The BabyMoon: Going Back To Basics
What is a babymoon? What is a honeymoon? It’s all about reconnection or simply connection. What about a selfmoon or a me-moon? You get the picture. But I digress.
We spend so much time preparing for the birth, preparing the baby room, preparing meals, getting all the baby gear etc. but the babymoon is where we get to integrate, to enjoy, to relish in this new experience. It’s going back to basics, simplifying, just being.
You’ve just given birth, and it may or may not be everything you wanted it to be. But what it really was, was a marathon, a marathon of growing this baby, of birthing this baby while also birthing a different version of you. The babymoon is the reward. The babymoon allows us to receive the beauty of getting to know ourselves as mothers, as parents, as a family.
Practically what does it look like? Let’s get into specifics although there is not one recipe for this. It’s going to look a little different for everyone because everyone has different resources, different time allotments, different needs etc..
Please allow me to share my experiences. I am a “doer”, and I get a lot of satisfaction from accomplishing tasks. So I knew that I would need a bit of a framework to allow myself to just feel and receive whatever it is that birthing a baby would bring forth. Truthfully I see this 17 years later, but back then I had just read about other cultures that take care of all the “things” for the new mama and that sounded pretty darn awesome, so I wanted to create that for myself. I asked my mom to come live with us for the first week after baby arrived and to cook, and clean, grocery shop and do all the things that our lives require us to do so that we could be free to get to know each other as a family. It was a wonderful gift that my mom was able to give us.
And was a week long enough? Hell no, but it was what I allowed myself to think was necessary. Three weeks later after my husband went back to work and I was struggling with breastfeeding and all the emotions, because I had gifted myself that week and remembered how magical it was, I was able to come back to it as a way to heal and give myself more time. I scooped up my baby and went back to bed. I allowed her wisdom to be seen, felt and heard. We healed the scars and pain of damaged nipples together by getting to know each other once again.
Over the years I have come back to this idea time and time again.
It has set me up for a beautiful ritual of coming back to myself when I’m overdoing things (it can look like plugged ducts or mastitis), when I’m not listening to the pains in my body, or not noticing the over active thoughts in my mind. I know that I can always come back to myself and so it has been a practice that has been called by many different names over the years. As I reflect today, that is what I was searching for when I enlisted in mom and baby yoga, boot camp, fasting, yoga challenges, retreats, cleanses, meditation, psychedelics, forest bathing…they are all practices that have allowed me to spend time with me, that have made it ok because I was attaching a “do-ing” to it. And it is this time and space that has allowed me to connect with my inner wisdom, my intuition, the god in me and in my child.
Who knew that a simple ritual started 17 years ago would have been the perfect partner to this journey we call being human.
BABYMOON 101: It is never too late to start this ritual!
Go back to basics
Go back to bed
Ask for help
Skin to skin
Baby gazing
Lots of rest
Family baths, walks, naps…
More sleep
Dancing
Letting go of what “needs”to be done even for a short time
Just be
Slowing down
Sitting in the sun
Did I say rest?!
Chantal Kozar is a mama of two, a wife, a Breastfeeding Counselor/Educator and a lifelong learner.
#normalizerest #babymoon #selfcare #motheringthemother #morerest #creatingrituals