Hellobee

I am very open about the fact that I do not excel in the newborn phase. I am so very type A and babies are so very unpredictable. With my first child, I was never diagnosed with postpartum depression, but reflecting back, I am certain that I had at very list some postpartum anxiety and a touch of depression. I was overwhelmed, lonely and sleep deprived. There were tears, lots of tears. And with my second, I most definitely had PPD. Not only did those same feelings simmer to the surface, but on top of it, I had a high-energy toddler who hated deviating from routine, a colicky baby who dealt with some terrifying health issues at three months old, and we were in the process of packing and moving, which is extremely stressful, particularly with two kids under age 3. I tried medication this time, prescribed by my midwife, but after three days, I just didn’t feel right.  I was dizzy, lightheaded and felt like I was in a fog. After a few months of therapy, combined by a general increase in life quality that came with time, the end of the colic and more sleep, I was able to get back to myself by the time Asher was 6-7 months old.

This time around, I knew that the addition of a third baby was likely to set my life into a tailspin. I remembered vividly the traumatic transition of going from 1 child to 2 kids, and I knew that I didn’t want to ever feel that way again. While depression isn’t something you can control, I knew that I could take steps to prepare myself for the transition from 2 to 3 that I hoped would help ward off the PPD. Here’s what we did:

Enlist help early and often. We don’t have any local family, which is tough year round and especially with a new baby. I knew we would have family in town for the first couple weeks, and then I would be flying solo. With three kids, including a newborn, a spirited two-year-old, and a husband who works long and unpredictable hours, often past bedtime… I knew from my last experience that while most of the day was rough, the evenings were the worst. This was in part because I had a colicky hell baby last time (who of course grew out of it, but lord, it was truly miserable). But also, I think almost any mom, whether a working or stay-at-home-mom can tell you that the dinner and bedtime hustle is rough, even without a newborn in the picture. My boys are often just tired of the day, tired of me, tired of each other. They’re hungry, they’re missing dad, and they’re generally on edge.  o I planned in the beginning to have a babysitter or mother’s helper come every weekday evening for a couple hours to help me get dinner on the table, wrangle the boys, help snuggle or rock the baby, and just generally be a second set of grown up hands in those tough hours. (Side note: for this and the next step, we knew we would be spending a TON so we started saving for this pretty much as soon as we found out we were expecting, knowing we didn’t want to relive my PPD.)  As I have gotten my sea legs with three kids, we have been slowly cutting back these hours, and transitioning my babysitting time over to times when I can get work done as I’m emerging from my maternity leave.

Getting help for the NIGHTS. Because I am nursing Leila, I didn’t know if or how this would work out, but we decided to try using a postpartum doula to help with overnight care for 1-2 nights a week in those first few weeks. Why? Because sleep deprivation is no joke. And as much as I love my husband, since he doesn’t lactate and has a high-stress job to attend during the day, while he certainly is really helpful at night to some degree, he can’t just give me a night off to sleep. Plus our postpartum doula not only helped with baby care, but she helped us by washing and folding laundry, straightening up toys, cooking meals, washing dishes and more. She was like an extension of me, handling all that things that fell through the cracks when I spent my days just scrambling to keep baby alive and to keep my boys from killing each other and burning down our house with their mischief. We found our godsend of a postpartum doula through a local agency that vets and places them, and it was an incredibly good investment in my mental health. I still nursed baby, but the doula literally brought her to my bed, took her back as soon as she finished nursing (hooray for texting), and she handled all the burping, rocking, diapering, etc.

Placenta Encapsulation. I knew that after my first two births, my hormones were ALL OVER THE PLACE. I was up, I was down, I was crying all the time. I heard about this from our birth doula, and while I knew that there aren’t any official studies that consuming your placenta (in pill form! don’t worry – no placenta stir fry for me!) is proven to help with PPD, there is ample anecdotal evidence. And I’m happy to say that I can add my own anecdote to sing the praises of placenta encapsulation. With both boys, I had a huge hormone crash around one week after the birth, and this time, this just completely didn’t happen. While I have had a few moments of tears, most of them were brought on by general frustration rather than that hormonal weepy feeling that I remember so vividly the first two times around.

Those bleary late nights of rocking baby to sleep won’t last forever…right?

Reminding myself that tears are okay. Both mine and from my kids. It’s okay to be frustrated; it’s normal  And it’s not the end of the world if everyone in the house is in tears for one reason or another. If the baby has to skip a nap for preschool drop off or pick up, the world won’t fall apart. If Asher has to have a huge fit because I need to nurse the baby and he has to wait for whatever irrational two-year-old request he’s making, he won’t die (though if you ask him, he might. The dramatics with that one are subject for a whole separate post…). If I park Colin (my oldest) in front of the TV or iPad on a particularly rough afternoon, his brain won’t turn to mush. It’s okay to have a very low bar for success for the day. As long as I’ve brushed my teeth before noon and no one required a hospital visit, I consider the day a success. This too shall pass, even if it feels like it never will.

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How did you prepare for the transition from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, or good heavens, 3+? Any tips or tricks to share?