#104 — The First Weeks of Parenting: What Nobody Tells You

Why is it that so many parenting books begin with some version of this little, deceptive, awful phrase? They all say this one dang thing:

After the first few weeks...

But what about THE FIRST FEW WEEKS?

The first weeks are some of the longest and most challenging of a new mother’s life, from healing physically and emotionally processing the birth experience, to being up all night with feeding and sleeping, to raw nipples (if you’re breastfeeding), to trying to understand why obnoxiously loud shushing works for some babies to sleep, to feeling like basic things you assumed you could do are completely beyond you. For many, many new parents, the surprise of not being even able to feed oneself or eat enough food while having a baby around—a baby that sleeps, a lot!—is a shock to the system, and is really hard to figure out.

And no one told you.

Why? Why does our culture and our experts seem to gloss over this pivotal time?

Today, we get to check in with Vanessa Van Edwards, who was seven months pregnant when we last spoke and is now mother to a vibrant seven month old daughter.

Vanessa gives us a rare, genuine, unfiltered look at what it felt like to be unprepared for parenting a newborn, despite all her hours of reading and research. We learn about her plans and preparations for maternity leave as the founder of her business, Science of People, and how the leave she’d prepared for was upended by a customer service crisis at just 12 days postpartum.

Vanessa is a researcher, business owner, work-from-home mom, and author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People. Her comments –– “I was way over prepared for the birth and way underprepared for parenting” –– fundamentally altered how I view the newborn period and how I speak to other mothers preparing this journey.

• Why there are dozens of books and classes on the birth experience and so little attention paid to the first weeks of life with a newborn.
• What happens when you feel like you’re out of options as a new parent in light of Vanessa’s experience with an infant who would only sleep while being held. Do you sleep with your baby even though doctors tell you not to, or do you not sleep so your baby can? And why don’t we tell stories like these to help future parents prepare for the unpredictable first weeks?
• The gratitude and anger Vanessa feels toward her business. One on hand, it sustains her family financially and fulfills her. On the other, it’s unpredictable needs forced her back to work less than two weeks after having her daughter when she’d planned to take at least two months at home.
• Why running her business from home leaves her partner feeling like he’s crushing work and fatherhood while it leaves her feeling like she’s constantly making the impossible choice of being with her daughter or being a great worker.

Join us as we talk about the first few weeks: an unpredictable, challenging, rarely spoken of period that deserves much more attention.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/104.

Vanessa Van Edwards is lead investigator at Science of People, a human behavior research lab. She is also the national best selling author of Captivate -- a science based guide for awkward people to level up their social success and banish awkward silences forever. It was chosen by Apple as one of the most anticipated books of the year and has already been translated into 16 l