#349 | The Supermom Complex: Trying to Do it All with Dr. Morgan MacDermott, NMD

Dr. Morgan MacDermott, NMD, a naturopathic medical doctor specializing in perinatal and postpartum health, joins us to explore why postpartum isn’t simply a recovery period—it’s a complete physiological and emotional transformation. We discuss why American culture celebrates productivity instead of rest, and the critical role of the  “5-5-5 rule."

As the conversation unfolds, we move into the realities of early motherhood—how high-achieving women struggle with loss of control, the connection between personality type and postpartum mood disorders, and why relying on intuition matters more than parenting scripts, tracking apps, or “doing it right.” We also talk about the myth of the woman who can do it all, the importance of presence over perfection, and how stability—not constant stimulation—is what children remember and rely on most.

Together, we examine how modern mothers can reclaim postpartum and motherhood as a sacred and restorative experience, and how that same understanding can shape calmer, more confident parents -- and children -- in the years that follow.

Dr. Morgan MacDermott on Instagram

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Transcript

I'm Cynthia Overgard, birth educator, advocate for informed consent, and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Show. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hi everybody. I am Dr Morgan McDermott. I'm a naturopathic doctor, and I specialize in the perinatal women's health space. So pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum, motherhood and a little bit of Pediatrics, just because I feel like it's a natural flow from one thing into the next. And today, I really want to talk about and emphasize to those that are pregnant or planning on having families, the importance of postpartum, many different concepts within postpartum, but some of them, maybe we haven't talked about before. People haven't heard about and a little bit more in the philosophical realm around rest transformation of motherhood, and what the benefit and the beauty and the lessons that can be made from those situations. But then specifically also why this is a challenge for modern women, American women. You know, I don't speak for the entire world here, but I do think that there's uniquely American concepts or ways that we've been raised in our culture that make a generally like the transition of motherhood a little more challenging than it needs to be, but then specifically postpartum, because there is a lot of emphasis on pregnancy and being really cute and getting your maternity photos, which I love, all that stuff. And then now I do feel happy that there's a lot more emphasis on birth and birth planning. It could be it could be more, but I do still think that there's a huge hole when it comes to postpartum planning. People just you can't really get it until you're in it. It's not something you can conceptualize as a first time parent, what it's really going to be like nursing, you know, 10 hours a day for the first month and beyond. It does get easier and shorter and things, but how much preparation needs to go into that so that we can have a restful postpartum. And also, there is this idea, I think that's hard for American women, that maybe makes it feel too I don't know, like bougie or just unnecessary. They're like, well, I can just there's either there's two angles, either one I don't have that sort of resource, and that being able to just rest is bougie, and I'm not going to try to prioritize that, because there are ways that we can prioritize this, like we're joking ourselves. If we think that it's bougie to be able to rest after having a baby, that is not like if you had a surgery, or you a broken bone, something that ever happened, no one would ever think it was bougie that you rested and took care of your body. And obviously, giving birth to a baby is a physiologically normal process. Sometimes, though, women do have surgery or they have, you know, physical things they're healing from. But even if they don't, that's not we don't have to be really badly hurt to prioritize a reason and a season of rest, and it just, I think, is seen as something that's unnecessary or, like, maybe lazy, or that also this idea that if I don't have to do that and I'm out at the park or at the gym on day four or five postpartum, I'm somehow, like, better. And it's a flex, you know.

I see, yeah, I think the thing I see mothers struggle with the most is this concept that they that rest would indicate that they are not capable of doing it all. This is really the strong sense of I should be able to do it all. For example, when I was four days postpartum with a brand new baby on Thanksgiving, I thought that I should be able to bake apple pies with, you know, a lattice top, like, that's something that's on a good day. Takes me hours to do, and it's really hard to do. And I thought, well, I just want to integrate my new baby into my life and be able to, just like, throw the baby on the back and not slow down and just like, do it all. And then I'm I thought that was the the way to be most successful as a mother. What did I learn?

Our culture celebrates those sorts of things, like, you know, pushing through and kind of self sacrifice and not. There's no merit or honor scene when a woman takes like, three weeks off to rest in bed. There's only merit and honor scene on social media or even out in the world, where you get a lot of compliments from strangers that are saying, oh my gosh, you're out and about with that tiny little baby. Like, wow, look at you, super mom. And I just it makes me sad because it's celebrating the wrong angle. It reminds me a little bit of what men struggle with, with showing weakness or vulnerability, to be able to sit down and rest, or if they're not feeling well, to be able to put their feet up and, like, take a break. I feel like women when they're postpartum get into that same mindset that if I sit down and rest, if I stay in bed for two weeks, if I do nothing for my family or anyone else and just myself, that this demonstrates a weakness in me, not a strength. And really it's the opposite, because it's a hard thing to do, so it's actually demonstrate. In strength and self care.

Yeah, great analogy with men even showing an, you know, emotions. It's, it's not something that is accepted. And I it's the thing I hear a lot. I don't know about you guys, but is from, you know, when young, new postpartum women being like, I would go crazy. I would go so stir crazy in the bed if I had to stay in there for two weeks. And so for the 555 if anybody's not familiar, which I'm sure they are on this platform, but still, let's just say it the 555 is a is an easy way to think about rest in postpartum, and it's so it's five days in the bed, five days on the bed, and five days around the bed. They're all pretty similar. People are like, what's the difference? And I mean, that's kind of the point. They're all five days around the bed. I don't know what to do exactly. I always have to break that down and explain it. I always explain that the first five days you are literally undressed in the bed. You're not getting dressed, you're in your postpartum undies, and you're topless, and you're going from the bed to the bathroom to the bed to the bathroom, and you're under those covers and you're tucked in, those are the first five days with your baby, obviously, yeah, yeah, skin to skin with your baby. That's why you're topless with your baby, right?

Topless for the sake of being topless. Yeah? As fun as that is, you're not even thinking about getting dressed. Right? Dressing isn't even a priority. We're not even really concerned about showering, just really basic. The next five days, you're on the bed, meaning that you're getting dressed. You might be having a little bit of a morning routine now, getting up, showering, but your day is spent on the bed. Maybe you tuck under the covers a little bit here and there, take a nap with the baby. Maybe you're folding some baby laundry on the bed that's been brought to you, but you're on the bed resting all day, and then the last five days in the bedroom like this is your primary space, whether you're in the bed, on the bed, around the bed, but you're just sort of in the bedroom with a little bit of time in and out. It is kind of hard for people to understand, and it is really hard for people to think about even five days under the covers. They're like, what?

It blows my mind, how? Because I am the kind of person I have a really hard time in postpartum. So I'm like, Give me three weeks. Give me a month. I am totally content with staying so for me, I don't struggle with that, but it is kind of, it's amazing to me. I'm sort of in awe of the people who want to get up and about so early on, but it also I feel like highlights a dysfunction where time out. Can we not just they're like, I'd go stir crazy. I can't. There's no way. I have to walk. I have to get up and do some sort of exercise, or take my dogs out, or do data. And it's like, but hold on, there's never, you will never get this time back, and especially if it's your first baby, that's really your one big, long chunk, where you can settle into this in a different sort of a way, where, in the future, when there are other children, it's not that it's impossible. It does take more planning, and it's going to look a little different, because they're going to there's going to be kids on the bed with you. You will be sometimes forced to get up and do something, you know, depending on the ages of them, etc. But I just really want women to see that there is a deep, deep, deep purpose and respect that they are giving themselves and their baby and their body and this entire transition when we are just pumping the brakes a little bit and slowing down and allowing us ourselves to do something that we probably have never done before, like You said, women are just not allowed to prioritize ourselves, or we're being kind of they don't. They don't even know. They don't actually know if they're going to go stir crazy, because they've never done it. I think the key is, if you I would say to that woman, if you feel compelled to walk, which we know she won't, for days, when you feel compelled to walk, get up and walk. But what we don't want is the woman exactly like Trisha, exactly as I was. I'm not proud of this at all. I'm ashamed of this like I went home after giving birth with my son, my husband, we were home eight hours later. I insisted my brother and sister in law come hang out for a while. They were like, Are you sure? And I just said, yes, yes. Come before you go back to the city, of course, come spend the afternoon with us. Went back to our place. And I hate sharing this, because I feel like I truly feel ashamed of this. It definitely was not a healthy thing. I insisted on making dinner. I insisted and I stood up, and my heart started racing, and my husband came over and, like gently put his hand on me. He was like, synth, sit down. I'm making dinner. But I look back at that moment I had a fleeting thought of thinking like I had a fleeting thought that said, How do I mask that my heart is racing so much right now, like, what the heck was going on with me? And I know two things that I because I've thought about this so much. One is, yes, I was told my whole life, up until that not even told. But like my friends the jokes, when are you going to be CEO of MasterCard? Like I was the overachiever. I worked full time. I was in grad school, full time, not part time. I was just like, non stop achieving, achieving, and unfortunately, you develop an identity around that in your young adult life, whatever you experience in your. Young adult life, you will form an identity around it. And that identity, I'm sure it served me in some ways, but it really didn't serve me then at all. And the second thing that was coming up for me, in addition to that ridiculous pride, or whatever the heck was going on with me, this message Trisha and I both had, like, the woman who can do it all, she can do it all, craziness. The second thing that went on for me was a feeling of guilt, because I always saw my mother as a woman who did it all. I mean, really did everything and did everything beautifully, like there's nothing my mother hasn't done beautifully in her life, and she did it all. And I felt like I don't have a sister. She's the person I look up to it's like I really felt like she didn't have help. I had exactly what she had, like a safe, loving home, a roof over the head. Why should I need more than mom had it? Well, there was definitely a part of me that thought that would be a weakness to need more than what mom had. But what my generation didn't understand was all the women from my mother's generation. And before had community, they had people visiting without calling first, they had people coming over, bringing food, sharing, that the women today are so isolated. So it's not a fair comparison, because that community makes all the difference. When you have people milling about your kitchen, preparing food and new food, it's a completely different life, whether you're in bed or not. So for me, those are the two things I've been able that generation, not specifically you and your mom, but that generation also was quick to put a bottle a formula in a baby's mouth, and breastfeeding just wasn't even on the table. Trisha, for some of his moms and so much of this put this need to rest and be taken care of, is about establishing the breastfeeding relationship. Yes, there's the mental piece, yes, there's the physical piece. Yes, there's the emotional piece. But if you are not taking this time with your baby and resting in bed and taking the proper self care, breastfeeding is going to be far more challenging. And we see evidence of that all the time. I mean, I see it every single day in my work, women who are coming to me because they need breastfeeding help, because they didn't get off to a good start, because they were going to three different pediatric visits in the first two weeks postpartum, they were coming home from the hospital losing a day there every time you have to go to an appointment and do anything, you're losing half a day of resting and feeding your baby. Now, in those first 14 days, they will lose four to five days of time. You have 14 days to establish a healthy milk supply. You lose four to five days of those and it's going to be really difficult.

And people don't learn this before they've had their baby. It's like, it's so sad and frustrating to me. This is how it was with my first I had so much knowledge about pregnancy and birth, and I thought postpartum was just going to be like, whatever, because I had been a nanny and I had been a twin nanny, and so I was like, well, one baby is going to be easy peasy, because I was this cute little teenager in college nannying all these twins somehow, you know, like once they find out, once in the Twin community, they find out that there's someone who can, like handle it, then I just kept getting passed around to all these twin families anyway. So I had this extreme arrogance about my capabilities of being in medical school and having a baby, and it was just gonna be all fine and dandy and whatever. And I felt ahead of the game, because I did know that getting a good latch was an important thing, but I didn't even know what a good latch meant. So anyway, it's like your baby is born, and now, unfortunately, it's true. There is this clock, and it's the days go by so fast, and if there's things that are interrupting that, if there's NICU stay, if there's healing or coming off medications or, yeah, transferring and doing different things, getting back to your house, doing whatever, going to the pediatrician, lip and tongue tie stuff. It's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And we're supposed to be resting and eating for meals and doing all this stuff in that time, and skin to skin feeding every hour. You know it's, it's a ticking time bomb if there hasn't been really well intentioned planning. And I think when people think of, oh, postpartum planning, they're like, Yeah, well, my my partner's taking off a couple of weeks, and my mom's gonna come into town, and so I'm good. And it's like, that's great. That's bare minimum. I love it. And wait, what about this? That and the other thing, meal train, making sure that you have, you know, your other children or pets. So who's going to do those things? Because it's not going to be you, ideally, you know, right down to who's watering the plants? Yes, exactly, because you don't want the details, yes, and you don't want to be stressed about these sorts of things, as it all falls apart around you. And it's, it's just also so sad, because not only is it maybe the robbing of a breastfeeding situation and starting off motherhood in this like kind of, you know, poor mental health, potentially because of the way that things are so chaotic in those first couple of weeks, but what can be with my second postpartum I had such a redemptive experience of i. All of my babies are tied. So breastfeeding in the beginning is rough for us, but I got, you know, we she was easier, and we got her sort of sorted early on. And so I had a euphoric two full weeks in bed. I did not move. I was like, high. I don't, I don't get breast or birth highs. Like, I mean, I obviously am happy when my babies are born, but I don't really feel sometimes people will be like, wow, it was such as crazy rushfox Toast. And that doesn't happen for me, but that particular postpartum, it was like two weeks of that. It wasn't right at the birth, it was just I was manic or something, like, in a great way, and it was so different. And I ate so much food, and I had all these people coming over to drop off food, and I was like, this is a do over, because my first time sucked so badly, and I do wish I would have had that with him. And this is what all women should be able to have with their newborn babies. Like we grow these babies, we birth them however it happens. It's so much like transition and change, and it's constantly changing, and it's like, where am I and what's happening, and there's happening? And there's this new being inside of my integrated in my energy, body and space. And now here they're now. They're here, and like, I want to be present with them and just study their every detail and be really joyful and happy while I'm doing it, and not stressed out and triple feeding and whatever. And I just want that, that bubble feeling for everybody, and it takes, obviously, it's kind of like birth, right? We we can prep, and we can know all the things, and then it's going to intersect with reality. And sometimes it's not going to be exactly that, but if we can try our best and have all of this set up prior, I think that's giving us the best shot. I don't think women realize that the first two weeks postpartum can actually be the most blissful time in your life. Yeah, it sounds like, oh my gosh, you know it's going to be a horrible I'm going to be in pain, I'm going to be tired, exhausted. I can't wear my clothes. I'm wearing these weird granny pants. I'm bleeding. My body hurts like all these things. But if you set yourself up properly, like those two weeks are incredible. I mean, blissful. I would have had five more children just for those two weeks. I would live in those two weeks for the rest of my life and be happy like it is. It can be remarkable, but and because you have this beautiful cascade of hormones. You have so much oxytocin. It's all the oxytocin. It's you and your baby and looking that, looking at that baby, and feeling over, overwhelmed with love. But that doesn't happen if you're stressed. That doesn't happen if you're getting out of the bed. That doesn't happen if you're feeling responsible for other things, that doesn't happen if you're not getting the right support with feeding and your nipples are in incredible pain. That doesn't happen if you're not spending time skin to skin. It can happen. It's a drug. It's a real drug, and the best drug on the planet. And you can have it, but you have to set yourself up for it the way I think about this these days, when I look back and wish that I had done things differently, at least with my first when my son was born, is I'm my daughter's role model. Now I'm even my son's role model in so many ways, but I am his female role model, and I realize it comes down to giving yourself permission. That's what it feels like for me, I think, and women like me, and sometimes in my postpartum group, I've said to women, tell me a way you're going to give yourself permission this week. And women, if they really think about that, they have an answer like, I'm going to give myself permission to do this. I'm going to give myself permission to do that without endlessly feeling guilty like they should be spending their time differently. You know, I remember if when my baby was napping, thinking if I did chores the whole time I wasted the nap time. If I lounged the whole time, I wasted the nap time. If I called a dear friend or my mom, the whole time I wasted the nap time. No matter what I did, it didn't feel I could ever justify having a little time to myself. There was always a feeling of guilt, and I it's my responsibility to give my daughter permission so that when she's in this stage of life, I can say to her, this is what to do next. You have permission. It's not only like permission for luxury. This is actually a must. This is a this is a must. This is not a nice to have. This is a must have. So Morgan, can you talk about specifics? Because we've talked a lot about that important rest time. It's one of trisha's favorite topics, too. And she also has described those couple weeks with her son, her third baby, as the most blissful time of her life. What details do you want to bring into this? I mean, like, for example, one thing I've had couples think about is young couples always worry about money. They don't realize in the next 10 years, 20 years, 20 years, they're going to have a lot more money than they have when they're young and starting out. It's always feels so tough that you have children and babies when you have so little, and everyone worries about money at that age, it seems, and a lot of them are afraid to spend money. And I say, can you guys just redo your budget for a year like. If you don't have a house cleaner, get a house cleaner for one year. Just do that for one year. For one year. Allow yourselves to order a healthy dinner in three nights a week, and you'll look so forward to those dinners in and not to feel like it's the end of the world for spending money, but looking at it like this is a period of life, and we're going to invest in it. And after this chapter is over, we can go back to however we want to do things. What creative thoughts have you had, or what do you recommend to your clients? Typically?

Yeah, the finite chunk of time that you offer in that is really important, because I think people think when they're making it a lifestyle change or a budget change, that it's now going to be forever this way. And it's difficult in that moment to wrap your mind around the idea that, no this is even just for six months or 12 months, or even just for this month right now, I am going to use DoorDash five times or something, whatever it is, because I need these things to happen. So one of the as a naturopathic doctor and somebody who's interested in sort of the ancient and traditional postpartum healing rituals and practices, because I think that humans are a species of animal, just like the rest of you know, if you want to think about it like, obviously we're different from animals, but we still have our set of expectations that our bodies have adapted through over time. And there is certain ways where humans can be optimally healthy and in a situation where we have all of our needs met. It's like when we look in the blue zone areas and the community, as you mentioned, is an absolutely enormous thing. And a midwife told me one time that raising a baby is even too big of a job for two people, for two partners. It's not even meant just for the two people, and certainly not just one mother at home while the partner is working, which is what the vast majority of modern mothers are doing now today. So anyways, if we know that there are a set amount of conditions that would breed us in this being in the situation where we can thrive the most, I think that four meals per day, which sounds like a lot, especially when you are not wanting to get up out of the bed and cook and things, that's why it takes prep and planning, but there is so much benefit in feeding ourselves very, very well and properly in this postpartum time, your digestion changes immediately. Postpartum, and not eating enough and having blood sugar dips is stress on the body, and cortisol has to increase in order to release glucose from our liver. So if we're living in this constant kind of like cortisol soup, we're having blood sugar dips, we're not eating enough, we're not sleeping enough. We're trying to take care of a baby. We're trying to adjust, have a new identity. Maybe we're in pain. We're healing like do we see how this is a problematic time? So we need to be very, very on top of our game in remembering all of this and giving ourselves the best base level situation that we can and also knowing what to expect. We cannot expect our newborns to sleep very much at all, and so then we have to expect that we will need to rest during the day like again, it's temporary, and that's very, very important to remember that all of these things are temporary shifts, huge, huge lifestyle shifts. Everything drops on a or shifts on a dime when that baby comes out. I also think Cynthia, as you mentioned earlier, about high achieving women, this is a particular interest of me as well, is that women who come from a high achieving background, I think, have a harder transition into motherhood. This is just my own theory, right? Like I think that it's it the level of control we have over our lives prior to having a baby, we can't it's not cohesive to continue with that sort of lifestyle once a baby is here.

That's actually a fact. That's actually a fact that's one of the risk factors of postpartum depression, high achieving women, women who are perfectionists, women who are used to having their lives in order. You'd never think so, because they should be able to integrate and have their lives in order after the baby is born, and they often do, but it's that image that gets shaken. So interestingly, two of the most interesting things on the risk factor list, and it is a very long list, and I'm not a I'm not a huge fan of talking about that list, because it can really freak women out thinking, oh my god, I'm like, four things on that risk factor. And who cares? Because that doesn't really apply to an individual. However, I do find it interesting that women at the low end of the socio economic scale, not surprisingly, are on the list of risk factors for a perinatal mood disorder, and women at the high end of the socio economic scale are. So there's this whole category of women who seem to have easy lives. And again, my theory, and now we're talking theory. My theory is that it has to do with their identity, that they've just got it all together. And now they feel, I mean, I, in a way, I felt like a fraud. I would wake up and have like, breast stains on my shirt, and I'd have to do my sheets every single morning, because there was breast milk on my sheets. And I was just like, if people could see me now, they would not recognize me. And it was, it was uncomfortable, and I have so much tenderness when I look back at that young mother that I was, I have so much love and compassion because I just didn't. I did not have the. Standing the life experience, the wisdom, I was exactly where I was supposed to be in that chapter of my life. I just didn't know it, and I didn't know what it would look like. And by the way, while I'm on a roll about risk factors, Morgan, I do have a theory of another one that I've never heard. I think women who were nannies, I have a few have been through my postpartum group, one lovely one who's in my group right now, and I have so much I feel, actually have two in my current most part room. I feel so much for these women, because they do their job really well. So of course, they have so much more experience than the rest of us. I mean, I didn't know a clue about anything when my baby was born, not a single clue. But because they do their job well, they are so naive to think that having their own baby is going to be similar, which is so crazy, because you think you love those babies that you work for. Oh, you don't know love. You don't even you can't scratch the surface. Now you realize love comes with anxiety and anger, like nervousness and prayers all the time, and just it's such a different emotion than the joyful, happy love you think you have when you're a nanny. Do you want to comment on that?

I literally remember thinking to myself one time when the parents came home and the the twins, who had been beautifully well behaved for me, started breaking down crying to their mom, asking like begging for suckers and stuff, because it was before I knew that concept of, you know, children feeling comfortable to break down in front of their caregivers who they're safe with. And I was like, see, I am like, I This is embarrassing to say, but I was literally saying to myself, I'm a better caregiver for these kids than their mom, which is so funny, and it's like what I would spend six or seven hours a day with them and then go home and sleep all night long and have nothing disrupting me. And you know, it's just so different. It's your physiology responding to this big event. You are primarily wired to this being like you said, where now there is anxieties and worries and fears and all sorts of things that you didn't ever know that you would feel or experience, and it never ends. It never stops. Like even when you're sleeping, you're sleeping with your ears attuned to them. You hear them all the time, no matter what. Ooh, this is interesting. It's a little bit off topic, but I think your listeners will think it's interesting that they've done studies where they've shown that around four months gestation, there's a testosterone wash in the brain of little boys. And with girls, they don't get that much. And so there's so it's more of just estrogen. And then the way that this manifests on later on. You know, with these studies where men will perk up in the middle of the night and wake or arouse their brains to the sound of suds, like footsteps and sounds getting closer and closer, any kind of sound getting closer.

Terrifying. I know footsteps getting closer and closer in the middle of the night while you're sleeping. Okay, well done for waking up to that.

I know it makes sense, right? Because it's like, that's their their role is like, in a protector kind of a way. And then women, there are brains will respond and wake and rouse to any level of animal or baby type, high pitch crying or whimpering. And whereas a man, a male brain, will sleep, it does nothing to their brain unless it's loud enough or if it's getting closer. And then we tend to not really respond similarly in the other way. And it's, it's something, you know, it's joked about all the time, the Phantom cries when you're in the shower or whatever. But there it's, it's inescapable. It never goes away. You have to integrate this as a new piece of yourself, and it's here to stay. It is rough, sometimes, always having this feeling of like, oh my gosh, you know, and I have four kids, and we're maybe thinking about having another one, and I'm like, how when they're all gone and off in the world, am I going to manage my heart split in five different locations? What if they move away to different states? And you know what I mean, but there's so much beauty. It's so worth all of those different challenges that come around. But I think with motherhood in general, there is this huge chunk of joy that comes into this and all these other feelings and responsibilities, and it is dumped in your lap all at once, and over the course of that first year, I think there's a lot of transition that's happening there, and it's also happening so fast that it's like, just when you figure out your six week olds, you know what's what makes them happy, how they stop crying, it changes, and then now they're going through this, and then it changes, and then now they're going through that. And so there's this constant transition. And that word transition, I think, is important, because transitions, in my opinion, suck, okay? They always are hard. And you're neither here nor there. You are in the middle. You are transitioning. And just like with birth, in transition being kind of the most intense time period of birth, any sort of transition, whether you're like, getting a new job, you're graduating college, you're trying to figure your life out. You're in a breakup, you're in a new relationship, whatever it is there is a lack of groundedness. And to be in a state of lack of groundedness for so long, I think, really wears on the human spirit. And I think that there is a beautiful lesson in this that we can rise to and level up like, you know, there's no no. Sort of self development level up opportunity than in parenting, in my opinion. But now do we rise to it and actually get there and feel supported to go through all of that? Because maybe we're breaking generational patterns, and we're doing things differently than you know, are the parents generation who did the formula and they slept train their babies at four weeks, and they weren't doing co parenting, or, sorry, co sleeping, and the attachment parenting styles, where it was really, really intensive. It was like babies were sort of, you know, an afterthought, a little bit easier in that way. I think nowadays modern motherhood, we want to invest, we want to pour all in. We want to be there. We don't want to mess it up. We don't want our kids to have to go to therapy. We don't want to screw things up. And there's so much pressure, and there's so much noise about all of that, but our motivation is so deep and beautiful, and it's just this constant, like what we're going through as mothers, and this is not even just now in the beginning of postpartum. This is kind of transitioning, and through all of it, it's it's this, there's 100 million This is, like the mental load idea, but without even all of the like soccer practice and who's doing the laundry, it's just the mental load of the idea of the spiritual integration of what we're doing with our babies. I just, I love thinking about it, because I'm in it right now. I'm so metacognitive to my own experience, where I'm like, wow, why did I do it like that? Or what happened? Or how did I get so overwhelmed in that one moment? Or, you know, I'm proud of myself because I didn't freak out in that type of moment where, like when I did that as a kid, I was in huge trouble. There's so much to be thinking about at all times. But back to the transition idea. It's just it's really exhausting to constantly be feeling like you don't really get, you don't really you're not mastered at this and for those high achieving women, I also think that there's this. Not only is it that level of, I don't have mastery in this, I'm I'm out of control, but the control thing of, I'm going to just do it like this in pregnancy. I think a lot of people think, Well, my baby's never going to have that to eat. I'm never going to do that like this is not going to happen. And it's similar to the idea of the nanny really feeling, you know, super confident in a bit of an ignorant way. It just is different when we are interplaying with another being, and just because they're a baby doesn't mean that they don't that they're just, you know, a blank slate and totally willing to mold to whatever we want them to do. I think that is another huge lesson for parents, is to be like, Whoa. This child came in and they have their whole own I have to learn who they are. I don't even know who they are yet, and so we're just trying to do this together.

I think one thing that's really helpful to think about when trying to grasp that concept, especially for the very type a high achieving, perfectionist person, which many, many of us are, at least to some degree, type B moms. They tend to roll with it better, like parenthood is literally easier for them. But the reason is because they use their right brain more than their left brain. So if you just kind of think about like how your brain works, and you work on transitioning to that right brain more, it's going to feel a little bit easier, like we really have to recognize that our left brain is the side of our brain that is trying to predict, analyze, control, Master, organize, categorize, and our right brain is the side of our brain that's saying, you know, they're tuning into your your body. You're turning into your feelings. You're tuning into your baby. You're learning your baby's communication. You're rolling with the punches. You're just kind of trusting your intuition. You're using your creativity, like, if we can we can practice that more going into pregnancy and breastfeeding and postpartum, and get that side of the brain a little bit stronger, trusting that side of the brain a little bit more. Not saying this is easy to do, but if we understand the concept a little bit, it helps us make that transition. That is how parenting works best. That is how birth works best. That is how breastfeeding works best. These are all very right brained activities. So it is harder for the type a person, because their left brain is so much stronger. So you know, practices, maybe like meditation or working on whatever part of your life that you have that's more creative and strengthening that side of your brain, literally before going into parenthood can be helpful.

I was in a women's circle last week, and one of the women shared that she said something she really regretted to her young daughter on the way to elementary school, and basically the daughter indicated whether the mother had favoritism toward the toward the other child, and the mother's response, like borderline validated it like rather than countering it. So all these other women started giving her advice, like, tell them that you love them equally, which I personally don't agree with. I don't think that I personally would never say that to my children. I I. Well, they're 16 and 20 now, and I'm, I can say I'm glad I never did, because the thought never crossed their minds that I didn't. And I think when you start making that argument, Mommy loves you all the same, it's like, don't even raise that question to them. Of I mean, it's such a given. So they were good. They were all giving her, right? Well, get take her on a special day, and everything was wonderful. You know, everything was like, nice, caring women, supporting women is like, you know, one of my favorite things in the world. And then I was the last one to make a comment, and I said to her, I have this theory that I just believe in so strongly. And I said, it is, when you have little kids, you are so afraid you're going to, quote, mess them up. You're going to end up with these like monsters as teenagers or wrecked adults, or they're going to not feel loved, or you're going to ruin their brain because they don't get enough sleep, and you're going to, you know, create all these bad habits. And I said to her, I really believe it's really hard to mess this up unless there's neglect and unless there's abuse, if you are present, no matter what kind of present Mother, you are, if you're the overbearing kind, if you're the hands off kind, if you are present, I think that's everything. And I liken it to my mom. My mom would probably say she felt the most loved in her whole childhood by her grandmother, who I knew she was my great grandmother, and I actually knew her. She lived to be very old, and I'm not sure if her grandmother ever told her she loved her. I'm not sure if she ever gave her a compliment and told her she was smart or beautiful or anything, but she was on her feet morning till night, feeding the family in the kitchen, taking care of things, bundling them up on a cold day. Children know when they're loved and when they know they're loved, they have value, when they have value, they have self respect, and they end up making good decisions and being good people. So I wish if I could tell young mothers something, don't worry so much. You're not going to mess them up because you're present. Don't worry about how women on Instagram are doing it. Don't worry about just the right comment to say, Oh, you're having big feelings today. Like some of that is just such nonsense to me. I really don't like any of that. Just like just you are you are free. You are free, as a mother, to be yourself, and if you think you can hide any of your bad qualities while you raise them, ha, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard. They are studying you. They're never going to take their eyes off of you their entire childhoods. And you know that you know your own parents better than anyone in the world knows your parents. They study you. So don't try to be something that you're not. You are free. You're liberated. Parent them as you are, and if you're present, you don't have a thing to worry about. This is truly my belief. Explain

it a little bit more. Talk about what it means to be present with your children. To me, yeah, yeah. Like give some examples of how I have a cute I have a cute story. My mom took my children and my nieces and nephews all out to dinner last summer, and my mom loves she's I'm a lot like my mom. She loves to bring up questions and get conversation going. So there she is sitting with all of her grandchildren, and just for kicks, she was like, tell us your least, like, Tell me your least favorite thing about your mom's just for fun, my mom's like, she's a little bit of a, you know, provocateur with conversation. She'll raise up anything, you know, and it's we're, you know, the cousins are all very close, and my son, who is not very critical at all of me, he's he's just, he really isn't he, apparently, rumor has it story, legend goes that he said that she's just, she's always there. And then my mother, after everyone went, said, Okay, now tell us your favorite thing about your mothers and my son said that she's always there. And I really feel like that's all it is. It's just like the stability. They have to know that you're not going to wake up in a radically different mood. Every day, my children have come home from school and they knew exactly what they were going to get. They knew exactly the mood I would be in. I they didn't ever come home and find me, God help the poor children, when a parent is like, passed out, drunk or stoned on the couch and they didn't find me in crazy moods or so like I it was it was steady, it was stable. And I think that's all that presence is. I don't think it literally means you're in the house and in their way all the time. I just think it means stability. I really just think it's stability. So if you go away for a weekend with friends, good for you, because you're demonstrating self care, that's still a present parent. But I had there was, I had a friend on my street growing up. This is going to sound so fabricated, I still can't even believe it, but it was kind of normalized to me through her in my childhood, the family was very, very affluent, and they had a home on some island, and the father, on occasion, would leave the house with a suitcase and step into a limousine and disappear. And this was how her upbringing was. And I remember one day playing outside with her on her lawn, and a limousine pulled up and he got out with his suitcase, and he literally walked by both of us. Without even saying hello. He was just greater than God, this guy. He was a he was an insurance agent to all the Yankees. It's like he just thought he was hot stuff. And anyway, he just walked right by us with his head held high. I can't imagine what that does to a child. It's like to the parent. This is what I mean. I don't think it's I think it's hard to mess up a child. I think you have to be terrible. I mean, he came home and didn't even drop the suitcase and say, I missed you, which still would have been a bunch of BS, because he used to vanish on the family all the time, but with his mistresses and whatever he was up to, but he walked by with indifference. What the heck does that tell that child? Do you even see me? So it's so easy for the rest of us to think we're messing them up. But if we were the mothers to these millions of kids in the world who have abuse in their home or abject neglect, the world would heal. But we're the ones beating ourselves up all the time, right? Oh no, I made him cry it out for 10 minutes. I think I ruined his brain. Like we're so hard on ourselves, and then I think that guilt and that fear makes us parent in an awkward way, rather than just again, be free, be liberated, Trust yourself, trust that you're not going to mess it up. And let's see what happens, because you won't. It's really my belief that presence and that energy that you described of being more the Type B mom or it's, it's the feminine energy. It's being that right brain feminine energy, Yin, rather than Yang. And it is really difficult when we've been raised in a generation where women were told like, you know, we need to have some sort of really high powered job so you don't ever have to rely on a man. And then now we step into this and our number one job, and the best thing that we can do is just be attuned to our kids and care for them and nurture them and things. And that type B mom thing too, I think can be learned. Because the more kids you have, I feel you have to be there. You have to let go.

There's you become a Type C mom by the time you're on your third kid.

I think that's a good thing. I think that's true for the kids than a hovering parent over one child. I think it's a good thing for the kids.

I love what you said. It being attuned. I think that's what it is like. Just it doesn't matter if you say the right thing, the wrong thing, you make the wrong decision, you dress them the wrong way, whatever, like. These are little These are little things. What they care about is that they are seen. What we all care about when they're feeling something, that we acknowledge it, that we're present, that we put the phone down, that we stop the work that we're doing, and we turn to them and we give them our full attention, even if just briefly, even if we say the wrong thing, even if we don't know what to say, if you just look at them and be there for them, even if you say nothing, I have this amazingly brilliant woman who man, she'd actually be a really good guest for you. Her number one parenting advice to me would be to say nothing. She because that's my mother's favorite thing, yes, my mother's favorite thing. Say nothing. Yes. She was like Morgan, just close your mouth, because there was a day in my earlier parenting ages where I loved those scripts, those parenting accounts that were giving the exact words and scripts. And I had a little note in my phone. I was so neurotic about it, because I didn't want to my heart was intended well, but the action is neurotic and dysfunctional, which is that I was acting and saying these things where I do think there's some benefit. I don't want to crush that idea, because I, you know, especially with sensitive topics or ideas or the ways you're explaining things, whatever. But I was really dogmatic about it, because it wasn't natural for me. And so I, I felt like this intense sandpaper salmon swimming up the stream. Kind of resistance in me where I was like, learning something that I didn't know how to do naturally, and it was really difficult. It's not how I was parented. But I wanted to parent like that, and I was so hard on myself when I didn't say things right. And I would blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I would go to this woman as a therapist. She was an ex midwife, and she became a therapist, and she would just be like, your job for next week is to go through the week and say nothing.

I went through this with I went through this exact thing with my 20 year old last night. She FaceTimed me at like, 930 at night, my bedtime, by the way, so I'm not really in the mood to give a lot of advice or talk. And she just went on this she was really struggling because her roommate has a boyfriend, and she's with the boyfriend every single night, and now she's alone in her apartment a lot. And, you know, they used to do their girl thing every night, and now she doesn't have anyone to cook with or watch shows with. And she just went on this rant, you know, for 15 minutes, I barely said a word. The entire time, I just listened. I didn't really know what to say, and I was tired and just didn't feel like I had a lot of good advice at the moment, but at the end of this thing, she was fine. She was like, Okay, thanks. I feel better. Yeah, I didn't really have to do anything. I just had to listen, nod my head and be like, I know that sucks. Sucks. Sucks. That she has a boyfriend. Sucks when girls get boyfriends, and did you it's life. And she and she went, but she was fine. She felt so much better because I just listened. It was just there.

And that's going back to the presence thing too, is you literally just being there and listening and being somebody who cares, and she knows you care because you're her mom, and that's why she called you, and you don't even have to say anything i i think I'm the type of person too who is who over explains and just never really knows when to stop talking. Too many words, right? Too many words, too many words, even if my kid falls down and I'm like, oh, and I'm trying to say things, whatever, whatever.

But should I say? What should I say? What's the cue? What do you say when a child falls down these days, exactly.

Oh, don't say, don't make a big deal out of it. Yeah, exactly.

But so make a big deal of it, right? It's like, Wait, there's no show them your care. Don't make too big of a deal. But acknowledge their feelings Exactly.

If you literally just go up and you put your arm around them and go like, Hmm, that's Ouch. Just say ouch. Let's you know, ouch, move on.

And it really is something that has to be learned through time too. And this is why I think there's such a beauty in the more children you have. The parent that those kids get is a lot more relaxed type B, maybe even type C, because they stop listening to the dogma too. They stop. There's so many, like your guys's podcast tagline, which I love, say it specifically so I don't mess it up. Hear everyone. Listen to yourself. Yes, listen to, you know, learn all of the things and take in what you like and discard what you don't like or what doesn't resonate, and stop with the dogma of the very, very specific. Or, you know, even just like the tracking apps for breastfeeding. Like, hold on. Why? No, I am left brain. Yes, exactly left brain. I am so anti this idea that we have to track every single thing now I do get it in a situation of a baby who's low weight. We can do it for a short period of time, but then ditch it and delete it and don't think about it ever again, and just feed your baby and follow along with their cues. It's so we are so disconnected from intuition. Intuition has been something that's really been hard for me to cultivate because I over analyze everything. But in the last two years, I would say, since my fourth has been born, I've just decided that I don't care anymore.

Well, just get this visual of you become a Type C mom. Yes, I have good that's that's a beautiful thing. I mean, it will serve your children better. There's no question that will serve your children better. I like to have the visual of, I'm so anti these apps. I'm so grateful that the iPhone came out like just after my first year breastfeeding my second child, because I don't know what it would have done to me, but I so I never recommend these apps, but I have this visual of a woman in labor, and she's home still, she hasn't gone anywhere, if she's leaving to go anywhere, and her husband like looking at an app, tracking an app, like doing what men do. Well, they're analytical too, rather than reading her, looking at her, holding her, touching her, stroking her hair, like reading her. Now, fast forward a couple of weeks, and now she's holding a baby who's looking up at her, looking to connect with her, needs her. She's looking at an app. And again, it's like you said, now we're robbing ourselves of this experience. I mean, there's a whole generation now that doesn't know how to interpret emotions by looking in other people's eyes. We are good at looking in other people's eyes. I mean, with our close friends and certainly with our family members, you can look at them and say, what's wrong? Like you can just see a little something different in the eyes, and you were no right away, something's wrong. We have a generation of people who don't know how to do this now because they haven't been in the space reading other people, and the most tragic time of all to lose this is in our intimate relationships between a couple or a mother and baby. So I'm with you. I'm so happy to hear you say that I think these apps are so harmful, but they're such a pull. I would have been so attracted to that if they existed. When I had mine, I was making my own spreadsheets in my free time, like, oh, around the baby, it was crazy. So yeah, they love the analytics. They love to look down and be able to say, especially because we actually, we actually do ask these questions of them, how many times has your baby fed in the last 24 hours? How many poops have they had? How many peas have they had? And I love it when a mom says, I don't know. I think about, you know, four or five, oh, I think about maybe they feed every two hours. I'm not sure, maybe, like, 10 or 12. I'm like, Yes, perfect. Versus, you know, the mom feels really satisfied if she can look down on her phone and open the app and be like, I can tell you exactly, and I can tell you the size, and I can tell you the time, and I can tell you the color, and I can tell you how many minutes they were on my left nipple and how many minutes they were on my right. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, this is not going to help you in the long term, that woman thinks she's acing parenting. That's what you would all satisfy. I'm doing a good job as if it has anything to do with the analytics.

And this is the, I think, the same idea as to why you felt like you really wanted to make dinner that night that you're. Baby was born, is it? It's how we equate that we're doing a good job. It's how we equate like value and worth. And I want to scream it from the rooftops that resting and being there and being attuned to your child is the greatest work you can ever do. And unfortunately, people don't really come to realize that until after their children are gone and out of the house or older, and then we look back on it and go, Oh my God. Just like you guys have said multiple times, it's like, wow. I just it's perspective. Maybe that's part of the human suffering that we all have to go through. I don't know, it seems, it seems like something we shouldn't have to go through, but it does happen to a lot of people where there is this, I don't know a perspective that cannot be gained until a little bit later, when it all makes sense and we see what's important and what matters, and that that did not matter. Because I have a friend who actually stopped breastfeeding because of the way the app was making her feel, because her baby started to nurse only for like seven minutes on one breast, I think is what she had mentioned, and it was more like 15 on the other. So just don't have enough milk. That's what it means. You know, we extrapolate meaning to these things that that's not what it means. Like, did anyone explain it to you? Are the apps popping up and saying, Hey, by the way, did you know that as your baby gets older, they're going to become more efficient in feeding and there it's going to get faster? Like, she didn't. Nobody had explained that to her. And this is her, like, six or seven month old now, feeding for just a few minutes. She thought, there's no milk. There's no milk in there. That's what she thought. And it's like there's no other signs that anything was going poorly. I mean, not to say you know that it's, I don't know. I know that. You guys know what I mean, but it's just a frustrating form of technology coming in and sabotaging things yet again, exactly, the app knows nothing. The mother's brain knows everything she probably knew deep down, that everything was fine, but she we can't help but try to we block that out, because we take the external, we take the technology, we take the words of society. We take what the pediatrician says. We take all of those things over trusting ourselves and women needs are what's not working for us.

And women need to know that developing a good intuition, like I, like Trisha said she already knew deep down whether it was working or not, but we're not listening. And it sounds cliche when I say this, and I hate that this sounds cliche, but I've learned it from experience. We really do need to practice and cultivate trusting our intuition, and every single time you don't trust it, every single time you rely on someone else's advice, the loudest family member telling you what to do, some app telling you what to do, some uninformed pediatrician who's never taken a 30 minute class and breastfeeding telling you every time you do that against your instinct, is another moment where you're not trusting your instinct, and you're going to need that your whole life raising your children, it never goes away. You're never going to stop worrying about them. You're never going to stop loving them and caring about the welfare of their lives and when they're out of your home, as you just mentioned earlier, Morgan, your that your children can all go to different states. What do you do? We feel like we're going to freak out at the thought. What do you have? You have your intuition. You have that you don't want to be calling them every morning and night and I just want to know that you're okay. Just tell me you're okay. You can do that your kid. That'd be a terrible burden to them. What do you have in that surrender? You have your intuition. So you have to start practicing using it. Now. It really is a muscle that you have to learn to flex. And it starts by those little tiny, like I was mentioning earlier. I have only actually cultivated this myself in the last couple of years, where it starts with these little, teeny, tiny things, like, should I take that road or this road or that, and kind of leaning in and tapping in and then just doing it and not over analyzing, especially if you are one of those people, those kind of perfectionist type A, you know, really high mental stimulation, people, who is just constantly having a stream of words in your mouth or in your brain. Just, you have to stop it. It takes a lot of it's, it's there's resistance, it's sandpaper, and you have to say, No, it's okay. We're gonna grind down even the sandpaper. We're gonna make this a smooth path so that I know to trust myself, my I know, and it'll get to the point now where, you know, I'll say, you know, it's funny right now, we're having this, I'm having this experience where I'm mentioning the idea to people that we want to have a fifth baby. And there is a lot of opinions out there about having another baby.

What the heck kind of car are you gonna own? Yep, they are.

Why would you do that? Like, why? What? And I'm just like, do you hear yourself? It's honestly been so wild to me, because then there's people who I tend to orient more with who are like children are such a gift that's so beautiful. I can't wait to see who this person is and to add this new addition into your family. But some of the closest people to me are have the response of, why? What are you doing? Don't you have enough Wait, but you have four perfect children. Why take the risk, like all these very fear based things negative, where I was not expecting that. I was expecting them to be overjoyed for me, because I'm overjoyed in the idea, because I love my children. And I've just had to say, you know, but it has made me question things. It's made me question, am I is this? To tip the scales. Is this going to bring something disharmony to our family? Is this that because they're making me question myself, and I've had to, and thankfully, because I have cultivated this last couple years to push all this noise out and just say, You know what? No, my intuition is very set and strong in this, that this is going to be this is a good idea, and it's something we want in our heart and like, it's not right for them, but it's right for us, and not letting it get too loud. 

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.