Week 6

What your baby is doing

First real smile

Social smiles typically emerge between 6 and 8 weeks. The reward circuit in your brain just got an upgrade.

Source: CDC — Developmental Milestones (2022 revision)

Your healing body

The 6-week check

ACOG 736 frames this as a starting point, not a finish line. The 2025 Canadian Postpartum Guideline (BJSM): returning to running and resistance training is generally safe once surgical incisions / perineal tears have healed and vaginal bleeding does not increase with MVPA. C-section or symptom-worsening MVPA → personalise with your provider. Ask explicitly about pelvic floor, mood, sex, return to MVPA.

Source: Davenport et al., BJSM 59(8), 2025 — 2025 Canadian Guideline for Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep throughout the Postpartum Period

General info — not personalised medical advice.

Maternal mind

Matrescence is underway

You are not 'getting back to normal'. You are becoming someone new — Daniel Stern called it the motherhood constellation; Aurélie Athan calls it matrescence. Identity reorganisation is the work of this period.

Source: Stern, The Motherhood Constellation (Basic Books, 1995)

You & baby

Serve-and-return

Your baby cries, you respond. You smile, they widen their eyes. These tiny loops build the secure base described by Bowlby and Ainsworth.

Source: Ainsworth et al., Patterns of Attachment (Erlbaum, 1978)

For your partner

Protect sleep at all costs

Sleep deprivation drives conflict. Trade night shifts where possible, and remember Gottman's finding: 67% of couples report sharp drops in relationship satisfaction in the first year — turning toward each other small bids is the antidote.

Source: Gottman & Gottman, J Family Communication 5(4), 2005 — Bringing Baby Home

Milk, bottles & beyond

Cluster feeds = growth

Frequent evening feeds aren't a supply failure — they're a supply signal. Prolactin is naturally higher at night, and night feeds drive long-term capacity.

Source: Kim et al., J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2017) — Circadian prolactin in lactation

Infant sleep this week

Day–night confusion is normal

Circadian rhythms aren't online yet. Bright daylight by day, dim warm light at night, and night feeds in the quietest version of the room you can manage.

Source: McKenna & Gettler, Acta Paediatrica 105 (2016) — Breastsleeping & evolved infant sleep

60-second prompt

What was one moment of softness today?

Name it out loud. Tiny gratitudes lay down memory in a sleep-deprived brain.