Intuition or Maternal Instinct: How Can a Mother Trust Herself?

When I was pregnant, for some reason I didn’t think at all about how I would manage with a baby after giving birth. It seemed to me that I would just intuitively understand everything.

Then I learned that such thoughts are not uncommon for pregnant women. The mind primes women for a positive outcome so that giving birth isn’t so frightening.

But what really happens after childbirth?

The body undergoes changes, hormones are surging, expectations and reality don’t align. Love for the infant either doesn’t come right away, or it does come but doesn’t help calm the baby. Women look for support and concrete instructions. And that’s normal, because in ancient times, experienced mothers would show newcomers what to do and how to do it.

The internet is full of instructions for every taste, but they often contradict each other. You can’t verify all of them, so mothers decide to trust specific experts. But then they face the following issues:

- Most pediatricians don’t know attachment theory and may ignore children’s psychological needs. An example from my own experience: I asked a neonatologist whether I needed to swaddle a newborn. She answered that it wasn’t necessary, that swaddling doesn’t help development. But swaddling does help calm an infant — and knowing that isn’t part of a doctor’s job.

- In search engine rankings, blogs about infant sleep and self-soothing are at the top. The advice from these sources doesn’t work and is designed to press on mothers’ pain points in order to sell courses. And even without sales, such blogs only cause anxiety and guilt.

- General parenting blogs are created by individual women sharing their own experiences. Even if the advice is good, it’s hard to trust them when there’s no research or evidence base. A lot depends on the blogger’s charisma and personal beliefs, and if those beliefs don’t align with the mother’s, the information may lose its value.

- Psychology blogs talk about child development and the importance of the first three years of a child’s life, but they ignore mothers. Or, conversely, they support mothers in their desire to take a break and recharge — which is good, but for some reason they leave out the child’s needs. Or they promote the idea that you can do it all. Meanwhile, a woman’s life has changed, and if she tries to live as she did before, she will get exhausted and burn out.

So what should women do in this flood of information?

Learn to rely on themselves and build their own relationship with their child

Maternal instinct does not exist. If a woman is lucky and her hormonal state helps her love the baby, it’s easier for her. If the baby themselves has a calm temperament, it’s easier for the mother. But otherwise, this is work.

On average, building attachment takes about six months. And children keep growing and changing, so the mother constantly has to learn. That’s an enormous burden.

Relying on yourself is hard if a mother hasn’t had that kind of experience in her life. Listening to intuition is difficult. Intuition is born from experience and from understanding your own desires, resources, and values.

A young mother has no experience caring for infants and most likely has little energy left for standing up for her boundaries.

So it’s tempting to mistake other people’s beliefs for intuition.

But intuition has a certain flavor. You know for sure when you are doing something based on your own values — it’s a particular feeling.

How can you develop it?

For a woman after childbirth, the first step is to breathe out. You have done an enormous thing, and you will manage with your baby. Even if you do something that shakes your relationship with your child, you will have many opportunities to repair it. Motherhood is a journey.

I recommend two useful things for developing a young mother’s intuition.

A support group — whether it’s family, friends, mothers online, or forums. If the opinions around you don’t match yours, look for people who are on the same path as you.

You will figure out along the way what works best for caring for your child. For this, you need stability. And a support group is a great way to get it.

Come to therapy. You can become aware of why you choose certain parenting practices, what you worry about, what you want, and what your intuition is telling you. Awareness will give you freedom. And with that kind of grounding, it will be easier for you to trust yourself — and to teach that to your child.