Understanding your emotions and feelings after a baby can be hard. It’s so normal to have high highs, and very low low’s, but how do you know when it’s getting to be problematic?
Today’s guest is Stephanie Straub. I saw her first on Tiktok as @mamatherapy. She practices in New York. You find her website CNY Therapy.
Big thanks to our sponsor The Online Prenatal Class for Couples. When my hospital asked me to treat their postpartum section of the prenatal class I just laughed. It was similar to my own class where they just acted like it would be sunshine and rainbows after baby was born. But, I wanted to really prepare you for the life you’d step into as a new mom. Can’t wait to get you prepared from bump to bassinette inside.
In this episode
What to watch for after baby.
How/When to get help when it’s too much.
How online therapy works.
Mentioned by Stephanie for resources: Postpartum.net or Postpartumstress.com
Getting four hours of rest and how it can help.
Other things that might interest you
How to take care of your bottom after baby
Preparing for your Postpartum Stay
Podcast on postpartum surprises
Producer: Drew Erickson
Check out my other pregnancy podcasts:
Transcript
[00:00:00.000] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys, welcome back to Episode 110 of the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today. We are talking about postpartum depression. What’s normal? What’s not normal? When should you see somebody? When should you take Meds? We’re talking about all those different things. Cannot wait to untangle this one with you guys.
[00:00:25.190] – Hilary Erickson
Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls podcast. We untangle pregnancy, parenting, home and even travel. We know there’s no right answer for every family, but hopefully we can spark some ideas that will work for yours. Life’s tangled. Just like my hair.
[00:00:48.500] – Hilary Erickson
Okay, guys, before we get started, you know what really I find depressing? It’s like when we haven’t had, like, a review for, like, a whole month. So if you could be like, my human Prozac and maybe just leave me a review. I’d super appreciate it. Thanks!
[00:01:01.620] – Hilary Erickson
Today’s guest I actually met on The Tik Tok. You’re gonna see a few of those because I do love the TikTok, and I loved how she was just sharing awesome postpartum information. I mean, mental health information as well, but she’s great about postpartum information. She is Mama Therapy. M-a-m-a Therapy on TikTok. I’ll put a link in the show notes. She’s also the owner of CNY Therapy. I don’t know if it’s City therapy, but she is in Syracuse, New York, which means that she can see anybody in the New York state. She’s a clinical social worker, but most people call, like a therapist or a counselor. I want to introduce today’s guest Stephanie Straub.
[00:01:42.470] – Hilary Erickson
Do you feel prepared for your delivery? In just three short hours, you can be prepared for the confident, collaborative delivery you want. You’ll know what to expect and how to talk with your health care team. And there are no boring lessons in this class. I’ll use humor, stories from my 20 years in the delivery room to engage both of you. I love how Alyssa told me that she found herself laughing at things that used to sound scary. Most of all, you guys are going to be on the same page from Bump to Bassinet. Join the online prenatal class for couples today. You can save 15% with coupon code UNTANGLED. You can find the link in the show notes.
[00:02:16.930] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, Stephanie, welcome to the Pulling Curls podcast.
[00:02:20.270] – Stephanie Straub
Hi, Hilary. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:21.960] – Hilary Erickson
I am so excited to have you on because I feel like I’m really good at, like, Stever and bleeding and all those postpartum signs. But I’m not so good at the mind. Like, even with myself, I’m not so good because the whole time I would be like, do I really need to see somebody? Because I am crying a lot. So I think it’s really good to have you on to give us some ideas of when we need to seek help and when that’s just how it’s going to be for a couple of days.
[00:02:45.120] – Stephanie Straub
Thank you. Yes, thanks. It’s a good topic to cover a lot of people don’t know about it until they’re already in it.
[00:02:51.690] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. And I think what percentage of people get baby Blues?
[00:02:55.700] – Stephanie Straub
The numbers are so high, it’s somewhere around 95% that we would say almost all parents experience, like, some form of the baby Blues. It looks different on everybody, but that usually only happens in the first two to three weeks, and then it kind of regulates.
[00:03:12.170] – Hilary Erickson
Okay. So baby Blues is where you’re just emotional. You swing high and you swing low, right?
[00:03:17.810] – Stephanie Straub
Exactly. It’s much more transient, so you might be more tearful. You might be more kind of easily irritated or testy, but a lot of that has to do with major hormonal shift in the birthing partner, parent and sleep deprivation and just major life transition. But as we see that stuff kind of regulating itself, we see those symptoms kind of decrease again within the first two to three weeks.
[00:03:46.520] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. Because that’s when the hormones are shifting all over the place. If you guys want to look up the hormonal shift after you have a baby, it’s crazy. And the things that your body is trying to cinch in and get back to normal is also very crazy if you think about it.
[00:03:59.120] – Stephanie Straub
Absolutely. Even if you have a relatively uneventful kind of textbooky kind of birth, it’s still birth. And it’s hard. I remember for myself as a new mom, I felt like I looked like me, but a walk around the block on day three took me out for the rest of the day. So it’s hard to remember a big, major thing just happened with your body, even if it doesn’t look like it or feel like it.
[00:04:26.620] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. We moved, like, ten days after I had my second baby, like we bought a house and moved. And my mom was like, well, you’re gonna need to take it easy. And I was like, what are you talking about? Labor nurse was a labor nurse at the time, but she was like, you aren’t gonna be able to lift the boxes, Hilary. And I was like, oh, you know, I hadn’t even thought of that, because so much of it is inside, because I was like, I feel great, but I have a big placental scab that’s sick in itself, right?
[00:04:51.320] – Stephanie Straub
Exactly. So much that the healing is happening inside. Yeah.
[00:04:54.770] – Hilary Erickson
Which I would recommend moving ten days after you have a baby. That one was my best one, I think, because I had so many other things to focus on. I couldn’t have baby Blues. Like, I had to get all the crap together.
[00:05:04.280] – Stephanie Straub
Well, and you had a really great excuse to just call in some extra help and not have to move the stuff. Right. You can sit and say, Put that over there and there you go.
[00:05:13.930] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. Okay. So after we get past that first two week phase, what are some warning signs that people need to watch out for?
[00:05:20.790] – Stephanie Straub
Yeah. So first of all, I just want to address. We talk about postpartum depression, and that’s what most people are familiar with that terminology. But what I sit down with new moms and new parents and look at is an array of mental health issues that we in the business called perinatal mood and anxiety disorders or PMAS, and that could include depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar. And in very, very are PTSD. Excuse me, and then in very, very rare cases, psychosis and very rare that we would see psychosis.
[00:05:59.630] – Stephanie Straub
But for a postpartum depression presentation, we would see something like very tearful, low mood, low energy, might be having trouble engaging and connecting with baby. And we see this difficulty sleeping, low appetite. See this most of the day, most days. That’s how we kind of differentiate between. Okay. We’re still adjusting or getting used to this new role in this new life with baby. But if it’s most of the day most days, then we’re like, we take a deeper look, whereas anxiety is much more keyed up, restlessness, excessive worry.
[00:06:41.630] – Stephanie Straub
And a lot of times these moms won’t let baby go won’t put baby down, right. They struggle being alone with baby because they’re just afraid something’s going to happen, and they’re not really sure if they’d be able to handle it on their own. So that is an anxiety presentation. And quite honestly, I see more new moms and new parents with anxiety than I do with strictly depression.
[00:07:03.320] – Hilary Erickson
Totally 100% agree with that, because I definitely had anxiety with my last one. And I was like, like, I’m okay, I’m not teary, but I would have, like, full panic attacks, just like every morning getting kids to school when it’s your third, you’ve got, like, all these other things, like making I was a huge deal because I was always like, what if she’s crying? And then the kids are crazy? And then I have to make dinner. You know, I couldn’t handle those normal stressors that I was gonna still having those same stressful.
[00:07:28.230] – Hilary Erickson
I guess I’m just over it by now. Yeah.
[00:07:30.830] – Stephanie Straub
But sure. Right. But yes. And so a lot of times the anticipation of the witching hour of dinner or bedtime or whatever the witching hour is for you and your baby is worse than the actual experience of it. Right. And then you start to get anxiety about your anxiety.
[00:07:48.750] – Hilary Erickson
Yes.
[00:07:49.690] – Stephanie Straub
And then what will often happen with those moms is that they’re so frustrated that they’re struggling in their new role that then depression kind of rides on the coattails of the anxiety where now they’re sad and depressed that this motherhood or Parenthood experience is and what they had kind of imagined it to be. So they might start with a depression or the anxiety, and then depression kind of comes up right behind it.
[00:08:15.800] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I think that is a huge struggle, because I don’t think motherhood of a newborn is what anyone imagines it’s going to be.
[00:08:22.390] – Stephanie Straub
Absolutely not. And I think one of the things that goes unrecognized is the grief that accompanies Parenthood and not even just new motherhood, but Parenthood in general, because, yes, we gain a lot. And a lot of it is lovely. A lot of it is not so lovely. And we lose a lot, too. We lose our freedom, we lose our finances, we lose our sleep, we lose spot. Maybe we lose connection with our partner. And with any loss comes grief. And especially for parents who maybe are adoptive or struggle to become pregnant to then experience this loss and have the associate degree feelings.
[00:09:03.660] – Stephanie Straub
Well, then they go down the rabbit hole of, like, how I wanted the baby. And this is all I wanted, and I work so hard to get it. And here I am and I’m not enjoying it. And now I’m a monster parent because I’m sad because I feel like I just want to eat a hot meal.
[00:09:17.900] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I really struggle with the people who come on my pages or whatever when I say that there’s a struggle, especially with babies. And they’re like, you’re just so lucky to have that baby. And I’m always like, Parenthood is such a two edged sword. You want it so bad, and then it comes and it cuts you another way.
[00:09:33.000] – Stephanie Straub
Yes. Well, and that’s just it. Everybody’s experience is relative to their own circumstance. So I did a post on TikTok a while back about gender disappointment, which is a real thing. And a lot of people are able to align with that. Like, yes, I wanted a girl and I got a boy. And, you know, it was my fourth. And I’m done and whatever, like those types of things. And then a lot of people who have difficulty getting pregnant would be like, I would be happy to have any gender.
[00:10:01.410] – Stephanie Straub
And how can somebody say, hey, because everybody’s experience is unique. I mean, right. So that’s what makes the world go around. It’s just everybody being different and unique and having their own experience. But it’s all valid.
[00:10:15.500] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I love that so many people are like, do you think I I should find out at the ultrasound, especially if this is your first? I’m like, you know what? I love a surprise. Worth it’s like my favorite thing as a nurse, because there are so few surprises in the world. But I’m like, if you already have another kid and you’re hoping for one gender or the other, get it over with so that it’s not in the delivery room with you because you might have feelings that you want to work through before you see their little face.
[00:10:38.420] – Stephanie Straub
That’s I think a really great advice, you know, my two cents on it. And this is just for it’s all a surprise. It’s all a surprise. The whole experience is a surprise. And it’s not like it’s a boy or a girl. It’s going to be one of those two. Right. So I don’t think it necessarily ruins things or enhances things. It just makes the experience what you want it to be.
[00:11:02.460] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. Although I was in the room once when the doctor had done the ultrasound. It wasn’t like a tech. It was the doctor who had told them the gender, and he was wrong. And it was just like, silence and glaring. And I was like, oh, my gosh, your baby is so cute. This is so. And he was like, I told you, I’m not always right. Anyway, just fun little story.
[00:11:24.240] – Stephanie Straub
Which I’m sure they came to terms with, and now they have. And now they’re telling the full story.
[00:11:29.760] – Hilary Erickson
Yes. But when she was on the phone with her mom or whatever, she was just like, all of the outfits I need to return. And I was just, like, giggling over the side, typing, you know, labor nurse humor.
[00:11:42.410] – Hilary Erickson
I didn’t cut off any Tags. Even though my daughter had so many ultrasounds in the hospital, I was like, we aren’t getting any pink at our house. Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like the main thing you want to watch for is more lows. That it’s just like taking over your life. Right. Right.
[00:11:57.920] – Stephanie Straub
So one of my other little tag lines, it’s not a problem to lift the problem. And it’s a problem when we start to see it disrupting your functioning.
[00:12:06.590] – Hilary Erickson
Okay.
[00:12:07.170] – Stephanie Straub
So if you’re unable to get through kind of your basic tests of the day, you hear new moms talk about all I couldn’t get a shower, those types of things, or brush my teeth here and there. But if that’s happening every day because you just don’t have the motivation to do it, not because the baby won’t let you put them down. That’s a different story. And so if it’s interrupting your relational functioning, if you’re bonding with baby or in your partnership or marital relationship, it’s because you’re so sad, or you’re so irritated.
[00:12:38.840] – Stephanie Straub
Angry rage. Rage is something else that has so much stigma attached to it, but really comes up a lot, especially with the anxious parents. And if you can’t concentrate, focus, function. Those are the things that we look at. And we go, okay, now we’ve got a problem here.
[00:12:56.610] – Hilary Erickson
Which is so hard, because a lot of those things are gonna be very normal at time for every new parent.
[00:13:02.290] – Stephanie Straub
Yeah.
[00:13:02.740] – Hilary Erickson
Lack of focus because you’re not getting enough sleep.
[00:13:04.930] – Stephanie Straub
Yes.
[00:13:05.290] – Hilary Erickson
Right.
[00:13:05.740] – Stephanie Straub
Yes. Right. But again, when it’s most of the day, most days. So probably the number one indicator that I hear from mom. And some of this is just doing this work from myself. You kind of develop a Spidey sense for these things, too. But when they just say, I just don’t feel like myself, that’s it. It’s just something’s off. A lot of times, they can’t even articulate it because they’re just in this brain fog, but just something doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel like myself. That’s it.
[00:13:37.930] – Hilary Erickson
No, I felt like that every single time I walked in the house that I was a different person. And now my house was exactly the same, like after you have the baby. But I think maybe that’s just the experience that you had. I should everybody. Unless you’ve had a history of it, should everybody be giving it a week to just let things settle or what do you think?
[00:13:56.770] – Stephanie Straub
It’s so case specific. I have had clients that I worked with just for other reasons, not for a prenatal issue. And then they become pregnant. And what I do when I’m working with a client that’s pregnant, and it’s getting close to delivery, as I say. Okay. I may or may not see you next week.
[00:14:16.950] – Hilary Erickson
Right.
[00:14:17.580] – Stephanie Straub
Because you might have this baby between now and then. And if you have this baby, I’ll just wait for you to call me when you’re ready to reconnect. And I’ve had a new mom in my office three days later, and they were like a shell of themselves. So sometimes you just know, and it doesn’t take the two to three weeks. But again, it’s just I’m not so sure I call your provider, talk to them about what you’re feeling, utilize some of those resources that are available to you.
[00:14:46.990] – Stephanie Straub
You don’t have to wait.
[00:14:48.330] – Hilary Erickson
And if you’re noticing stuff at the hospital, you can also talk to the nurses about it, too, because I don’t know if it’s normal, but we do a perinatal postpartum assessment form where you feel like one to five, how you’re feeling on the scale or whatever. And we give you a number. Yeah.
[00:15:02.070] – Stephanie Straub
And I think that that’s great. And at the first place to go, a lot of pediatricians, because you’ll see your pediatrician three times or whatever before you go to your six week. So pediatricians are doing the Edinburgh scale to check in with new parents, which I think is great. But if you’re not sure if you’re just not feeling right, call ask for help.
[00:15:25.480] – Hilary Erickson
Okay. So you call your OB.
[00:15:27.480] – Stephanie Straub
That would be where my first stop would be.
[00:15:30.300] – Hilary Erickson
Unless you have a pre existing relationship with a therapist, right?
[00:15:34.030] – Stephanie Straub
Yes. But I will say I have a client. Here’s my Disclaimer, there are many, many, many amazing OBS midwives out there. There are some that have given really crappy advice to my new moms. So a glass of wine or a dose of ambient is not necessarily going to cut it when true story. True story. Here. I’ll give you some ambient. You just need some sleep. It’s not going to cut it when we’re dealing with in the mental health issue.
[00:16:02.200] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah.
[00:16:02.700] – Stephanie Straub
So if you ask for help and the help that you didn’t feel right as somebody else, yeah.
[00:16:08.550] – Hilary Erickson
Because a lot of women, I think forget about their general practitioner. And after you have a baby, you can definitely loop them in, like your family practice doctor or your internist. They probably aren’t going to do a lot of things. They tend to be a little scared, like those first couple of weeks, and if you’re breastfeeding, but they could definitely give you a referral to a psychiatrist or psychologist. Exactly. Hopefully somebody that they have good feelings towards.
[00:16:32.380] – Stephanie Straub
Exactly. And I’m really I agree with you in terms of general practitioners kind of feeling a little iffy around psych stuff, but they are a good starting point. And even a lot of times OBEs are like after the six weeks, like you need to be seeing a psychiatrist or whatever. But the good news is there are people who out there who specialize in this. Not nearly enough, but there are people who specialize in treating this as therapists or treating this as psychiatrists or no lictors practitioners.
[00:17:02.400] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I have a lot of friends whose doctor just prescribe them something. Do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:17:07.080] – Stephanie Straub
Here’s the thing. So dolaser Helen is usually the first line of defense. And doctors write scripts. That’s what they do. They’re not therapist. That’s fine. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. But again, being a therapist doing the work, we see the combination of therapy and medication to be the best setup for the best prognosis. And the quickest is recovery, certainly unbiased as a therapist. But I think my two cents on it is I don’t ever think it’s a great idea to write anybody a script for a psych Med without also having a therapist take a look and see if there’s additional support.
[00:17:45.580] – Stephanie Straub
That could be life. They may or may not need it, but it’s not gonna hurt anybody to sit across from a therapist for 1 hour to see if maybe they do.
[00:17:52.020] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. And God bless Covetise, a horrible disease. But it’s so much online therapy now, which I think was a big barrier for new moms. Right. Huge. Just the thought of trying to get myself together with my baby because, of course, my husband was back to work and haul them to a therapist was a barrier that I could never.
[00:18:09.610] – Stephanie Straub
Yeah, sure.
[00:18:10.680] – Hilary Erickson
Get over. But if I could just do it with the webcam, I totally could have done that while I bounce baby or they were sleeve.
[00:18:16.590] – Stephanie Straub
Exactly.
[00:18:17.340] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah.
[00:18:17.760] – Stephanie Straub
And so that has that if we’re looking for a silver lining, that one that we can identify with Covid, and it has made it accessible. So even just people who are in a rural area, who there might be one or two therapists can now see a therapist on the other side of their state who specializes in this, who they otherwise might not have had access to.
[00:18:41.170] – Hilary Erickson
So that’s a great option for new moms, especially. What about people who have pre existing depression or people who suffered with it in the past? I know they’re talking a lot about depression during pregnancy and how it just gets worse. And I would probably agree with that in my own pregnancy, the ones that I was more depressed during the pregnancy. It was worse after all. Also.
[00:19:01.570] – Stephanie Straub
Yeah. That definitely is considered a risk factor. It’s not a direct correlation that you are going to experience an exacerbation of those symptoms, but it is a risk factor to see an increase in the postpartum period, for sure.
[00:19:17.350] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. And I was going to say I actually just started therapy after COVID. And I’ve always been like, I don’t need to see anybody or talk, but it’s amazing how they can help you identify those thoughts that aren’t normal and how you can change them. Like, how it’s made me think I my anxiety was mostly about parenting, older teens and my business, and nothing I saw for two months. That’s all I really needed. But now I’m able to identify those thoughts and change them instead of dwelling on them.
[00:19:43.030] – Hilary Erickson
And it’s been a huge change for me. Someone who was like, therapy week. People get therapy. Nurses don’t get therapy, lady.
[00:19:51.870] – Stephanie Straub
No. So it sounds like you’ve got some good cognitive behavior therapy skills to help you look at, look at your thoughts and reframe the ones that aren’t working for you.
[00:20:01.140] – Hilary Erickson
That’s great.
[00:20:01.770] – Stephanie Straub
Yeah.
[00:20:02.040] – Hilary Erickson
And so, you know, I’d always been like, what is the therapist really going to do for me? And am I going to have to see them forever? Because I don’t have time to put forever in my schedule? And I didn’t. So especially if it’s postpartum, you’re not gonna feel like that forever. Things are gonna change. You’re gonna change. Your baby will start to sleep at some point.
[00:20:19.020] – Stephanie Straub
Just. Yeah.
[00:20:20.060] – Hilary Erickson
Hopefully.
[00:20:20.550] – Stephanie Straub
Yes. Yes. With my eight year old waking up last night at four in the morning. But yes. Again, like I said, I’m biased. I’m always gonna think therapy is gonna be a good thing. You know, what’s odd is I will have women who come to me in the postpartum period, and then they just stay. And they’ve kind of made this part of their self care. Even if there’s nothing going on per se, they’re still reserving an hour for themselves once a week or once every other week or even once a month just to go take care of their emotional health.
[00:20:52.890] – Stephanie Straub
And I think it’s great, and I love it.
[00:20:54.750] – Hilary Erickson
Oh, yeah. Well, and if you love it, because some people I’ll be honest, I didn’t love therapy. I didn’t adore it, and that’s fine. She helped me with a lot of specific things, but it wasn’t something that I was like, I want to do this weekly for the rest of my life. I was kind of like, okay. I feel a lot more like I’m able to cope better her. I feel like I’m ready to fly on my own. I’ll take my Dumbo further away.
[00:21:14.850] – Stephanie Straub
Yeah.
[00:21:15.230] – Hilary Erickson
So if you’re just thinking, maybe I should just get a session, you can totally self pay. You don’t even have to ask your doctor for a referral if they’re being uncooperative.
[00:21:23.820] – Stephanie Straub
Right?
[00:21:24.360] – Hilary Erickson
Because most people need a referral if they’re going to run it through their insurance. True or false?
[00:21:28.460] – Stephanie Straub
It depends on the plan. I feel like a lot of insurance companies are a lot better at just allowing people to be in charge of their own care. But again, it depends on the company. Depends on the plan. There’s a million different variables, but what I can say because I don’t want to let a whole podcast go without sharing these resources. This is if you are a parental person who is looking to get into a treatment with a specialist, you can look at Postpartum Net, which is the website for Postpartum Support International, or Postpartum Stress Com, which is the website for Karen Kleiman, who is like Begur in maternal mental health and does a lot of true training.
[00:22:11.910] – Stephanie Straub
And both of those are going to connect you with therapist in your area who are specially trained in doing this work. So Postpartum Net or Postpartum Stress Com.
[00:22:22.350] – Hilary Erickson
That is awesome and so helpful. So that’s for doctors or that’s for normal humans.
[00:22:27.350] – Stephanie Straub
Meaning what normal humans to like?
[00:22:30.530] – Hilary Erickson
This is that just like a mom who is looking for somebody can go on those.
[00:22:33.860] – Stephanie Straub
Yes, but I will say if you do have medical providers who listen to this podcast, that Postpartum Support Internet International has a hotline for prescribers. Only prescribers can call this number. I’ve tried. They won’t talk to me. Only people who can write a script can call this number, and they can get consultation with somebody who specializes in reproductive psychiatry if they’re like, hey, listen, I got this new mom, but she’s breastfeeding and I’m not really sure can I give them? And it’s a great resource. So for that OB or that general practitioner who’s maybe a little skittish about trying anything more than the introductory dose of Zola, this is a great resource.
[00:23:13.410] – Hilary Erickson
Oh, that’s awesome. Especially for internal medicine who might see them down the road. Yeah. Okay, so awesome. Guys, your mental health is just as important as what comes out of your vagina. Okay, you’re bleeding your cloths. I think in the hospital we mostly just send you home with fever if you a larger than a golf ball. But there really is so much more to be watching out for yourself and in your partner and your partner should be watching you. Like, you need to watch out for each other, because partners get this too, and we don’t want to listen to something the other day that said, try and get moms 4 hours of sleep if they can get 4 hours straight.
[00:23:49.760] – Hilary Erickson
Because at some point I feel like that ambient could help a lot of people mom’s friends that I talked to on the phone that I’m like, Girl, you really need to sleep. You need sleep for sure. And so for sure, partners being willing to give a bottle, however we make that happen.
[00:24:05.570] – Stephanie Straub
So a lot of things that I do probably the first thing that I do with all new clients. If I sit down and I look at what I call the foundations of self care. And it includes the first kind of four pillars are sleep nutrition, including caffeine consumption, alcohol consumption, supplements. But are you eating which for a new parent, e, sometimes hard to exercise, which is not a lot of fun. But the verdict is in, and it’s good for you guys. Sorry.
[00:24:35.260] – Stephanie Straub
And then routine medical care. That’s the foundation. And I won’t do anything. I’m not gonna start somebody on CBT. If they’re only getting three interrupted hours of sleep a night, it’s not gonna do anything. It’s not gonna be effective. Right. Well, let’s think about your thinking. No, let’s think about how can we get you sleep? So sometimes we have to think outside the box. Sometimes we have to say, okay, baby goes down at seven, you go down at seven, and you sleep from seven to eleven. Right. And then maybe you’re up for the next on and off for the next 4 hours.
[00:25:03.560] – Stephanie Straub
But you got that four hour chunk. And that can be a game changer.
[00:25:06.830] – Hilary Erickson
Yes. Especially because dad might be up from seven to eleven and can do whatever needs to be done in that time frame. You put on the en loud. Yeah. Stop watching Netflix or video games or whatever.
[00:25:19.100] – Stephanie Straub
Right. And breastfeeding is important. I’m not gonna knock how good it is. Right. But if we need to, mom’s, mental health is paramount to breast feeding. So if we need to trade off one feeding. Sorry. And if I get hate for it, I’m willing to take it.
[00:25:36.140] – Hilary Erickson
No hate here.
[00:25:37.420] – Stephanie Straub
If we need to trade one fee eating for a formula or for a pumped bottle so that mom can get that 4 hours of sleep, it’s going to go a long way. It’s going to go a long way.
[00:25:48.200] – Hilary Erickson
Well, and ultimately, I think it’ll help her supply, because if you aren’t sleeping, you really aren’t going to make milk. I don’t think.
[00:25:54.110] – Stephanie Straub
I mean, you might sleep is really that’s it? You know, everything. And my clients get sick of it when they’re, like, gosh, my anxiety is coming back in this. And the other thing, How’s your sleep? Oh, let me go back.
[00:26:07.960] – Hilary Erickson
Literally.
[00:26:08.630] – Stephanie Straub
It’s like going back to the first couple of sessions. Okay, let’s look at this. Let’s look at your sleep high gene. Let’s Look at your routine. Let’s look at your schedule. And a lot of times that can really shift things.
[00:26:17.270] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah, but that’s going to be a lot of Parenthood. Like, if your kid goes through a sleep regression six months, you may lump right back where you were when they were a newborn. Now, because you’re not getting sleep. Right.
[00:26:26.960] – Stephanie Straub
But then what’s good about that is like, you know, that that might happen. You have an understanding of why it’s happening. So you don’t go down the rabbit hole. Why are all these things happening. Why do I feel this way? Right. And so I have a client that I work with who again, would have so much anxiety around their baby not sleeping. Because if the baby wasn’t sleeping, they weren’t sleeping in. Their anxiety would crank up. So then they would get so anxious around the baby’s bedtime, which.
[00:26:53.510] – Stephanie Straub
How do you think baby responded to that? And it was just like this awful, like snowball effect. Right. And so once we said, listen, when you’re baby’s teething, it’s six months or whatever, if you know what to expect, it just made them a little bit better able to kind of manage it because they knew it was coming. I know that this baby maybe we go three days, and then I know that I might have to call somebody in to help me get some extra rest on day four.
[00:27:20.180] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah, I know how to get the resources that I need at this point, right? Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So helpful. You guys, pay attention to your mental health. I don’t care where you are in your parenting journey, because these things can come back at any time. I hear moms, when the kid goes to College, you kind of end up in a little depression. I think, too. So see, somebody manage those four foundational blocks.
[00:27:40.330] – Stephanie Straub
We’re always postpartum. We’re always after that baby’s delivered, we are postpartum for life. So, yes, mental health.
[00:27:48.230] – Hilary Erickson
We should make T shirts or hard life life get out or like it. Thanks for coming on 70. I appreciate it.
[00:27:54.740] – Stephanie Straub
Not a problem. Thank you!
[00:27:56.200] – Hilary Erickson
Guys. I hope you enjoyed that episode. I’ve really, really been wanting to have somebody who was really well trained in this. Come on and talk with us. And I love that she said we are all in the postpartum period because I think having a baby and having another person that we love so much and we don’t have as much control over them as we would want forever is a problem. Right? So remember that Stephanie is in the Syracuse, New York. She can see anyone in the state of New York at CNY Therapy Solutions. And I would definitely check her out. All put her link in the show notes.
[00:28:27.860] – Hilary Erickson
Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. We know you have lots of options for your ears, and we are glad that you chose us. We dropped episodes weekly. And until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.
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