How to Build Your Postpartum Support Plan Before Baby Arrives with Kristin Revere

Most parents spend months preparing for birth, the nursery, and baby gear, but very few spend the same amount of time planning for the postpartum period. The truth is that the weeks after birth can be one of the most physically, emotionally, and mentally demanding times in a family's life. Creating a postpartum support plan before your baby arrives can make all the difference in your recovery, confidence, and overall well-being. 

In this solo episode of the Ask the Doulas Podcast, Kristin Revere shares practical steps to help expecting parents build a strong postpartum support plan. From identifying your village and setting realistic expectations to planning for sleep, meals, mental health, feeding support, and household responsibilities, Kristin breaks down exactly what families should consider before bringing baby home.

Whether you're expecting your first baby or adding another child to your family, this episode will help you feel more prepared for the fourth trimester and empower you to ask for the support you deserve.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

•  Why a postpartum plan is just as important as a birth plan 
•  How to identify your support team before baby arrives 
•  What conversations to have with your partner about responsibilities and expectations 
•  Tips for planning meals, household help, and visitor boundaries 
•  How to prepare for feeding support and newborn sleep challenges 
•  When to consider hiring a postpartum doula or newborn care specialist 
•  How to create a realistic plan that adapts to your family's needs 

The best gift you can give yourself before birth isn't another baby gadget. It's a plan for support.

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Use the code GOLDCOAST to receive a discount of up to 20 percent off.

Subscribe to our newsletter, check out Kristin Revere’s birth and baby book, and see more about our doula services & online courses below:

https://linktr.ee/goldcoastdoulas

Transcript

Most parents spend months preparing for birth, the nursery, and baby gear, but very few spend the same amount of time planning for the postpartum period.  The truth is that the weeks after birth can be one of the most physically, emotionally, and mentally demanding times in a family's life.  Creating a postpartum support plan before your baby arrives can make all the difference in your recovery, confidence, and overall well-being. 

In this solo episode of the Ask the Doulas Podcast, Kristin Revere shares practical steps to help expecting parents build a strong postpartum support plan.  From identifying your village and setting realistic expectations to planning for sleep, meals, mental health, feeding support, and household responsibilities, Kristin breaks down exactly what families should consider before bringing baby home.

Whether you're expecting your first baby or adding another child to your family, this episode will help you feel more prepared for the fourth trimester and empower you to ask for the support you deserve.

In this episode, you'll learn:

•  Why a postpartum plan is just as important as a birth plan 
•  How to identify your support team before baby arrives 
•  What conversations to have with your partner about responsibilities and expectations 
•  Tips for planning meals, household help, and visitor boundaries 
•  How to prepare for feeding support and newborn sleep challenges 
•  When to consider hiring a postpartum doula or newborn care specialist 
•  How to create a realistic plan that adapts to your family's needs 

The best gift you can give yourself before birth isn't another baby gadget.  It's a plan for support.

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth.  Use the code GOLDCOAST to receive a discount of up to 20 percent off.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas Podcast, and today we are going to do a special solo episode all about planning your postpartum support before baby arrives.  I’ve done a lot of solo episodes lately on packing your birth bag and more of that pregnancy preparation, but that postnatal preparation before baby arrives, whether it’s baby one or baby four, is so important.  And most parents don’t realize until it’s too late that you don’t need more baby gear.  And hey, I’m a baby registry consultant so I am all about helping you register for baby gear.  But you need support, and in our culture, we don’t ask for help.  So whether you pay for professional support, like an overnight postpartum doula or a lactation consultant, or you communicate your needs in pregnancy to your friends, to your family, to others that may be able to help – because the truth is, you can have the most beautiful nursery, all the right products, and still feel completely overwhelmed once baby arrives. 

I’ve worked with so many families over the years, and there’s a pattern that I see over and over again.  They spend months planning for birth and almost no time preparing for what happens after.  And then the baby arrives, and suddenly it’s exhaustion.  Feeding challenges, so if you don’t take, say, a breastfeeding or pumping class, then you’re trying to learn on the spot.  There’s emotional overwhelm, and that could be everything from keeping up with household tasks, trying to occupy other children, just feeling the overwhelm.  Even keeping up with laundry can be overwhelming.  It can cause a strain in the relationship, especially if these things haven’t been communicated before.  And as you know from my blogs and podcasts, I am a big fan of the Fair Play method.  That is a great way to communicate your needs with your partner and others who will be involved in care.  There’s even an amazing card deck.  But talking about who’s going to take over different tasks.  And the mental load, honestly, is as big of a concern as the physical responsibilities in the household and family.  So as a birth doula, I’m always talking to my birth clients about their postnatal planning.  Do they have a plan in place?  Do they have meals prepped or people doing a meal train for them?  Are they interested in postpartum support?  And we have those conversations, so it’s not just the postpartum doulas on my team talking about postnatal support.  But I talk about it in my Comfort Measures for Labor Class to get especially the dads on board with understanding that not only is it important to plan out what you want that maternity leave, if you’re going to back to work, to look like, or that postnatal recovery time in the first 40 days, for example – but yeah, to also see if there’s anything that could be budgeted and things that you can budget for might be a meal service, housekeeping, yard service.  Sometimes I have clients get their dog picked up and taken to a dog park or walked.  There are so many different things. 

Of course, I’m going to tell you that a day and/or overnight postpartum doula is where it’s at, but there are other things, too.  You are a unique individual, and your needs are different than your best friend’s or your sister-in-law’s.  So you need to plan in a way that is unique to you and knowing what makes you feel good.  If having a spotless house is something that is important to you, knowing that no matter how you give birth, you should not be vacuuming initially.  You shouldn't be going up and down stairs frequently.  You certainly don’t need to be cleaning toilets after delivery.  So who’s going to do that for you?  Is it your spouse?  Your mother-in-law?  Your mother?  Are you hiring a housekeeper?  Postpartum doulas can do some light household tasks.  We can wipe counters.  We can vacuum if we’re there during the day.  Overnight doulas tend to just focus on newborn care and feeding support.  

But I’d say it’s important to really know what postpartum looks like.  And it’s not just snuggling your amazing baby.  It’s recovery, whether you’re having a surgical birth or you deliver vaginally.  Knowing that your body needs to heal; your body will tell you if you’re doing too much physically.  You’ll end up bleeding more, for example.  You’re going to be feeding around the clock, whether you’re pumping, breastfeeding, or formula feeding.  And with feeding comes diaper changes and burping and sleep shaping and trying to learn your baby because in my experience, not only as a doula but as a mom, each baby is different.  So you think you have it down, but your baby number two might have different rhythms and needs than your first baby.  So parents often underestimate exactly how much support they’ll need and think that they’ve got it, and you might, but there’s nothing wrong with asking for help.  And there’s nothing wrong with budgeting for birth and baby in the way you would for another life occasion, like building a home or remodeling a home or buying a home.  

So what I want you to ask yourself to start with is: who’s going to support me?  And is this person going to support me only in the first couple days?  Is this person someone that I am paying to support me, like a mother’s helper, a nanny, a daycare center if you have other children that need to be dropped off?  Your partner?  Some partners have extended leave after a baby is born, so maybe you’re relying on your partner to support.  Partners often need to be told how to be helpful.  We don’t instinctively know what to do unless we happen to be a doula or a nanny or another caregiving professional.  Nurses often know what to do to help.  But identify that support that you need early on – again, in pregnancy, not after the fact.  And your postpartum plan should include real people, not just good intentions like, oh, that meal train will be what I need.  So think about your partner’s role, your family and friends, if you have a postpartum doula, lactation support.  That could be going back to the hospital to meet with a lactation consultant, having an in-home visit from a lactation consultant, joining a lactation support group, there are many breastfeeding support groups virtually, or many communities have them in person.  And then certainly sleep support.  How are you going to sleep when baby sleeps?  You should be napping when baby is napping.  You should be trying to optimize your rest, whether you have overnight support or not.  And can your partner do the diaper changes?  If you’re exclusively breastfeeding, you can still get other support.  I know my husband would do the sleep shaping, burping, and diaper changes for at least one of the waking times a night, and I was always breastfeeding, so he couldn't really do that for me once we transitioned from supplementing after my daughter left the NICU.  So yeah, who’s your dream birth and baby team? 

And then as I mentioned, you should sleep when baby sleeps.  So plan for sleep before baby arrives.  Sleep deprivation is something that – I can’t stress this enough – may lead to other challenges.  That could be relationship challenges and stress with other children.  If you or your partner is transitioning back to work, you may not be as productive at your job if you are sleep deprived.  Sleep deprivation can certainly extend beyond those first 40 days.  It can also lead to perinatal mood disorders if you’re sleep deprived.  It builds.  So who is going to help you overnight?  What’s the plan if baby isn’t sleeping?  How will you protect your own rest?  At Gold Coast Doulas, we have a Tired As A Mother class that you can take during pregnancy to understand healthy sleep habits, how to optimize a nursery for sleep.  There are things that you can do, just like taking a feeding class during pregnancy or a newborn care class.  When you have the ability to focus and make a plan, that is one thing you can do.  

At Gold Coast, most of our certified sleep consultants don’t create a customized plan for our clients until baby is about three months, when you can actually make some changes.  So we do some sleep shaping consults earlier, but if you’re looking at hiring a sleep consultant, that three month window is certainly something that you can look into.  If you have other children who are not sleeping well, like toddlers, for example, we do sleep consultations for up to age 5.  So oftentimes we’ll get calls where they’re preparing for a new baby and want to make sure that toddler isn’t still waking up a couple times overnight.  And how you will divide tasks and optimize rest – if you’re going to be resting when baby is resting, who’s going to keep up with the household tasks?  If baby stirs, who might be the one to care for baby if you’re trying to take a nap during the day? 

Prepare for feeding support.  If you plan to breastfeed, formula feed, combination feed, or pump – support still matters because feeding struggles are common.  I had two totally different issues with feeding with my children.  My daughter was in the NICO for glucose issues and was started on enhanced formula.  I pumped, and I returned home without my daughter.  And when she came home, she wasn’t used to breastfeeding.  I brought lactation support into the home, had a hospital grade pump there to keep up my supply, and supplemented for a while and then exclusively breastfed, so I needed a lot of lactation support.  I was going to the hospital multiple times.  I had lactation consultants in the home.  So I definitely had a lot of troubleshooting.  I also developed mastitis and had to get lactation support. 

And then with my son, he had a tongue tie that was discovered by the pediatrician, and I had to get that revised and had pain with breastfeeding because of that tongue tie initially until that was revised.  I saw lactation consultants with both children and had to bring in experts to help me troubleshoot, even though I took a breastfeeding class in pregnancy.  And I’ll tell you what, that breastfeeding class helped not only me but also my husband to know about different holds, what to do with supply concerns, pumping.  It really helped me feel confident and prepared being a first time mom. 

So let’s talk about emotional support.  Postpartum is not just physical.  It also deals with hormone shifts, identity shifts, whether it’s baby one or three.  Your entire world changes overnight.  Motherhood is a rite of passage, not just one time – every time.  And having someone who can check in on you, normalize your experience, support you, matters more than people expect.  And I have shared before that I took Lamaze classes with both of my kids, and a lot of students from my class stepped in touch.  And we met at a botanical garden with our kids; we went to a farm; we were texting each other with concerns.  And I wanted to have friends surround me who were going through the same thing at the same time.  I also went to breastfeeding support groups, found the story time at the library to be helpful to meet other moms, and then I asked for help from mom friends.  If you’re not showing people how to help, then they don’t know what to do.  

So getting into those hormone shifts, the baby blues – you’re going to have some shifts when you are weaning from breastfeeding, initially after birth, and when you’re introducing foods.  So to understand what is normal and when you might need help, and certainly if you’re delivering in the hospital, you’re going to get that card about the different types of perinatal mood disorders.  They’ll give you a test to take home.  And there are many support resources, especially if you’re working with a birth or postpartum doula, to understand the different types of perinatal mood disorders: depression, anxiety, OCD.  There’s postpartum psychosis.  So to understand what is the baby blues and what is something that you should see a therapist or talk to your OB or midwife about getting on medication, for example.  So understanding that emotional support is also very helpful.  Many communities have postpartum support groups in person.  Postpartum Support International is amazing and has virtual and in person resources. 

So to give you a real life example, I worked with a family who had everything ready: the nursery, the registry, all of it.  But what they didn't have was a support plan.  By week two, they were exhausted.  They were overwhelmed and scrambling to try to find help.  So compare that to families who plan ahead: they feel more confident, more supported, and honestly, more able to enjoy those early days.  And at Gold Coast, we have a large postpartum support team, so with that client, we were able to get them a postpartum doula quickly.  But if you are in a community that doesn’t have an agency like Gold Coast Doulas, or there might only be individual doulas, they could be completely booked up and not able to support you.  So if you’re hiring in pregnancy, even a small package for clients who hire for 20 hours, then we give them priority for adding on.  So if you’re expecting or even thinking about growing your family, then start thinking about your postpartum plan.  And in our book, Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby, half of the book is about postnatal recovery, postpartum planning, perinatal mood disorders, feeding support.  We place as much importance on planning for the postnatal recovery phase as we do for planning for the birth and the labor and the pregnancy.

You can certainly connect with us at Gold Coast Doulas on our website, and you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest – whatever social platform you tend to spend time on.  There are plenty of other episodes on the Ask the Doulas Podcast that go into the different postpartum support options in more detail.  Thanks for spending this time with me – we will chat soon! 

IMPORTANT LINKS

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported