The First 40 Days Are To Nest, Suck, Love, Get To Know Each Other …

The first 40 days after childbirth are a matter of three: it is a time to nest, to be in magical intimacy, to love delicately, to know each other, welcome each other and love each other skin to skin … The world pauses, everything becomes stops and everything begins at the same time, because few moments are more magical than those in which we finally welcome our children after having carried them within us for 9 months.

One of the most interesting books about the puerperium is “Safe Postpartum” by Beatrijs Smulders. This author, a midwife by profession, completely immerses us in those most common tasks, scenarios, and situations that a mother and father can experience throughout this time, which of course extends far beyond the classic 40 days.

As we have pointed out sometime in our space, the puerperium can last even a year. Hence, this book takes us realistically into all those experiences that make up an authentic kaleidoscope of fears, emotions, physical exhaustion, challenges, problems and also happiness.

Something that is usually very clear is the fact that many moms are almost forced to emerge by force from a purely physical and emotional universe such as childbirth, to immerse themselves necessarily in that specific reality such as work, money, schedules, and daily routines, while the intimate and whispering life of the baby is there.

How to combine it all? How do we tune in to each need, with each obligation? It is without a doubt a complex and exciting journey where we believe it or not, those first 40 days after delivery count, and they count for a lot. Because it is welcome, because it is the adaptation and discovery of ourselves as mothers and of our partners as fathers.

Throughout the first 40 days after delivery you need privacy

The first 40 days after delivery are yours. It is the territory of mom and dad, the two of you together and the baby make up a unique, magical sphere rimmed with intense emotions that only belongs to the three of you. Nothing happens if for a few days you do not attend visits, if you put aside your mobile phones and your work obligations. There is someone more important, someone who asks you for your attention, caresses, food, love … The baby.

It is time to “nest”

Nesting specifically means making a nest to live in. There is nothing wrong in assuming terms of the animal kingdom, because deep down, the behaviors and the ends are the same: raising children, giving them protection, warmth, love and of course, food.

• Mom and Dad nest together with the baby to greet him after delivery.
• We nest because we need to be close to each other.
• We nest because in this way, we become the reference figures for the baby.
• We nest to be calm, to comfort each other, to discover ourselves in our new roles, in our new needs and obligations.

• We nest together to take care of each other : because not only the baby needs everything from us, the mother also needs the father because she is exhausted, because her body hurts, because we all need affection, care and attention.
• We nest to breastfeed, to have close to the baby skin to skin, heart to heart.

The best weapon in those early days: your sixth sense

In those first 40 days there are many challenges to face: adaptation, breastfeeding, night rest, umbilical cord, pacifier, crib, colic and especially crying.

• Knowing how to interpret the baby’s cry is undoubtedly the first need that every mother makes almost as an obligation. Are you crying out of hunger? It hurts something? Is it because of the diaper? … It is normal to become obsessed during the first days, however, little by little the fears calm down and are rationalized to emerge that called sixth sense.

• Almost without knowing how, calm comes at some point during those 40 days and we understand that what the baby needs the most is our closeness. We realize that holding him calms him down, that breastfeeding relaxes him and that it not only serves to nourish him. 

Our maternal instinct, that newly released sense is an authentic super power that amazes us and completely tunes us in with the baby. Those 40 days after delivery will be difficult at some point, it is clear to us, but seen with perspective it will rise as one of the most important stages of our life.

What we need above all is to create a circle of intimacy and simply nest as a family. The world, with its rush, its pressures, work, friends and other visitors can wait a bit. Because that period belongs to us.