What Does Overwhelm Feel Like?
Overwhelm tends to feel like you’re being stretched to your limits. You might feel more irritable than usual, or even angry. It can feel like your own needs aren’t being met because there’s just so many other things to organise, sort out, and do. Even if you’re aware of things that might help you reduce or manage overwhelm, doing them can feel impossible because you’re already operating beyond your capacity.
Some mums also experience rage when they’re overwhelmed. This is a significantly more intense emotion than overwhelm, but it’s not uncommon, particularly among new mums who are more likely to experience chronic unmet needs.
Why Do I Feel So Overwhelmed as a New Mum?
Overwhelm is a very real experience. It often occurs because we are being stretched beyond our limits and capacity to cope. This is definitely true when you become a new mum.
Think about it – your baby is utterly dependent on you to meet every single one of their needs. This is a huge task! They are reliant on you to nurture them, feed them, soothe them, help them get to sleep, change their nappy, keep them warm, change their clothes… the list goes on. On top of this there’s laundry and housework, your social life and relationships. If you have to go back to work soon after you’ve had a baby, you’ll have even more demands placed upon you.
In this sense, overwhelm is a normal, expected part of the motherhood journey. It’s most likely to occur during the fourth trimester when you and your baby are still getting to know each other. Typically, when your baby starts to sleep a bit longer and becomes a little less dependent on you, some of the pressure subsides.
For example, as your baby gets older, they may start to nap in their cot on their own, giving you a bit of time to yourself where you’re not having to meet the needs of your baby. However, in the early days and weeks, when baby may need to contact nap because they can’t settle on their own, you’re not getting that time away or having a break from being needed, so you’re more likely to experience overwhelm.
Are Some Mums More at Risk?
Yes, new mums who have had a difficult life, particularly a difficult childhood, are more likely to experience the adverse effects of overwhelm. They typically have a smaller capacity to cope with the day-to-day stresses of life with a newborn, putting them more at risk for chronic overwhelm and maternal rage. If chronic overwhelm is left unchecked, it can lead to mum burnout.
Mothers who experienced good enough parenting, and who had a good enough attachment with a significant other, are more likely to have developed into secure, stable individuals. This means they have more capacity to cope and are less reactive emotionally to life’s stresses. This group will still go through the overwhelm associated with caring for a new baby, but they’re less likely to experience chronic overwhelm and maternal rage because they have a greater tolerance for stress based on their early life experiences.
Read Trauma and its Impact on Your Journey into Motherhood for more on this.
My Tips for Coping with Overwhelm
If you’re feeling overwhelmed on a regular basis, here are some tips to help you cope:
Keep a Trigger Log
Start jotting down the times when you feel overwhelmed, paying close attention to what is going on for you in that moment, both externally and internally. My free trigger log resource can help you with this.
Once you start to notice the situations that leave you feeling overwhelmed, ask yourself what you could do in the moment to help you feel a bit calmer. Explore my Self-Soothing Series for tips and ideas.
Ask For Help
What you need might be practical help. For example, someone to come over and bring a meal or help you with the cleaning while you sit and rest with baby. Or it might be that you want to get out of the house and have a break, so you need someone to look after baby while you do this.
Asking for help isn’t always easy, especially for those who have high expectations of themselves and believe they should be coping on their own. But we are not designed to do motherhood alone. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a village to raise a mother, so reach out. There is no harm in asking for help.
Re-Evaluate your Expectations
When our expectations of ourselves and others are too high, we can experience overwhelm when we feel those expectations aren’t being met. Often these expectations and standards are unrealistic and unreasonable, so sometimes we need to re-evaluate them.
This is something we can look at in therapy together. When we re-evaluate our expectations, particularly those we have for ourselves, we may feel more overwhelmed initially. However, in the long run the overwhelm will subside because we’ll be putting less pressure on ourselves and others to meet certain standards in the way we feel they need to be met.
Therapy for New Mums
If you’re struggling with chronic overwhelm, therapy could be really beneficial for you. Reach out for support by booking a consultation here. I also share lots of encouragement and support via Instagram.