Baby
What your baby is doing
Cooing back
Vowel sounds — 'ahh', 'ooh' — appear. Pause after you speak. The pause is the invitation.
Body
Your healing body
Cleared to move — gently
The 2025 Canadian Postpartum Guideline (BJSM) recommends accumulating ≥120 min/week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (brisk walking + muscle-strengthening, including lower-back targeted work) for meaningful health gains. Starting MVPA in the first 12 weeks — once incisions/tears have healed and bleeding doesn't increase with activity — is linked to improved mental health. Keep daily pelvic-floor training.
General info — not personalised medical advice.
Mind
Maternal mind
PPD vs baby blues
If low mood, hopelessness, intrusive thoughts or anxiety persist past 2 weeks, that's not baby blues — that's perinatal mood disorder, and it's treatable. Screen with EPDS; ask for help.
Source: O'Hara & Wisner, Best Practice & Research Clin OB/GYN 28 (2014) — Perinatal mental illness
Bond
You & baby
Co-regulation is the curriculum
Your baby's nervous system is still using yours as a thermostat. Carrying calms infants automatically — heart rate drops, crying stops (Esposito 2013).
Source: Esposito et al., Current Biology 23 (2013) — Infant calming response to carrying
Partner
For your partner
Paternal/non-birthing parent depression
Around 10% of new fathers experience postnatal depression, with rates ~25% when their partner is also depressed (Paulson & Bazemore, JAMA 2010). Check in honestly — both ways.
Source: Paulson & Bazemore, JAMA 303 (2010) — Prenatal & postpartum depression in fathers
Feeding
Milk, bottles & beyond
Supply is set on demand
Milk is made on a removal system, not a storage system (Mohrbacher). If supply concerns arise — see an IBCLC before adding bottles or pumps.
Source: Mohrbacher, Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple (2010)
Sleep
Infant sleep this week
Melatonin in night milk
Human milk contains a clear melatonin circadian rhythm — highest at night (Oliveira 2024). Night nursing is part of how babies learn to sleep at night.
Source: Oliveira et al., Nutrients 16 (2024) — Circadian rhythm of melatonin in human milk
Reflection
60-second prompt
What part of you is grieving?
Matrescence often holds a quiet grief for the self you were. Naming it is not ingratitude — it's integration.
Developed and curated by perinatal psychologists, family & couples counsellors, doulas, perinatal health & fitness specialists, and IBCLCs / lactation consultants. Educational — not a substitute for medical care.