The Experience of Mom Guilt

As if motherhood isn’t hard enough, mom guilt comes along to make mothers feel worse. It knows just how to kick you when you’re down. Even on the good days, you might find yourself lying awake at night wondering:

Did I spend enough time with my baby today?

Was I too distracted? 

Was I on my phone too much?

These thoughts can take over and quickly turn into self-doubt.

The Pressure of Social Media

These thoughts can really stick with you, especially when it can be so easy to compare with other moms on social media. 

You might be seeing these other moms out when you feel like you can barely leave the house. You might see someone exercising regularly when you haven’t made it to the gym in weeks. You’re seeing these snapshots of what postpartum could be or what you think it should look like. 

Am I Good Enough?

These highlights in someone else’s life can quickly cause thoughts to spiral:

Am I a good enough mom? 

Am I doing enough? 

Do I get too frustrated, too impatient with my baby? 

Could I be doing better?

 It can be so, so easy as a mother to feel like you are failing your baby, or failing your partner, or failing your job. 

The reality is that most mothers care deeply about doing a good job. They want to do more, give more, and be more. At the same time, many are stretched thin, exhausted, and already doing the very best they can.

The Good Enough Mother

Donald Winnicott, a psychoanalyst, emphasized that parents do not need to be perfect. In fact, he suggested that being a "good enough" parent is what helps children grow into healthy individuals. Children do not need caregivers who get it right all the time. Rather, they need caregivers who are attuned, responsive, and able to repair moments of conflict.

What this means is that if you are meeting your child’s emotional and physical needs most of the time, you are doing enough.

If there are moments when you lose your patience, feel overwhelmed, or believe you have "messed up," those moments do not define you as a parent. What matters most is the repair that follows.

For a baby, repair may look like helping them regulate, offering comfort, and providing extra snuggles. For an older child, repair may mean sitting down together, acknowledging what happened, and offering a genuine apology.

Children learn not from perfect relationships, but from relationships that experience ruptures and repairs.

Give Yourself Grace

As a parent, it is so important to give yourself the compassion you deserve. Being a mother is hard enough without setting expectations that are too high to achieve. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Allow yourself to be imperfect. And allow yourself to have difficult days. 

Your child does not need a perfect mother.

You are enough.

To learn more about therapy for pregnancy and postpartum, visit the perinatal mental health page.

To schedule a free consultation, contact me.

Motherhood and the Mental Load

The Invisible Weight of Motherhood

Most mothers will hear the words “mental load” and have an immediate emotional and physical reaction. They might tense up and say, “Don’t even get me started.” Many women in relationships carry a significant amount of the emotional and mental labor within the home, and this load increases tenfold once they find out they are pregnant. 

As soon as you find out you are pregnant, there is so much to think about. What do you eat? What do you need before the baby comes? How do you make more money? How do you prepare for the nursery? From that moment on, Google often becomes your best friend

Once that baby arrives, the dynamic shifts even more. As much as it would be nice to be able to split parenthood equally, there are, unfortunately, dynamics at play that make it extremely difficult for the mother to share in the responsibilities. If she decides to exclusively breastfeed, all feeding responsibilities are hers to bear. 

Why the Mental Load Feels So Heavy

Biologically and hormonally, mothers are wired to be in tune with their baby’s needs. Most mothers say that hearing their baby cry causes physical pain in their bodies and spikes their anxiety and stress levels. 

It can be extremely challenging to allow the other partner to take over. Even when the mother knows that she needs that break, it can be so hard to completely let go and allow the other partner to handle the screaming and crying. 

The mental load is a nagging thing in the back of the mind. It is very hard to quiet, and sometimes it feels impossible to silence it, because doing so feels like it would lead to loved ones not getting their needs met.

So What Can the Other Partner Do?

If there are responsibilities that can’t be shared (like feeding the baby), find ways to delegate other tasks, such as making sure the mother is fed, changing the baby’s diapers, handling naptime, etc. 

→ Help the one with the mental load get time to themselves. Whether that be time to themselves to go shopping, get a massage, take a bath (with the baby somewhere else so they can’t hear them cry!), or whatever that person feels like would help them decompress.

→ Find time to connect and talk with each other. One of the most important things parents can do in their relationship is find a safe time to talk with each other about what they can do to help one another. Schedule a time where both partners feel ready to hear and receive each other, are not bothered or overwhelmed with anything else, and sit down together and ask each other:

• What is one thing I did this week that you appreciated?

• What is one thing I can do to help this next week?

Both partners can share with each other their needs, and you can discuss ways to make that happen in the following week. It is also a time to receive feedback in areas that you may be able to change or help them. For both partners, be mindful of knee-jerk reactions or defensiveness, and provide the information in a way that is not critical but instead helpful. 

For example, use “I statements” to communicate with each other: “I feel it would be helpful if you could do the bedtime routine next week so I can get time to myself.” 

Communication Creates Teamwork

Just the act of communicating with each other can greatly strengthen the connection between partners and help partners feel more like a team rather than competitors.

While the mental load may never go away completely, it can help for both partners to acknowledge and understand the difficulties of parenting and to work together to help each other feel understood and have their needs met.

To learn more about individual and couples therapy for pregnancy and postpartum, visit the perinatal mental health page.

To schedule a free consultation, contact me.

How Therapy During Postpartum Can Help

One of the most challenging things about postpartum is the isolation a mother feels, especially when she is experiencing postpartum depression or anxiety. Postpartum hormones and sleep deprivation can make you feel completely alone in your experience and feel that you are failing. One of the most powerful things that can change the postpartum experience is to be told that you are not alone. 

Just hearing someone else say, “Yes! I went through that too,” is more than enough to lift the mood and realize that what you are experiencing is not crushing failure but part of being human.

There are so many challenges in those first few months, and if you are experiencing them for the first time, it is overwhelming and all-consuming. There’s often an expectation that you will be rocking your newborn, singing them a song, and experiencing “newborn bliss.” And there might be some of that, but there might also be moments that bring lots of tears. 

Tears because the baby wouldn’t latch, and you had to give them a bottle

Tears after a fight with your partner that felt absolutely devastating, and you think your marriage might be over.

Tears when you find yourself wondering how something you wanted so badly can feel so incredibly hard.

Postpartum is an experience that is constantly shifting as the baby grows. As soon as you think you’re finally getting on your feet, a sleep regression occurs, or the baby starts teething, and you wonder, “How can I keep going like this?” 

Therapy can be the space where you don’t have to hold it all together.

A space where your experience is met with understanding, not judgment. 

Maybe what you need is just someone to hear what you’re going through and say, “Yes, that sounds really hard.”

Maybe you need some tools to take with you to help you regulate in those moments of overwhelm.

Maybe you and your partner need a place to reconnect. To find a place where you can figure out roles and expectations, and to share the tough moments as a team.

You do not have to carry it all on your own. 

No matter what your experience is, there is support, and there is understanding. There is a light at the end of the tunnel to improve your well-being and your postpartum experience.

I offer walk-and-talk therapy in the Livermore/Pleasanton area, which is one great way to pair your mental health and your physical recovery.

To find out more, visit the page for perinatal mental health.