Now that I have three young children, it is interesting for me to look back on myself when I was a new mom and analyze why I got so stressed with just one child. Since it bothers me when people criticize new moms for being so stressed (because I remember being just as stressed), I wanted to recognize and validate (mainly for new moms) what makes that transition to motherhood so difficult. So here is what I came up with:
- Lack of confidence – As a new mom, you haven’t had much experience, so you constantly doubt your abilities. This lack of confidence is really draining, and makes even simple caretaking tasks exhausting.
- Lack of knowledge/experience – Becoming a new mom is just like starting a new job/career where there is a big learning curve (even bigger with becoming a mom). Because you have a lack of knowledge/experience, you have to invest a lot of your time and energy to acquire this new knowledge with each new experience that presents itself.
- Fear of the unknown – Because of your lack of confidence and experience, you also fear the unknown situations, wondering how you will handle each and every situation that presents itself.
- Fear of failure – Because of your own self-doubt, many times you fear failing as a mom, or wonder what failing would be.
- New identity – In the book “When Two Become Three,” the author shows a diagram where he says that for women, becoming a new mother takes up 70% of their new identity. Wow that’s a HUGE adjustment! Adjusting to a role as mom and letting go, in many ways, of your old self takes time and is quite difficult.
- New marriage – When you have your first baby, your major goes through major stresses and adjustments as well. So not only are you dealing with your own identity changes, but also the marital identity changes as well.
So if you’re a new mom, take heart! Transitioning from no children to one child is by far the hardest adjustment and transition. You will grow so much as a mom, and in a few years you will look back on this time and realize how far you’ve come. You can do it! 🙂
Feel like men and women experience different difficulty’s with transitioning to parenthood.
Sometimes the new mom in my house is just trapped holding the baby all day. I didn’t realize how genuinely stressful this was (I probably still don’t) and even physically tiring for her. Even though she isn’t doing much it is exhausting taking care of a baby and very very hard. I used to wake up at 7 am and Chels would have already made cottage cheese roast, mashed potatoes, and some extravagant desert for Sabbath. This happened on multiple occasions. Well gone are those days now as that was prior baby.