[TRANSCRIPT OF ANSWER]

Preparing Now For After Your Baby Is Born

“I wish there was more for you. I wish we were like other developed nations where you could take six months or a year or two years off with your child. Cause that’s what you and your baby need. You need time to just crawl into bed and be with that newborn baby for maybe six weeks and somebody else handling the hard work , like, you know, the house work, you know, where the older kids and he probably not going to get it. It’s just the way the United States is today. So the best thing that I can advise is to build up a network of people before you have your baby. Yes, it’s nice. If you can afford a doula, postpartum doula or a home care home healthcare person, that’s probably not going to happen. But if you’ve got a family member that can come maybe the week after the baby’s born, maybe two weeks after, rather than right at the birth, that can just kind of help out somebody that can come in twice a week, straighten up, maybe lay out dinner for you.”

Postpartum Lifestyle 

So you don’t have to deal with that issue, try to trade off things. So if you have to go get the other child from school, well, maybe you can trade off with another parent. So you only go two or three times a week. There’s a lot of help sometimes that there, you don’t necessarily realize it. There’s an awful lot of new moms in exactly the same situation. Try to build a real connection with that. Whether it’s through church or the local coffee shop or the park, wherever you can meet a person, you probably find somebody in the same boat. Those are really, Oh man, it’s such a stress to be a new mom. And I wish it wasn’t. It should be like the time when you’re just treated like a queen. And I know for a lot of you, you have to go back to work right away.

Back To Work After Childbirth

“I consider that a crime actually, but that’s how it has to be. You have to go back to work right away. Really, I think we need to call the men to step up our brothers, our fathers, our, our uncles, our male cousins, and absolutely our partners and the fathers of those babies. They need to really understand that the relationship that is laid down in this next six months is crucial. What happens in this first six months is going to affect whether you can relate to that six year old or that 16 year old is absolutely worth the time and absolutely worth of financial investment.”