Okay, this is written for all you new mamas. If you are expecting your first baby soon, you might consider reading this before the arrival.
After the birth you are going to be exhausted, probably more than you’ve ever been in your life. You are going to need a lot of help. You will need help from someone you completely trust with all of your being. Complete trust is so important because you are so open at this time. (My husband Jeff was that person for me.) You need all of your time, energy, and focus to be on your sweet baby and healing.
Don’t let anyone visit until you are ready. Go back and read that sentence again. Most likely you will feel pressured by some people and if you start feeling “guilty” you might be tempted to put their desires before your own needs. Don’t! Many people are used to hospital births where everyone comes rushing into the room the moment the baby is born. This can be overwhelming to mother and baby. If you are having a homebirth and cherish your privacy, then give yourself as much time as you need. And if you have a hospital birth, you can still take time when you are home until you have visitors come. People who truly love you will understand that you need space and time and they will wait until you are ready. Take all the time you need. Rest and regenerate. Get in tune with your baby. Soak up this magical time. This is the time when you’ll be getting into a new flow together. You might need a lot of focus to get breastfeeding going well. And you need all the sleep you can get. You can’t sleep when you’re socializing. And you can’t focus one hundred percent of your attention on your baby and their needs while socializing either. Visitors can be a distraction from this vital bonding time.

When you are ready for a few visitors, make your needs and boundaries known before they come over. You might still want to be alone with your baby, but need some help around the house. That’s fine. Make that known to your visitors. They can even leave meals on the doorstep until you are ready. When you are ready for visitors to come in, let them know what you need help with. What you don’t need are visitors who don’t care about your needs at all, but just come in and snatch up the baby without asking. Then they expect you to do the housework. This won’t do. Trying to politely hint that you want your baby back won’t work, because they are solely focused on their intense desire to hold your baby. Are they thinking about what’s best for mother and baby? Nope. Are they loving and adoring your baby? No. Intense desire is not sharing love. They are thinking about what they want, that’s it. And that’s exactly why I’m writing this blog post. After the birth, you are more fragile and have more need than ever to be around people whom you completely trust. You need the type of visitors who love you, adore you, and cherish you. (And this is what your baby needs too!) Who are in tune with your needs and ask you how they can help you. The type of visitors who sweep the floors, do the dishes, bring you food, do the laundry, rub your feet and are gentle and respectful. If you freely offer them to hold your baby because it feels good in your heart, then it is a sacred gift they cherish. But if you don’t, they are more than content to just help out. What you don’t need are the visitors who act entitled and hold your baby with a death grip while you feel like bursting out crying. Or who mope if you don’t let them. These visitors are missing the point and missing out on the joy of the atmosphere. And you will be too exhausted to want to deal with this kind of energy at all.
There are some people in the world who don’t feel like passing their babies around like footballs. As a new mother, so many people are going to give you un-asked advice about parenting and be judgmental about your choices. They might try to make you feel guilty or “weird” if you set a boundary or express a need that is not convenient for them. All I can say is- you are in tune with your baby like no one else in the world is. Trust your heart. Trust your intuition. If you don’t feel like having someone hold your baby, then don’t. Your baby’s needs and your own are more important than pleasing others. Some people will say that a baby can express if they don’t want to be held by someone by crying. I’ve learned from experience that babies sometimes cry after the fact. Babies are sensitive. And they express their needs in different ways. Since they can not speak the same language verbally and tell you what they need, they rely on you completely to “tune in” to them through your intuition and honor what they need. Your baby needs you to trust your intuition and give them what they need, even if it makes others angry. Which means you need to be strong. You need to be willing to trust your heart even if a room full of people think you’re crazy. You need to have the courage to walk your own path. And you don’t need to explain why you make any of the choices you do, unless you want to.
And if someone doesn’t let you hold their baby- don’t take it personal. The mother could completely love, adore and trust you, but the time doesn’t feel right. A mother needs to be in tune with her baby at all times- to feed them, change them, and care for them. If the environment is new she might want to hold the baby close as the baby gets acclimated. The mother is tuning into so many things no one else is aware of. So trust her to do what she feels is best. And be heartfelt and respectful.
Some say that gestation is longer than nine months and babies still need to be close to their mothers for a long time after. Yes, mothers and babies need to be together, feeling each other’s heartbeats and forming a soul bond that will last a lifetime.