extra hours at work no longer fit on my calendar. My identity was shifting. Although at times it felt disorienting, it began to reframe my priorities. Through accepting my limits, I discovered that the same softness I was working to give my children was a softness I needed to nurture myself.
Tips from Jacqui:
- Practice saying “no” more often and share openly that you have limits you need to honor during this time.
- Advocate for yourself if you are not healing in the way you believe your body should be during the fourth trimester.
Want Local Motherhood Support?
- Browse more Pregnancy & Postpartum articles.
- Connect with other mamas in the Rochester Mom Collective Community Group.
- Birthful offers postpartum support, education, and a top-rated podcast for parents.
- ROCovery Fitness (Fit Moms Group) gives peer support for maternal mental health and wellness.
- Call Monroe County Maternal Mental Health Support at 585-753-5077 for services and referrals.
- Beautiful Birth Choices provides postpartum and baby workshops, plus in-home lactation consultations.
- UR Medicine Lactation Support has hospital-based care and phone support.
- Breastfeeding Partners (WIC) connects moms to peer counselors with lived experience.
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