#334 | Why Moms Get Triggered: The Emotional Stressors of Postpartum Living

Motherhood, pregnancy, and postpartum life are filled with moments that test our patience — from bedtime battles and clutter overload to partner misunderstandings and in-law tensions. But these moments aren’t just “part of the job” — they’re emotional triggers, and they hold powerful clues for personal growth, stress relief, and a healthier, happier motherhood journey.

In this episode, we dive deep into emotional triggers for moms, especially during pregnancy and postpartum. We share relatable stories from our community of mothers about whining toddlers, relationship stress, junk food battles, and the mental load of parenting. You’ll learn how to recognize your triggers, uncover the roots behind them, and respond in ways that protect your mental health, improve your relationships, and bring more peace into your home.

Watch this episode in full video format on YouTube.

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Transcript

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

As we often do on this podcast, we take some of the conversations that we've been having over on social media, because we have such a fascinating community of very intelligent women. 

We're not just saying that to flatter you all, not at all. I learned so much from our community. It's so true. It's such an informed population. I would only say it if I truly meant it, and I truly do. And so we bring a lot of these conversations that we have on social media over here to the podcast, because obviously, when they're in stories, they are fleeting and short lived, and we want everybody to be part of these conversations. So quite a few months ago now, we had a conversation around triggers, emotional triggers, and we asked the community, what really triggers them? Because our triggers are a really important thing to notice in our lives, because our triggers are where we have work to do, right? So triggers are annoying. Nobody wants to be triggered. We all get triggered, but the trigger is your clue.

Are we talking about triggers with like mothering or like postpartum rage? Are you talking relationship triggers? What? What is this about? Exactly, anything that emotionally triggers you, okay, anything that makes you feel stressed, ragey, crying, anything, but every time we are triggered, that is an opportunity for growth, if we are willing to look at our triggers so often, when we're triggered, we just want to shut down or blame or turn away, or, you know, turn it into a different story. But if we can actually get curious about why we are triggered, we have an opportunity to outgrow that. That's a beautiful thing, because nobody wants to be irritated or annoyed all the time. And so if you can learn to lean in to what's triggering you and find a way out of that, you're a more peaceful, happy

person, that's very true, and it's helpful to know what the triggers are, because when you know what your triggers are, you have some responsibility in your response or your outburst, as the case may be, you realize it's a trigger for you. It's reminding me of a conversation a woman shared in my postpartum group this week of we were talking about the propensity toward petty arguments between couples, and I think that's kind of inevitable for a lot of couples, like even if they don't have big issues between them. They sometimes can drive each other a little crazy with petty things. And she shared a really great story. It's just, I feel like this is something everyone can relate to, and it's just one of those, like, it's kind of a no fault situation. Is just one of those totally annoying moments. They were headed somewhere together. Everything was totally fine. They got the baby in the car, and he said, Can you put that pack of batteries in the car? I don't know the details here. She was just telling the story, and she said it was like a really big pack of tons of batteries. And she said, why do we need so many batteries? And he said, why does it matter? And she was like, it's just a question. He's like, right? But Do you trust me or do not trust me. She and she. You know, in my mind now, she's like, well, how is this about trust? But I don't really remember what happened with them, but she really felt bad. And later he said to her, Look, you just have to ease back on all the questions and just trust me more. But I thought, Oh, come on. I mean, it's like, it's you. He can't make her feel like she's walking on eggshells either. It's totally normal in a relationship to just say these unconscious things to each other, like, why are we bringing so I said to her, just have a little fun with it. Next time you go to like, a friend's house, you know, ask him to put the six watermelons in the garden. Let him ask why you're bringing six watermelons, and be like, do you trust me or not? We were just joking about it, because it's such like you almost can't name a more petty example of a thing that can happen between a couple, but we all get it.

Yeah, the but the interesting thing about that is it might not really be petty. There might be a deep or there might be a deeper issue of trust there. He must feel that's a trigger for him. He must feel deep down that she doesn't trust him and where is, and I think this is very common, or from his childhood, he was hypersensitive to too many questions, maybe from his mother, or maybe from his parents, because some people are wired to be hypersensitive with any questions, and I think that's a part of their own personality that probably existed in his previous relationships with other women, and maybe even from his childhood, because that's just for me. In my opinion, that has nothing to do with trust. That is not actually a trust issue. If you're if your partner is bringing a ton of batteries somewhere, I think it's totally reasonable to say, hey, hey, I got a question, what are all these batteries for? It's just conversation. If you and I were getting in the car and you brought a 40 pack of batteries, I would ask you the same thing.

I think humor is always a good way to get around these things in the moment, but I also think that anything that irritates you is an opportunity to. Look at what's beneath it. Totally always something beneath it. Yes, they're always, if I did that with the batteries, we'd laugh about it, because there wouldn't be anything beneath it between us. Yeah, that's true. That's why it would be so crazy if you wouldn't answer my question. That's right, yeah, so I think he needs to figure it out. He's summarizing it to mean she doesn't show and tell all weekend.

Yeah, I just, I'm not sure that that's I just feel like he also could explore why he got triggered by that, rather than, to summarize it to say she doesn't trust him. I I'm sure it's not really a matter of her not trusting him. People tell themselves stories. Well, that's not about trust. That isn't a trust issue at all. You know, it's just, it's just people. People tell their people have their stories. They put they apply their stories to things. Another woman in the group shared a story between her and her husband, and her response to him was, so you just don't care. And I said to her, that's a really good example of you coming up with a story, and now you've created a story that your husband doesn't care when I didn't hear that in your little petty argument with him, but you now he has to defend why he does care. And that's really changing the subject from the thing you guys were bickering about, but that became her story. So you don't care. So people do that to each other all the time, so you don't trust me well, so you don't care. Two different couples, two different stories. But that complicates things between people, but it either comes from that individual and their history or it comes from their relationship very Yes, maybe she doesn't feel her husband Cares all the time. Maybe that's a repeated pattern in their relationship. Either way, it doesn't matter. The point is, when something triggers you, there is always a clue. There's always a clue to whether it's an issue from your childhood, whether it's an issue in your relationship, whether it's an issue within yourself, it's an opportunity to look and figure out, why does that bother me? Yes, within our community, we got lots of great responses to this, mostly related to mothering, but not all. So let's you basically asked what triggers them in general.

The specific question was, what is your Yeah, the specific question was, what triggers you emotionally. So of course, we got some really funny ones. We got some really serious ones. We got so many responses to this, so many. Alright, I can't wait to possibly go through them all.

Alright, we will. We will share a few. And, you know, do our little conversation around them. So let's start with constant whining and crying. I am okay with the tantrums, but the whining, okay, yeah, whining is tough.

I think they've done research on whining. I can't remember it anymore, but whining is a thing, and it's in every language. And there is, you know, there is, like a physiologic response to whining. I just don't remember the details around it. But it's not surprising. Maybe it's something about the frequency of the sound. Or the thing about whining that's different from tantrums is whining is just incessant. It just goes on and on and on. There's like no end. A tantrum is kind of short lived. It happens. It's over. The release is done. You come around, but whining just goes on and on and on, okay? Dogs barking, kids crying for what seems like no reason after a long day. Oh, the dogs are such a trigger for people.

Yeah, I feel so sorry for dogs, because it is is genuinely stressful, but they just have no idea they're doing it.

The dog barking is just like the icing on the cake. After feeling exhausted by your kids all day, it's like, is there really one more creature, one more living thing in this house that needs me when they say my son looks just like dad, even though he is 90% identical to me as a child.

That triggers a lot of women, and I wonder why. Okay, one hand like, one theory for me is that there's the whole like, I carried this baby, I birthed this baby. Come on. The second one is especially if the if the baby obviously looks more like her, or as she did as a child. Sometimes the in laws are saying that, and she's just like, Stop, just stop. And that that can be triggering, like forcing that the child looks like him rather than her. That's sometimes triggering, right? Is there some element of feeling like, if the child looks more like the parent, that they have more connection with them, or more they contributed more to them? I mean, it just doesn't make sense, and it doesn't make sense in my mind, but I know that this triggers a lot of people. I think it's fun to look at a child and try to see where they get certain features from. But not everyone wants to hear it, fighting bedtime until my bedtime, fighting bedtime until my bedtime, so I get zero sleep and me time. Yeah, that's that's really tough, because for those moments to yourself and. The end of the day. But the reality is, you just go to bed with your children. It's so much easier, lower the expectations of getting that free time and just get your just get your sleep. Yeah, because part of what's making you so frustrated at night is that you're tired.

It's so hard for women to do that they truly get absolutely no time to themselves. I mean, they just want a little time. It's so hard to actually see it's you can feel so resentful, basically, having to sleep whenever the baby is sleeping, you know, right stuff, but it is the best thing for them. But, I mean, I fell into that trap all the time of trying to get, like, quote, me time, whatever that meant, just time.

Yeah, I think everyone, I think everyone does, but when it doesn't work, you might as well be sleeping. Yes, 100% as I've learned in life, I've never once regretted going to bed early. I never woke up in the morning nice and rested and thought, yeah, I should have stayed up late last night. But there are a million times I woke up in the morning and thought I shouldn't have gone to bed so late. You'll never regret going to bed earlier. That's one thing I've learned, it's only in the moment that it's hard to do to make that sacrifice my children not listening, therefore having to repeat myself over and over and over and over and over and over and over, just comes with the territory of being a parent. It does very frustrating because it feels like they're well, nobody likes to not be listened to by a child, adult, a friend, anybody? I mean, it feels like a personal attack. I'm mad if my dog doesn't listen to me, if I'm sitting and I'm like, Oh, come. Can I say come to my dog if they don't walk over I'm just like, I beg your pardon. I just said come. Like, what would I have to be holding a treat in my hand to get you over here? Yeah. I mean, that's what the dog and the children are that innocent. They don't again. They don't know. Just comes with the territory. It does. They outgrow it. Messes, clutter, crumbs, piles of things, visually over stimulated.

Just stuff.

So much stuff. Yeah, so much stuff. And actually, I think women's brains are wired to be really bothered by stuff like we really do need less and we need things to be organized just the way our brains work. It's it's visually more stress, more to look at, and we feel responsible for it. Therefore, it's just more to do on our plate. The mess is going to sit there until we deal with it. Yeah, if you're in Patreon with us, and you watch the Book Club series when we did simplicity parenting, that's a really great one. In fact, one of my postpartum moms just went through that one and she loved it. She just said she was playing our videos every night when she was cooking. But that's a very inspiring, encouraging book, even if you don't read it and you just watch our videos. And the big key to Kim Jong pain the author is just, why are we buying so much? And he basically says, like, your child should have whatever he says, three pairs of pants and eight tops. And this, most of us have dozens and dozens and dozens of items of clothing for our children. So right there. It's just creating a problem, and how many books, like dozens and dozens of books, et cetera. It's so much to manage and to keep and maintain. Less is more. It is not my kids that trigger me. It is my husband not taking the trash out at the exact precise time I need him to. Those are some high expectations.

Well, she's laughing at herself a little bit, but I think she's on to something. And I, again, I only say this because I have a postpartum group, and I hear these things all the time. But when women ask something of some men like, will you take out the trash? Sometimes the guys are busy, and they'll do it, and they will be good about it, and they'll do it. They'll do it in five minutes. They'll do it in a little while. But some men are just like, yeah, in a bit like, they kind of feel controlled right off the bat. And these are the men. You know who they are because they're calling their wives controlling. And you are not controlling for asking anyone in your house, your teenager, your partner, to take the trash out or to empty the dishwasher. That is not what controlling is. So sometimes there's resistance simply because she asked. So my solution, as I always tell everyone, is give everyone total responsibility for every job. It's his job to take the trash out every night period. Then you never have to talk about it again. He just has to agree to that one time, but he's still not taking it out at the right time. Well, if she's actually that tense about it, but it's re it is still reasonable. When the kitchen is being cleaned. That's reasonable, you know. But anyway, look, if she if she hands it to him and he does it every night before bed, then she's got to let that go. But I think that's a common one. People just not wanting to be controlled, so they're a little resistant to really being helpful on the double because they don't wanna feel like they're being you know, they've got again, this is childhood stuff. I think, yeah, I would be stubborn and I would just grab the trash bag and go take it out myself.

Yeah, well, a lot of people do that. They just get the job done because they'd rather do it right themselves or do it immediately themselves, than to wait and resent it. But then I would be mad and resent what. Yeah, then you'd resent it anyway. So win, win.

All right, um, when the baby wakes up at night, while I'm getting ready for bed, we're still sharing a room. You know that's yeah, you're like, Finally, just the same thing, the me time, wanting to go to bed, and then you're being as quiet as you possibly can, and the baby wakes up. I remember the times hanging out with friends or family and you just want, more than anything, to hang out with the other adults like a normal person, whether everyone's playing a game or just sitting around talking, or you're finally like eating the meal together, and that baby starts crying from the other room. You just want to cry. You just want to cry because you're the one who is going to leave miss out on all the fun, and God knows how long you'll sit in that dark room trying to get them back to sleep. Those are strong memories for me, just feeling so sorry for myself that I had to walk out of another enjoyable environment and go back to the baby who needed me. That's a huge part of it. I paid the price for that so many times when my children were young, 4567, with, you know, hanging out with other adults and the other kids all playing together and just being like, tomorrow is going to be hell. The playroom is going to be every single toy is going to be turned over, mixed up, lost under wherever. Who knows what's going on. The messes were just unbelievable. But I just, I was like, You, I mean, with an infant, you have to do it, but with younger children, it would just let them destroy the house, and then the next day it was like, Oh, my God, I'll pay the price. Later, I'll pay the price, but you just need that time. Yeah, I mean, but with a newborn, you don't have that luxury of making that choice. You have to leave the room and you just want to cry. It's like, can I just have some fun and sit here and talk to everyone? Yeah, those are strong memories, but they pass. Oh, yeah, temporary. It's a chapter. All of this ends, all of it ends, and then you're got all the time in the world when your kids are off to college, and you're just have your whole house in pristine condition all the time, because nobody's making a mess. And yeah, that feels like a lifetime away from for most young moms, they just, they're like, What are you talking about? Feels like a lifetime, but it gets easier way before then, way before those years. It gets so nice and easy age five to seven to nine, like it just starts getting I always say this. I put this out there. It gets easier and easier. I just want to always stand by that and put that out there into people's minds and let them relax until they're 14, and you have girls. 14 to 16 is a tough time again. I have to say, I would say it's a little bit more in waves, but generally trending upward, absolutely trending upward. But there are still peaks and troughs of ease. There are definitely some very tough times with older children. It's a different kind of challenge, though. It's not what you were just describing about wishing you could be with the adults and you're, you know, having to tend to the baby. It's the emotional weight of your children.

Their needs change a lot by them, yeah, and you and you can't soothe them with just a hug and a cuddle or a breastfeed. You know, their their emotional issues are big, but the level of exhaustion that you feel later in life dissipates. I mean, you just you get so much me time back. You get so much refill your cup. Time as your children get older, my in laws trying to give the baby junk food. Oh, big one. This comes up a lot.

That's so big. Yep, I never experienced this. Well, your in laws weren't terribly close to where you live. Yeah, that must be why. I mean, they're not going to be showing up with things, yeah. But grandparents have a deep need, understandably, to bond with the baby and to want the baby to love him or her. They really want the baby to love them like nothing makes a grandparent happier when your baby is a year old and you're holding your baby and they arrive and the baby leans out of your arms and opens their arms to go into the grandparents arms like no moment in that person's life is happier for most grandparents, so they sometimes start doing these things in order to bond. My in laws did that all the time. My son started having sleepovers there when he was three, four or five, and he would come home completely, completely sick, like, stomach hurting, and I would be like, What did you eat over there? And it was like, all these things. He wasn't used to juice and desserts. And I would politely say things and just say like it's a little hard on his stomach. He's not used to eating like that. It didn't make a difference, and it was just such a need to try to figure out how to bond with the child. So I understand it, but it's perceived as incredibly disrespectful to the mother and to the parents. If those aren't their values, I would say, I would, I would be very careful one day doing that. Myself, I would not want to give that feeling of being disrespectful. Food is very personal. We forget. There are a lot of opinions around food.

Here's a very unusual one, when my son touches my armpit crease, I don't know why it's instant gas. Well, maybe she once got bit by a spider in her armpit, some creepy, crumbly creature we're not usually touched there. Maybe if someone touched you there, you wouldn't like it either. It is an unusual spot to just be spontaneously touched.

It's funny. Why her son does that?

Yeah, that's the funny part. Why does he keep touching her there?

Because she reacts, of course, because she reacts, okay, that's true. He's like, I got mom, I got mom. How to get Mom? So now she's got to hold her breath and meditate when it happens, and then he might stop the tension between work and kids meeting me in the moment. Oh, I feel that one I really struggled with that I would be sitting there trying to type an email, Pat, you know, baby on the on my lap, patting their back, crying, bouncing trying to take a phone call. I mean, it was just the multitasking. It would drive crazy. I was just talking today with my friend and how I teach my daughter the way, because she just had major projects to do this summer, and she's done great, and it's awesome. But she was like, when we were away on vacation, she was thinking about the project she had to do in July, and I said, Listen, you're away right now. Be where you are now, and as soon as you're back home, then start thinking about your project. But the way to reduce overwhelm as a mother, I learned it from personal experience was just think about literally the next thing I have to do. Like, literally, what's the next thing on my calendar? Or back then, when I was a mother, what's the next thing I have to do? But if you're thinking, oh gosh, we have this and tomorrow morning we have a doctor appointment, then we have it's going to be brutal, or you're trying to type an email while you're caring for your baby. So stressful. I used to do that I've shared on the podcast. Once, I made a promise to myself as soon as my son started school, from three to seven every night till they went to bed, I did not open my laptop. I didn't do one drop of work. I was always trying to, like, get another email done another I just stopped, and my stress levels went all the way down. Everything got done. It was no problem.

Yes, I think creating boundaries around work and caring for the children is really important. And I think when you are a young new mom, it's really easy to just feel like you can do it all just, you know, baby in the sling and getting the work done at the same time, but you can't possibly do a good job of both at the same time, and your baby is going to need you spontaneously in the wrong moment, and it's so incredibly stressful to be trying to calm your baby, take care of your baby, while staying mentally focused on a work task like those two things just don't go well together, so you really just have to make that separation. I would absolutely do it differently if I were to do it again, because that caused me a lot of stress and a lot of extra feelings of frustration around my you know why my baby wasn't sleeping longer? Or, you know nap time would become so frustrating, or it just so much unnecessary distress being needed for CO regulation when I am empty and just need to eat something and get sleep. See, when we're our basic needs are not being met, we can't be available the way we want to be. This is why taking care of ourselves first is so incredibly important. It feels like the right thing to do is to be selfless and to give and give and give and give and give of ourselves, and put off eating and put off sleeping and put off exercise and put off time for ourselves, but then we are just giving from that empty, empty place, which is more and more depleting, more and more frustrating. You know, I you have always said this on the podcast, and I think it is so incredibly important, and it's something that most people don't believe or have ever even heard, but you as the mother, are the most important person in the house. Yeah, and your needs must be prioritized. Your needs must be taken care of first. Because if you don't take care of yourself, how are you supposed How are you possibly supposed to continue to take care of everybody else?

Well, I think what women are thinking when they hear that sometimes, if they're really overwhelmed and have a new baby and very little support is how tell me how the heck I'm supposed to take care of myself. And I think the first thing we're saying is sleep as much as humanly possible, even though you're getting nothing done. That's very stressful in itself. But just practice that first sleep as much as possible. And then I think the other takeaways are, for me, doing one thing at a time, keep your mind at. Not necessarily in the meditative sense, in the present, but try to just look at the next hour to two hours of your life at a time. Don't think about your whole day at a time. And then finally, I think when you notice what your triggers are, good for you, because great, it's a lot of people don't realize that they are triggered and they act out. And then that means you bear some responsibility. Maybe you were conditioned to be triggered by your baby or by your partner, and they they shaped you in this way because of your life experience with them. But maybe you came into this relationship being easily triggered by certain things, which is the good news, because you have some responsibility in it. But if you do, then you can change your approach, change your perspective. That's kind of why the postpartum group is nice, because it's another perspective. It's like, oh, it's like, oh, when you told that story about your husband, I wasn't I wasn't feeling he doesn't care about you, and there you went saying, Oh, so you don't care. You know, you sometimes get other perspectives and realize, Well, maybe if I just think differently about what just triggered me, maybe there's a story I'm telling myself that's making me feel a lot worse right now, but anyway, thank you to the women who shared all of these. I identified and remembered so many as I heard them, didn't you? They're pretty universal. They are the universal challenges of being a mother. And just to go back to, like, the taking care of yourself, it really just starts with the basic the few basics, like, just get the few basics. As you said, sleep, but eat. So so much of the time we're not eating, and then we have low blood sugar, and then that's going to make us be triggered so much more easily. And yes, sleep when you can the best that you can, and do the littlest things possible for yourself that just make you feel good. Just start there with the very basic things. And then finally, when you are triggered, just give yourself a little more compassion. So get curious about where it might be coming from, and then give yourself some compassion. Like we don't give ourselves a whole lot of love, we just get frustrated with ourselves. Why did I Why did I respond that way? Why am I being this way again? Like, just take a breath, put your hand over your heart and say, I'm human, and then pick up a stack of dishes and start throwing them across the room to the wall. That's you. I always had a joke with all of my friends throughout life that when I get angry, like, especially the friends who get a kick out of anyone who's Italian, for some reason I don't know, reason. I don't know where Italians get this kind of reputation at all, but I guess the movies. But I always joke that when I get angry, I throw dishes across the room. It's always the joke. And my friends, you what I have yet to see that? Yeah, every no one that no one has seen it, because I don't know that quality in me at all. But I always joke like, oh, wait, I'll start throwing dishes now. But No, I've never even slammed anything when I'm angry. It's just not at all. My nation all my nature to take things up physically, but it's such a funny image of me throwing dishes across the room, so that's why I said that. All right. Well, this is great. Thank you for bringing these Trisha. It was a good conversation, and hopefully it gave women a little awareness that they're not the only ones who are getting triggered morning, noon and night in this chapter over their lives, and things are going to get easier so.

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.