Boundaries aren’t just for your work, they’re for mamahood too
My first lesson in setting boundaries
I was fresh out of grad school, 32, working in consulting and working my butt off (which was pretty much the only way I knew how to work). It had never been an issue in the past, I had always worked for causes I believed in. But this was different – this job wasn’t working to make a social impact. And so, I was rapidly approaching burnout. I could easily blame it on the job, on the company, on the client, on my boss. But that’s not entirely fair. You know who was responsible? Me. I wasn’t setting boundaries at all! I would answer emails late into the night and complain about it to my husband. I was flying out to the client on Sunday nights, losing a good chunk of my weekend, and feeling resentful.
But you know what? My actions were teaching my team that they could email me late at night. That I was willing to fly out on Sundays. Sure, I was working in an environment that rewarded that extra work, but that didn’t mean I had to do it – I chose to do it. A little bit out of habit, a little bit out of a belief that I had to be the best, and a little bit out of a desire to please others.
Finally, at the extreme and unyielding encouragement of my husband (thank you!) I started setting boundaries. I stopped answering late night emails. I would fly out on Sundays when it was really crucial, but not every week. I communicated to my team which commitments during the week I needed to be 100% offline for (for example: gym, dinner date, temple on Fridays). You know what’s crazy? NO ONE CARED. No one was even that surprised. I felt better, and it made my work experience feel a bit more sustainable.
How everything I learned went out the window as a new mama
Enter: new tiny person who needs something 24/7, and I’m genetically programmed to desperately want to meet her every desire. Goodbye: boundaries. Hello: complete relapse. At some blurry, sleep-deprived moment I realized I was unhappy, stressed, and approaching baby burnout. No one really talks about setting boundaries with a newborn. After all, we’re supposed to want to care for them round the clock, right? And it’s really hard to set boundaries with a newborn, because they truly do need things all the time just to survive, let alone thrive. But there’s real science behind the impact of sleep deprivation and social isolation, so for some mamas newborn-hood – while wonderful and magical at times – isn’t all peaches and cream.
I lost my identity in those first few months. I was no longer Rhiannon, a cheerful, energetic, happy young woman excited about life. I don’t even know who I was. I had a husband who didn’t feel like he was bonding with our newborn, a pediatrician telling me not to leave the house with Cimorene until she was 3 months old, a new neighborhood where I knew no one, and – at the time – no close mama friends with new babies. In short: yuck.
Three steps to setting boundaries as a new mama
Hindsight, mamas, is a wonderful and terrible thing. I’m sharing my experience in the hopes that my hindsight can be another mama’s foresight. If you are not yet a new mama but you’re thinking about it or you’re pregnant – you are going to be SO ahead of the game. You can take these steps before your adorable little monster comes into the world.
Step 1: I’ve found there are a couple of ways this starts. The first one (yours truly) is to let all the emotion bottle up and up and up inside until you explode screaming or crying or both about something as small as your husband moving the diaper cream and not remembering where he put it, and then realizing something needs to change. The second (with my second baby) is to notice that you’re starting to bottle up those emotions, ask someone to take baby munchkin-pants for a few hours, and go for a walk or to a coffee shop or something that you know gives you mental energy.
Step 2: Take some time to reflect on what you think you might need that you’re missing. I hope sleep is somewhere at the top of your list. Spending time out with other adults – friends or complete strangers, both actually were fine with me – is another good one. Maybe for you it’s cooking a nice dinner, or reading a book, or maybe even just sitting and staring into space without something attached to your boobs. Whatever it is you need: be honest with yourself, write it down, and then…
Step 3: Figure out how to make time for it. Yup, this can be the hard part, but I guarantee you for 99% of mamas out there it’s not actually as impossible as it feels in the moment. Some examples:
A mama friend worked out a schedule where she would nurse baby and go to bed at 9pm, her husband would give a bottle and midnight, and then she would get up for the 3am nursing session. That way the full burden of sleep deprivation wasn’t on her, and she was getting six hours straight. That’s game-changing as a new mom.
When Cimorene was born my mother-in-law would stop by to visit with her. After more times than I want to admit where I spent those hours picking up the house, I started using that time to do something that gave me energy and joy. (Sometimes we mamas get in our own way!)
One thing we did when my son was born is that my husband would take him one weekend morning and I would take Cimorene to brunch so we’d get some good mama-daughter time. Did he sometimes call me panicking because Moseah was crying/not eating/had a poopy diaper/all of the above? Yup. But he got better at newborn dad-hood, and I got some time with my baby girl.
I’m going to say this because I think it’s common for a lot of mamas: some husbands and partners love infants, but many have no idea what to do with a tiny human. My husband falls into the latter category (he’s phenomenal with kids 2-years old on). The thing is, while I want to respect his feelings and protect him from feeling stressed, if I’m doing that at my own expense over and over that’s not healthy for either of us. So, I did leave him alone with both our newborns, but I set him up for success (bottle prepped, stroller out, changing pad items within view). If your spouse just can’t be that person, find a relative or friend. Someone in your life wants to cuddle a baby for a couple of hours, I guarantee it. ANY MOM who has kids older than yours will get it. You just have to ask, and sometimes that feels like the hard part.
Stop it! You’re a good mom
I loved being with both of my kids when they were infants – it brought me so much joy. But I believed that if I didn’t always have that feeling of joy, or wanting to care for them 24/7, that somehow I was being a bad mom. Hear me, mamas: THAT’S NOT TRUE. When our awesomely wonderful, adorable, stinky, spit-up-y, pee-your-pants-cute munchkins come into this world you have a new identity: you’re now a mama. But that doesn’t mean your old identities get thrown into the trash. It just means you’ll have an adjustment period where all these new ‘yous’ learn to live together in harmony. I’m almost three years in and I’m still working on it, so it’s definitely a journey. But I hope that journey can start earlier for some of you than it did for me.