14. Talking Perinatal Anxiety & And How To Balance Your Own Needs In Parenthood

This is the first episode in our perinatal mental health mini series - these episodes will drop over the next few months 👀
Louisa is a perinatal child and family psychologist. She's also a Mum to 2 boys. She specialises in perinatal anxiety and mood, attachment and bonding and emotions in motherhood.
I was drawn to Louisa's IG page Mama Psychology because of the realness. Louisa talks about the challenges and wonders of being a Mum. She normalises that Motherhood is amazing but insanely hard at the same time. The constraint, burnout, guilt, feelings of wanting to escape, frustration, rage, anxiety, overstimulation, intrusive thoughts and relentlessness of early motherhood.
I love that she normalises that if you are finding it hard - you aren't doing it wrong, it's simply because it is HARD.
Some stats for you:

1 in 5 women will struggle with depression and anxiety postpartum.
For 40% of these women, symptoms begin in pregnancy.
For first time mothers, depression, stress and anxiety PEAK at 4-5 years POSTpartum

This signifies that mental health challenges are not well supported for women (and men) in the early years of parenting and this continues and even WORSENS over time.

The questions covered in today's chat have come directly from the Let's Sleep community.

In today's episode we cover:
🌵 How do you know if you're not well mentally and whether its sleep deprivation, adjusting or that you're developing anxiety or depression?
🌵 Does having antenatal anxiety usually result in a higher chance of postnatal anxiety?
🌵 Would being upset make your baby upset?
🌵 How do we start to map out what 'balance' looks like?
🌵 Some tips for how we can set this balance up from the early days of parenting
🌵 What can happen if we don't prioritise our own needs?

Connect with Louisa over on IG at @mamapsychology

Here's are a couple of ways I can help you:
1. If your little one is waking up early grab our FREE guide - The Ultimate Guide For Tired Parent's To Ditch The Early Wake Ups
2. Are you ready to transition your baby aged 4-24 months to happy cot sleeps and master a predictable schedule? Doors are OPEN to our 3 month group coaching program Let's Flourish. Join ANYTIME and get SAME DAY ACCESS to this program. This isn't another sleep program, it's an experience. Join us here.
Connect with us on IG here.