Thriving in the First Year: Expectations vs. Reality

When my daughter was born almost two years ago, I was completely blindsided. With how fiercely I loved her from the moment she was earthside. With how her cries touched something so deep in my soul that they physically hurt me. With how much my heart would swell with pride and joy to see my husband become a father. But along with all the wonderful, happy moments, there were some really, really difficult things that I was in no way prepared for. I now think there are many aspects of motherhood that you can’t prepare for, no matter how many books you read, online mom’s groups you’re part of, or classes you take. I also think I did myself a bit of a disservice by holding some, what I now know, were unrealistic expectations for myself and my baby. Expectations can be useful; indeed, they are a normal part of the human experience. But when we hold high expectations, whether from some internal vision or external, societal or family pressure, and those expectations are not met, we can feel like we’ve let ourselves or others down. I don’t think that’s a great way to feel any time, but especially in the postpartum period! Here are a few of the expectations I had for my baby and myself, and what ended up being our reality.

The Birth Plan
Expectation: I had a midwife and a doula, I took all the classes, listened to my Hypnobirthing tracks every evening, practiced my affirmations every morning, I bought my homebirth supplies months ahead of time; I thought I was READY for this whole birth thing. I was going to be one of those “loosey goosey” women we saw in the videos, calmly breathing through contractions. Maybe I would even sleep through them! I would breathe baby out and we would go on our merry way!

Reality: Birth is INTENSE. Birth is life-altering. Birth is hard work. The hardest work I’ve ever done in my life. Nothing could have prepared me for what it felt like, or how transformative the whole experience would be. That first contraction took my breath away, and I felt like I didn’t get it back until 18 hours later after I pushed...really, really, hard...(not breathed…) my daughter out. The good news is, all the preparation work I did helped give me a strong framework of support to reach my goal of a natural birth. When I wanted to give up, my doula was there to remind me of my birth plan. When I felt like the pain was becoming too much, I was able to lean back on my Hypnobirthing preparation and my husband to calm me.

Breastfeeding
Expectation: My perfect baby would do the perfect “breast crawl” immediately after birth, just like we saw in all those videos! All the books say that baby will eat 10-12 times a day, so that means she’ll nurse for 15 or so minutes at 8am, 10am, noon, and so on. Right? And I hadn't really thought about it in depth, but I had a vague notion that all this feeding would take place during the daytime hours only.

Reality: Nothing about babies is predictable, and nothing could have prepared me for often and for how long my baby would nurse, how beyond exhausting it would be, and how many unexpected issues we would have. Along with a lip and tongue tie and latching difficulties, we dealt with mastitis, thrush, clogged ducts, and a nipple shield. And that doesn’t even include the typical aspects of nursing based on baby’s cues. Cluster feeding for hours at a time, baby wanting to nurse 10 minutes after she’d just finished a marathon nursing session, growth spurts where I was convinced I did not have enough for her, and not being able to leave for longer than an hour at a time because she wouldn’t take a bottle were all things I experienced in the first few weeks and months. I now know those are all very normal breastfed baby behaviors, but not having many close examples of this, I was convinced something was wrong. Luckily, I again had access to great support and was able to make it through all of those challenges and continue to nurse my daughter today. I think if I had had more realistic expectations, or had known what a typical breastfeeding relationship looked like, I would have been much more accepting early on and would have relaxed into the whole process more.

Sleep:
Expectation: Babies fall asleep when they’re tired. Babies take a few regular, predictable, long naps every day because babies *like* to sleep, and I’ll be able to get so much done when the baby is asleep. Babies sleep at night. I will nurse her to sleep, lay her down, and again, go on my merry way!

Reality: Parents, go ahead and laugh. And if you have a baby who likes sleep then I am mildly (read: very) jealous. Next to breastfeeding, sleep was our biggest challenge. I had a baby who seemed to survive on a fraction of the amount of sleep the books said she needed, who did not fall for any of the “tricks” like babywearing, the stroller, or the car seat, who did not have any sort of regularity or pattern to her sleep, who woke at the smallest noise, and who, still to this day, has never fallen asleep on her own. We did eventually figure out a rhythm that worked for us, and that meant she spent most of her first year napping on me. At almost 2-years-old, she still does for part of her daily nap. While sometimes I wish I would have more time to get things done during the day, I’m grateful for the chance to slow down and snuggle my sweet babe. This time has gone so fast already, and I will never regret the time I spent getting in all the cuddles I could!

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The early days. Pride, elation, exhaustion, with a side of "what am I doing?"

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My Body:
Expectation: I was fairly healthy before I got pregnant. I was at a healthy goal weight, eating a whole foods diet that made me feel really good, exercising, and had a lot of energy. Sure, I slipped a little (or a lot) when I was pregnant. But I was eating for two, right? Baby NEEDED McDonald’s french fries every other day. Or pizza every week. But I was sure that after she was born I’d get right back on track. I was going to give myself a little time to recover, and then when she was a month old I was going to start back with my healthy diet, and when I got the all-clear from my midwife at my 6-week postpartum checkup I was going to start exercising again.

Reality: Nope and nope. I did not realize how *starving* I would be while exclusively breastfeeding a baby, and that I would eat at least two times more than an Olympic weightlifter at every meal. Needless to say, this was not conducive to rapid postpartum weight loss! As for exercise, I would have loved to get moving more, but when was I going to have time between all the nursing and not sleeping? I have lost my pregnancy weight, but it has been a much slower, more gradual process than I imagined. Luckily chasing a busy toddler has provided me with some daily cardio, and once she started eating more solids, weight loss became much easier.


As you can see, my first year of motherhood didn’t go quite as planned! I had some pretty unrealistic expectations of my baby and myself, but I have learned so, so much in these few short years, and know I have so much to continue to learn. Part of my growth has come from realizing that it’s okay to scale down my expectations of myself, and to be gentler with myself as I navigate the ever-changing stages of parenthood. Once I started doing that, I really began to enjoy the whole process a lot more. The second year has been much more manageable, and while I know we will have many challenges to come, I’m prepared to face them with grace and some more realistic expectations.
~Kelsey

Kelsey Voelker is a labor doula and lactation educator with Full Circle Birth Collective. Learn more about Kelsey here.

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