The First Few Nights Post Partum
Insights into the effects of a newborn on body function
I think my wife stopped wearing a tracker mainly because it highlighted things she already knew about her sleep during our last post partum period. I’ve had other people who have poor sleep tell me that they hate wearables because it constantly reminds them how awful things are.
Although I can empathize with this sentiment, I think that it’s a glass half empty approach to it.
As a coach, data is so important. The more information I have at my disposal, the more points I have to reference to make changes.
I talk about this a lot when it comes to mobility training. You can’t make a change and move towards point B if you haven’t established a point A. Wearables give you an opportunity to establish a point A and find common points to address. The information that you can get from looking deeper into your habits can give you ways to manage or combat issues. You can try things without just taking shots in the dark. Getting sleep consistency down and seeing how specific actions affect sleep and recovery can be a game changer.
I have a client for example who stopped drinking. Their body of course established a new baseline over time. But as soon as they had a couple seemingly harmless glasses of wine, their recovery score, HRV and sleep went into the gutter.
The impact of alcohol on their body was absolutely made clear. The thing is that if it only happened once we’d be like ok maybe it was just a fluke, but it registers each time they have a few drinks. This was one of the first steps of habit change for this person. They drink far less and make conscious efforts to either find alternative beverages or avoid situations altogether.
Parenting a newborn for anyone who’s parented a newborn is devastating on the body. I would love to have had the data from my wife’s pregnancy, delivery and post partum periods, but unfortunately that’s not possible. So the next best thing (which is nowhere close to what her body went through or is going through) is to use the effects on my body as a partner.
So lets start by looking at my Pre Delivery Sleep, Recovery and Activity
