The 5 Pillars of Surviving Postpartum: What Every New Mom Needs to Know
No one really talks about how hard it is to stay connected after the baby comes. How the exhaustion, hormones, trauma, and pressure can strain even the healthiest relationships.
As a trauma therapist specializing in maternal and perinatal mental health, I work with moms and couples every day who find themselves drifting apart in the fog of postpartum not because they don’t love each other, but because everything has changed.
That’s why I created these 5 pillars, simple but powerful anchors to help you nurture your relationship while navigating the hardest season of your life.
You don’t need perfect communication or constant date nights. You need safety, softness, and the tools to stay emotionally connected—even when your world feels upside down.
Surviving Postpartum with A Therapist
1. Nurture
Care for yourself, your baby, and your relationships.
Most new moms pour everything into their baby—but forget to pour anything back into themselves. And when you're running on empty, your relationships can start to suffer.
This pillar is about nurturing your emotional ecosystem. You matter. Your relationship matters. And your baby benefits most when those connections feel safe and cared for.
Ask yourself daily: What do I need today? What does my partner need? How can we show up for each other, even in small ways?
Don’t underestimate the power of 10-second hugs, holding hands, or making eye contact between diaper changes. It counts.
Read: The Importance of Emotional Connection After Baby
2. Rest + Regulate
Your nervous system needs just as much care as your body.
If you feel emotionally flooded, irritable, or checked out, it’s not a flaw in your character. It’s your nervous system calling for help.
Birth (even a “good” one) is a trauma to the body. Add sleep deprivation, overstimulation, and crying babies and your system may live in fight, flight, or freeze.
This pillar is about restoring safety.
Try breathwork, grounding, or cold water on your wrists
Lower your stimulation: dim lights, reduce noise, put down the phone
Recognize that emotional regulation starts with physical regulation
When you can calm your body, your relationships get less reactive and more responsive.
3. Support
Ask for help before it feels like failure.
You were never meant to do this alone. Let me say that again: You were never meant to do this alone.
But so many mothers carry the silent belief that asking for help means they’re failing. Or that their partner “should just know” what they need.
Support is the difference between burnout and survival.
It’s allowing your partner, your village, your therapist or even a postpartum doula to carry some of the load with you.
Set a weekly check-in with your partner
Ask family/friends for specific help (a meal, a load of laundry, watching baby while you shower)
Say yes to help, even when it feels awkward or unfamiliar
Click here to sign up to my post-partum support group community in Florida.
Overcoming identity loss in motherhood
4. Identity
Make space for who you are not just what you do.
Motherhood often comes with identity loss. You become “Mom” before you even know what that means. And the parts of you that used to bring joy or clarity? They get buried under bottles, baby gear, and expectations.
But the truth is your identity matters. Not in spite of motherhood, but because of it.
🎨 Take 10 minutes a day to write, walk, stretch, or sit with yourself
🎧 Put on music that makes you feel like you again
🪞Talk to a therapist about how to reconnect with the parts of you that feel forgotten
This isn’t selfish. It’s survival.
Get my free workbook to help you navigate post-partum.
5. Repair
Learn to fix things with each other, your past, and your nervous system.
Fights will happen. Disconnection will happen. What matters most is how you repair.
This pillar is about circling back not just in your relationship, but with yourself.
When you blow up at your partner, or freeze out your feelings, or relive past trauma repair is the bridge back.
Try: “I snapped earlier. I think I was overwhelmed. Can we try again?”
Learn how to co-regulate through touch, breath, or gentle words
Work through past trauma (birth, family patterns, emotional wounds) in therapy, so you stop parenting and partnering from your pain
Learn more: What Is EMDR Therapy and How Can It Help Postpartum?
You Don’t Have to Be Perfect Just Present
Postpartum isn’t a test. It’s a transformation.
And you’re allowed to be messy, overwhelmed, triggered and still worthy of love and support.
If you’re struggling with your identity, your emotions, or your relationships in postpartum know this: you’re not alone, and you don’t have to figure it out by yourself.
I offer trauma-informed therapy and EMDR therapy in Florida, New York and Tennessee to support mothers in navigating this transition with more peace, clarity, and connection.
Come as you are. Let’s rebuild together.