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After Julie Edwards and I finished recording our first conversation, there was one thread I couldn’t stop thinking about: how differently she approached feeding and the sensory side of parenting the second time around. So I asked her back.
We get into the values she anchored her feeding plan to instead of a rulebook, the ADHD-specific boredom she planned for this time instead of being blindsided by it, and the slow work of letting go of the idea that you’re either meant to be a mother or you’re not.
If you’ve ever white-knuckled your way through a feeding plan that wasn’t working for you, this conversation is for you.
In this episode we explore
- [00:32] – Going into baby two with the insight from baby one, and why the second adjustment felt smaller
- [04:25] – Noticing the relief in how Julie talks about this pregnancy and postpartum compared to the first
- [06:07] – My own postpartum, told through the TV shows and pumping sessions I remember it by
- [08:10] – Julie’s rule for herself: one show reserved only for pumping
- [09:31] – Feeding with love, and knowing more tools exist the second time around
- [10:03] – Lowering the threshold for switching to formula, and putting the phone down without guilt
- [12:46] – What changes when you’ve already lived through the hardest adjustment once
- [14:10] – Revisiting the fear from our first conversation: “I don’t know if I was meant to be a mom”
- [16:12] – Living in the gray area instead of the binary
Resources and links
- Episode 1 with Julie Edwards: the full conversation this P.S. continues
- Haakaa: the manual milk pump alternative Julie mentions using
About Julie
Julie Edwards is an ADHDer, mom of two, and integrative nurse practitioner helping high-achieving women uncover the root cause of focus, mood, and energy struggles. Learn more at her website marisintegrativehealth.com or connect with her on Instagram at @julie_edwards_np.
Disclaimer
The Disabled Parenthood Podcast shares personal stories and educational conversations about disability, pregnancy, parenthood, and family life. The information shared in this episode is not intended as individualized medical advice and should not replace guidance from your own healthcare professionals.
Transcript
Erica Evans (00:00)
Welcome to the Disabled Parenthood Podcast. I’m Erica Evans. This is a P.S. conversation with Julie Edwards. After we finished recording our first episode together, there was one thread we didn’t have time to fully explore, so I invited Julie back to continue the conversation.
Erica Evans (00:13)
Thanks for hopping back on. There was a mention you had of how differently you approached feeding and the sensory side of parenting with your second child. And I kept thinking, I want to know more about that. What did you do differently the second time and how did those changes affect your experience?
Julie Edwards (00:32)
Having a second baby did for me feel like a chance to redo everything that I wanted to do differently with all the insight. It was really cool. And I went into it that way, thinking, what did I like? What did I not like? What do I want to change? And it was harder in some ways, but then easier in some ways, harder because I also had another kid, but then easier also because I knew more about what to expect and knew how to plan around it. Plus, I feel like for me personally, going from zero to one was like climbing this mountain. And going from one to two was more like just a little, a little hump, And there were certain pieces of it later that were much harder, of course, but I think that initial adjustment was so much harder. And then for number two, I felt like I was already at, “Okay, I’m operating at this max capacity. Like, what’s throwing on another baby? I’m already, I’m already there.” So feeding specifically is one thing I did very differently. I probably did pregnancy differently too, let me say that. I was pretty laissez faire about pregnancy with my first, but I was even more laissez faire with my second about the different food rules that I, you know.
And so I was a little less stressed, I think, the second time around. I was also sicker. So I had to be more mindful of how to protect it. I took more of a restful maternity leave with my first. I worked right up until the day before I went into labor. Because I didn’t really, I was so uncomfortable physically that I was like, if I’m at home, I’m just gonna be miserable. I might as well keep myself distracted at work. The second one I think I had a little better understanding of how to better care for myself and was able to really rest the four weeks before. I think he came early, so it wasn’t a full four weeks, but that was really nice. Feeding specifically: I had mentioned that it was a little bit of a sensory stimulatory overload with my daughter, especially because of mastitis and all the things. So with him, I went into it with a plan of I’m going to formula and breastfeed right off the bat. Unless he comes out just like rare and to go, and breastfeeding is a completely blissful experience. I’m just gonna go with that. And I sort of had prepared in advance, what were the cutoffs going to be if I was gonna switch to formula feeding? Like the threshold was lower for me. I wasn’t like I’m gonna stick with this rigidly. And kind of like I mentioned, I wish I had had someone to help me get back to the values of it. I think I was very clear on what are my values in feeding. And my values are nourishing my baby, having good bonding experiences, and keeping my mental health and stress well cared for. And so as soon as it started feeling stressful, I felt really clear about that.
I would then readjust the plan and make it feel better. So we did that from the beginning. We did breastfeeding, formula feeding. I did not put any stress or pressure on myself to pump past the point I didn’t want to. And I kind of held it loosely, I feel like. So I was ready to stop at any moment and it didn’t have to be a big thing. So I actually did end up breastfeeding him a long time, just like I did my daughter till they were, you know, both of them till they were almost two. But it was so much easier because there was no pressure on it. And it was just sort of like ebb and flow and go with it. And if I lose my supply, whatever, it’s no big deal. And I was able to just be much more go with the flow about it. And the great thing was that because I had already made the decision of we’re gonna formula feed on top of breastfeed, it was like if I was having a day where I just needed to not have a baby on me or needed to rest or whatever I could just automatically be like someone else do it and it wasn’t this whole like, if I ask someone else to do it, then I have to pump and I have to do all those things and it was so it was just so much easier.
Erica Evans (04:25)
I can hear that relief and even your countenance, we’re on video right now, is different. You just seem more relaxed and smiling. It was a completely different experience.
Julie Edwards (04:36)
It was pretty, you know, it rewrote a lot of things for me too, because I had this sort of belief that gets built into you of postpartum is just this terrible, miserable thing. And it really wasn’t with him. It was so fun and there were hard parts too. He didn’t sleep either, but I was okay with it and I just really enjoyed him. I was able to see people and have friends over and all that good stuff and go out. And you know, the other thing that I thought about after we talked about last time, you said, what would I do differently? I did not realize how this is gonna sound well, our ADHD friends will understand. For people with ADHD brains, boring isn’t just boring. It can be like nails on a chalkboard. Like it can be painful. And there are parts of parenting that are mind-numbingly boring. And especially in the newborn period. And so I did not anticipate that with my daughter. With my son, I knew how mentally bored and unstimulated I was gonna be. So I decided in the beginning of my maternity leave that I was gonna listen to all of the Harry Potter books on audio. And I listened to all seven of them. And it honestly made the whole experience so much more fun because if he was napping on me or if we were breastfeeding or whatever, like I wasn’t always just like, I have to get to the next thing, let me figure out how to whatever. It was like, this is a chance for me to just listen to Harry Potter. And that made it really a lot easier. That little thing made a huge difference.
Erica Evans (06:07)
Yeah. I think back to my own postpartum experience, I kinda planned a little bit for that, even though I didn’t quite know that that was gonna happen. I just knew that I would have because we knew that we wanted to contact nap our baby and be close to them all the time and you know, I hoped to nurse. Wasn’t sure how that was going to go. I just knew we’d be spending a lot of time nap trapped or baby trapped in various ways. And so I remember talking to my spouse thinking, like, “Okay, what are the T V shows that we’re gonna agree to not watch together?” Right? Because if we try to watch something together, we’re probably not gonna get that time.
Julie Edwards (07:00)
Yeah.
Erica Evans (07:01)
And to be fair, like a lot of times I used that time just to rest myself, but there were also, it’s not safe to sleep in a recliner with my baby, so I’m not going to do that. But when I think back on the first year of having my baby, I think about yeah, that was the phase, like that was when I was watching The Crown. And this is when I was watching the Big Bang Theory. There’s just these phases or stages or chapters of postpartum that I associate with different TV shows or audiobooks, although I think it was mostly TV shows. And because then I became an exclusive pumping parent, I spent a lot of time with my pump. And that was my TV show time. Yeah.
Julie Edwards (07:49)
That’s so good. You’re so right. There’s these certain points I remember with Sawyer when I was pumping, I would watch, I needed something to make it more fun. There was this Justin Bieber documentary on YouTube that for some reason just scratched the itch for me right then. And so I made this rule that I was only allowed to watch that show while I was pumping. So it was like something to look forward to.
Erica Evans (08:10)
Yes, I had my pumping shows. Yeah. Yes. I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget it. Yeah. man. So funny. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing about how you did things differently because for some people with certain kinds of brains, I think it is easy to get overly committed to this idea of exclusive breastfeeding. And I think exclusive breastfeeding is great. Big fan of it. Big fan of it. Right. And for a variety of reasons that may not be possible for everybody or may not be what they want to do. and there’s something that I, you know, I talk about in the world of parental brain science and this neuroscience of nurture is like feeding with love. And I think that’s what you were kind of getting at, which is you want the experience of feeding to be this time of bonding and connection and it’s really hard to know what it’s going to feel like to nurse a baby until you do it. And sometimes that experience can be improved, particularly if there are latch issues or, you know, the variety of things that can make nursing more easy. and sometimes it’s not. It’s just like really overstimulating for some people.
Julie Edwards (09:31)
Yes. Even knowing the tools in your toolbox, I think, for me the second time around, I knew how many things were available to me, how many shifts you could make at any given moment. you know, there’s so many things. There’s like the Haakaa, there’s different breastfeeding pillows that you can use that are better for different body types. There’s so many things that can work for different people.
Erica Evans (09:54)
Were there adjustments or accommodations you gave yourself the second time that you wish you’d known were quote unquote, allowed, the first time?
Julie Edwards (10:03)
I think it mostly was about putting less pressure on my brain about supply. I was so freaked out about having, because I already had low supply with my daughter and I was so freaked out. I felt like I had to follow all the rules, otherwise I was gonna lose my supply, which became, it almost became like an intrusive thought, like there was just something I fixed. It was not a compulsive thought. It was something I chose to put my anxiety onto. It’s like that was the thought I was gonna feel anxious about because I had anxiety about all sorts of different things and that the second time around, because I had already made the decision that formula feeding would be fine if that’s what we wanted to do. And I would go, because we formula fed my daughter too, but it was out of necessity. It wasn’t out of choice. And so mixed feeding. And with him, because I had that lower threshold, I think it was just sort of easier to change course whenever. Like using the Haakaa really did help me a lot because it was a way to not be attached to an actual breast pump, which I found just to be like literal torture.
But still a way to, you know, have a little bit of supply if I wanted it. And then a lot, I did a lot more just laying in bed with him feeding because I was in pain and, you know, rather than trying to make a contraption that would hold me up. because I was able to relax a little bit more. I think because I had set myself up in a way where I could like lay in bed and watch TV or listen to a podcast or whatever,
I also remember taking a breastfeeding course before I had my daughter and she said something like don’t ever look at your phone while you’re breastfeeding your baby. Because that sends a message to your baby that you’re not present with them, which is a great sentiment and I totally understand why she said that. But if you’re triple feeding, then you’re spending like 75% of your day feeding a baby. And like that is such an undo pressure to put on yourself. So with him, I feel like I didn’t have that as well. I was like, if I want to look at my phone while I’m feeding, I don’t feel guilty about that. I don’t have all this extra pressure and expectation on me. It was almost like with my daughter, I was trying to optimize everything, just trying to do it perfectly. And I think because I had three years of parenting under my belt to understand that there absolutely is no way to do parenting perfect, and the best thing you can do is take care of yourself. Then it sort of reframed all of the adjustments I could make. Like at any given moment, if my body was saying you’re not comfortable like this, I could just listen to that and take action and correct. It wasn’t this, you know, process like it was with my daughter, where well, is that damaging to her? Is this not a good habit to get into? Is she gonna have longstanding, you know, like neglect because of you know, like all those things that you sort of worry about that just didn’t have space in my brain anymore. So I was able to course correct so much quicker.
Erica Evans (12:46)
Hm. And your experience was definitely different this time around.
Julie Edwards (12:50)
Way different.
Erica Evans (12:51)
Mm.
Julie Edwards (12:53)
Way different. I’m glad. I feel very fortunate that I got to have that experience again and see how sweet it could be because it also helped me look at my experience with her with more compassion too and just reframe the whole thing. I mean, it’s such a formative experience.
Erica Evans (13:09)
Hm. That makes a lot of sense.
Julie Edwards (13:13)
My pediatrician told me, I was talking to her about it after my son was born, and she said, You know, I wish for my firstborn child that she could have gotten access to my secondborn child parent. You’re just you just do it differently. And there’s something to that, and I think every kid gets the parent version of us they need to get. There’s no right or wrong. But I related with that a lot because I felt like I was able to approach the second one with such a higher level of peace and calm and presence.
Erica Evans (13:42)
You had it well, you had experience under your belt. And I think with that experience maybe just comes an ability to trust your own judgment a little bit more.
Julie Edwards (13:53)
Yeah. Is trust in yourself. That’s one of I think one of the biggest gifts for me is it just comes so much more naturally. It’s my gut instinct and going with my gut intuition since becoming a mother.
Erica Evans (14:10)
There’s something you said in the podcast conversation you and I had around how during that sort of more immediate postpartum time you really struggled and you were saying to your mom, like, I don’t I don’t know if I’m cut out for this. Like, I don’t know if I was meant to be a mom.
How did that change in your second postpartum?
Julie Edwards (14:37)
Love that. Cause it did change for sure. I, you know, I did still have vestiges of that for sure. And I still remember when I went back to work, someone said something to me, your baby’s like six months old and she had three kids and she’s like, you know, three is the best number. And I had this body response. And I was like, I’m not even sure I was supposed to have two. Like…
Erica Evans (15:06)
Ha ha.
Julie Edwards (15:07)
Because I still felt that way, that like, my God, this is so hard. And I have so much juggling to do, especially when I get back to got back to work. So I think that’s probably the difference, is I felt more comfortable with the postpartum. Going back to work was even harder because the logistical nightmare of two kids and a job was just whoa, my brain’s on fire all the time. but I think you’re right. I think that that core sort of fear of like I’m just not meant to be a mom.
I think there was a lot more grace for myself and probably the realization that that’s such a false like that sort of I idea of someone is meant to be a mom versus not meant to be a mom is very black and white and that’s not actually how it works. And realistically most moms and parents have good and bad, and struggles and successes. And there was just probably more gray area in there for me where I was able to have more compassion for myself.
Erica Evans (16:01)
Yeah. With baby number two, you’re able to be in that nuance a little bit more.
Julie Edwards (16:05)
Yes. Yes. Live in the gray area and kind of be okay with it and flex and flow with it.
Erica Evans (16:12)
Thank you, Julie.
Julie Edwards (16:14)
Thank you.
Erica Evans (16:15)
Thank you for listening to this P.S. conversation with Julie Edwards. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll go back and listen to our full conversation in episode one of the Disabled Parenthood Podcast. You can find episode notes, resources, and more information about the show at disabledparenthood.com. Thanks for being here.