How to have a Baby Moon
Having a baby moon is easy. You stay in bed, keep your pyjamas or nightie on, or better still stay naked (except for your pants as you’ll need something to hold you massive maternity pads in place!) and have lots and lots of skin to skin contact with your baby. In cultures where a baby moon is common practice, the mother is looked after by her mother and other friends, she is fed and watered and massaged as she has important work to do; feed and getting to know her baby. It is a once in a lifetime time for mum and baby and sets the foundation for their life together
In western cultures the idea of a baby moon unfortunately isn’t regarded with as much reverence. However there are links that suggest that not taking time out after having a baby to do this can lead to post natal depression, exhaustion, illness, and of course not being able to establish breastfeeding sucessfuly.
Why cut yourself off from everyone?
Immidiately after birth your adrenalin levels will be very high (adrenalin is neccessary in the 2nd stage for the fetus ejection reflex to happen). On around the third day after birth your adrelanin dips – usually coinciding with your milk coming in. Often known as the ‘baby blues’ you can get very weepy, tired and defensive. So think again about spending the first couple of days inviting all your mates round to wet the baby’s head because by day 3 you will want to crawl into a hole if you haven’t rested and taken it easy. It’s a classic come down affect and one you should be prepared for.
If you have had a natural delivery your oxytocin levels will be at an all time high, giving you a ‘loved up’ feeling towards your new baby. It’s a very special time where you and your baby need to be inseperable. If you haven’t had a natural delivery it is even more important to stay close as separation will indicate to your body that the baby has not survived and therefore milk production and bonding will not take place as it should. The smell of your baby’s vernix and it’s natural desire to nurse will indicate that all is well and milk production and bonding can continue as planned. All this is not a concious decision by your body – at this point your subconcious, innate sense of what to do when your baby is born kicks in. Call it hormones, call it gentic, it just is, mess with it at your peril! What you can be concious about is maintaining the correct conditions for these natural instincts to run their course. Other people with their smells and sounds just get in the way and can actually do damage. Your natural scent is what baby will imprint into it’s mind, so the more they can smell you and not be confused by Aunty Jeans Channel No 5 the better.
It’s interesting to observe just how many people want to see a newborn baby. There is something magical about the first week after birth. Oxytocin the ‘love’ hormone is at an all time high and leaves you feeling very blissed out and incredibly protective towards your baby. You’ll feel like you’ve fallen in love with him/her and everyone else, including your partner falls way down the list. This energy is what peole want to have a part of. They aren’t aware of it conciously, but their subconcious wants to be around it, experience and feel it. For women who have had babies they want to remember it. It’s not your baby and you’s job to give them that rush of feel goodness.
Another thing that often happens, is that people who are expecting their 2nd baby bring round thier first child to see how that child is around a newborn baby. They use your baby as a guinea pig to test the waters. Remeber guests need to be comng for YOUR beneifit NOT theirs.
Breastfeeding is a learning experience for both you and the baby. When you first start you’ll want to sit up straight, get cushions under you and probably not want to be watched by everyone. A few months in you’ll be able to feed anywhere, lying down, on the bus or in the bath (to name a few places). It’s important to not feel watched and judged when you are new to breastfeeding, especially if the person watching is themselves embarressed as you will pick up on that and feel anxious (Father in laws are a classic example!)
So how can you set up your home to alow you to have a baby moon?
Prepare to be home by:
- Preparing meals in advance (when you are pregnant) and freezing them
- Shopping for easy to cook meals like Jacket Potatoes and pasta, things that can just go in the overn or ready meals. Make sure you have lots of healthy snacks available; breastfeeding requires more calories than growing a baby.
- Getting a cleaner for a while (I know of someone who had a cleaner as a new baby present from their mum)
- Tell people that you are planning this, (use the reasons above) to prepare them
- Ask anyone you don’t need to see to stay away for a while (see email letter below)
- Watch this clip from Caroline Flint, Independent Midwife Birthwise DVD on why it’s important
Message or email to your friends
I’ve writen an email that if I would write to friends had I known better 12 years ago. It’s just as, if not more important that a birth plan. Please do not worry what people think of you for making the requests– whatever you do people will have a comment so you may as well do what pleases you as you’re the one who has to live with the consequences.
Imagine if all parents made these reqeusts? In a very short time it would become the norm in our culture as it is in so many others.
“James and I are very pleased to announce the birth of our beautiful daughter. She was born on Christmas Eve at 8 minutes to 2 in the afternoon. The labour unfortunately didn’t go to plan and we ended up in St Micheals (we had planned a home birth). (You can go into as much detail as you want!) We’re home now and are in awe of her and also a little overwhlemed by it all. It’s the first time we are doing this for all 3 of us. My mum is coming over in a few days to look after us and allow us to have some time to bond and make sure that breastfeeding gets establised as that’s really important to us. As is getting sleep and recovering from the birth! We have uploaded some photos here (link to your profile page on Facebook or whereever you have uploaded pictures.)
Thanks for all your love and support in the weeks leading up to her birth and I expect you are looking forward to meeting her but for the moment we’d like to stay home getting to know Maya and would like to ask that you refrained from visiting us for the first month (or write a date when you will want them to come), that is unless you fancied coming over with food, to do some cleaning or washing! Please don’t be offended, it’s just that we would rather prevent problems from happening in the first place so hope you understand. If you do come I’ll probably be in bed with her as I plan to stay there for at least x weeks which is what midwives say is neccessary to allow bonding and breastfeeding. Although I must say I am already feeling like a protective she lion towards her!”
Human potential
I've just started reading a book called 'Switch - How to change things when change is hard'. It's already fascinated me and has linked up with the stuff that has recently been in the news, like Oliver James' New book 'How Not to F*** Them Up' and Penelope Leach's new book, 'The Essential First Year'. Both these books talk about the fact that babies who do not have their needs met - (those left to cry for longer than necessary, or who aren't given the physical touch a human baby mammal needs) produce more of the stress causing chemical cortisone. In 'Switch' Chip & Dan Heath, the authors talk about the fact that the subconscious mind can only deal with so much before it goes into overload, and that is why it can be difficult to get someone or a culture to change - we want an easy life and will resist change where we think our status quo will be challenged.
So, the connection for me is this - when we cause stress in the human being - be that baby or adult - we go into overload mode and begin to shut down - in the short term that means we 'switch off' - maybe go to sleep or just stop being able to take a concept in. In the long term we stop making neural connections in the brain and the human potential for growth becomes caped. It has been shown with research from the likes of Bruce Lipton, that the brain is an amazing organ that will continue to grow and expand if the conditions are right. You can have a look at his video on Born Together for the science behind it.
We live in a time when the science of parenting is now running parallel to the innate wisdom a mother. If she trusts it, that wisdom would take her away from 'scared' people to birth in a quiet dark place, she would keep her baby close to her from the moment of birth, she would feed her baby with her milk and talk to it gently and keep away anything that could cause her baby's cortisol levels to rise. That baby's human potential would become hard wired to participate in a world that was loving, safe and amazing and would create a reality that was just that.
We also live in a time where we think having stress in our life is normal. To counter the stress, alcohol, drugs, nicotine and other cortisol suppressants are seen as normal. What would the world be like if we didn't need those stress relievers because stress was not regarded as normal in our society? There are plenty of cultures where this is the case, funnily enough they also tend to be ones where the babies are born without intervention, are breastfed and share a family bed, how interesting....
Being able to tap into your innate sense of parenting does not rely on having had that experience yourself. Hang around with people for whom that way of being is normal. Do Relaxed Birth and Parenting antenatal and postnatal classes, go to La Leche League meetings, go to Naomi Stadlens 'Mother's talking' meetings at our Stoke Newington store. If you want to 'rewire' yourself and increase that capacity to create a life that is loving safe and amazing do Tracy Holloway's Life Upgrade course. Tracy will teach you simple techniques that will increase your brains capacity by clearing out the useless info you have accumulated over your life that is causing your mind and body stress- quite literally you get an upgrade of RAM and a disk defragmentation. All info on dates and times of course and meetings can be found on Born Together.
"How does this relate to us selling baby stuff?", this is explained in the 'Switch' book but is something Georgina and I unconsciously obviously knew was the right way to run our business. We give you a choice of great products that are ethical, great design and great quality because those products are less likely to cause you stress. It's simple when you join up the dots! If we sold 100 kinds of stroller (in our case even 20 would be too much) or 50 kinds of washable nappy your brain would very quickly go into overload and would give up at the first hurdle. Too much choice especially when you have a lot going on is a hindrance rather than helpful. So when you buy from us you are also buying with the reassurance that we have your cortisol levels in mind ;~)
What's on at Born this week
You can check out events taking place at our stores by clicking here to go to Born Together, our online listing site.
Naomi Stadlen Mother's Talking
Every Monday (excluding bank holidays) Author of 'What Mother's Do' holds Mother's Talking sessions at our Stoke Newington store. Naomi's sessions are a great way to meet other new mothers and to gain acknowledgement for the job you are doing as a mother.
