Sarah was 36 weeks pregnant when her sister asked, “What’s your postpartum plan?” Sarah looked confused. “I have a car seat and a pediatrician. What else do I need?” Three weeks later, alone at home with a screaming newborn, bleeding through postpartum pads, and unable to figure out breastfeeding, she understood exactly what her sister meant.
Most expectant parents spend months planning the nursery, researching strollers, and creating baby registries. Almost none spend equivalent time planning for postpartum recovery and support, and that oversight creates unnecessary suffering during one of the most vulnerable periods of your life.
Why Postpartum Planning Matters
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now recommends that postpartum care be “an ongoing process rather than a single encounter” and emphasizes that preparation should begin during pregnancy. Yet most prenatal classes focus almost entirely on labor and delivery, giving perhaps 20 minutes to the weeks and months that follow.
The fourth trimester (the first 12 weeks postpartum) involves:
- Physical recovery from childbirth
- Dramatic hormonal fluctuations
- Sleep deprivation that constitutes actual torture in some contexts
- Learning to feed, soothe, and care for a newborn
- Navigating relationship changes with your partner
- Processing the emotional transition to parenthood
Without a plan, you’re trying to figure all of this out in real-time while your body is healing and your brain is running on two-hour sleep fragments.
What Your Postpartum Plan Should Include
Help for the First Two Weeks: This is not the time to prove you can do everything alone. Line up specific people for specific tasks. Your mother can handle laundry. Your friend can drop off meals. Your partner can take night shifts on weekends. According to the March of Dimes, having adequate postpartum support significantly reduces the risk of postpartum depression and improves both maternal and infant outcomes.
Be explicit about what help looks like. “Come hold the baby so I can shower” is helpful. “Come visit and expect me to host you” is not.
Meal Planning: You will not have time or energy to cook. Stock your freezer now with meals you can reheat. Set up a meal train. Research delivery options. Budget for more takeout than usual. Postpartum is not the time for dietary restrictions unless medically necessary. Your job is to eat enough food to support healing and (if breastfeeding) milk production.
Feeding Support: Whether you plan to breastfeed, formula feed, or combine both, identify support resources now. Find a lactation consultant. Know where to buy formula if needed. Understand that feeding plans often change after birth, and that’s okay. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides evidence-based information on both breastfeeding and formula feeding to help you make informed decisions.
Postpartum Provider: Make sure you have a postpartum checkup scheduled, but don’t wait until six weeks if you need help sooner. Know who to call with questions about bleeding, pain, breastfeeding, or emotional concerns. Understand warning signs of postpartum complications that require immediate medical attention: excessive bleeding, fever, severe pain, or thoughts of harming yourself or your baby.
Mental Health Resources: About 1 in 7 women experience postpartum depression, according to ACOG. Know the symptoms. Identify a therapist or psychiatrist now who treats perinatal mood disorders. Understand that postpartum depression is a medical condition, not a personal failing, and it requires treatment.
Household Help: If you can afford it, hire help. A postpartum doula, a cleaning service, a laundry service, anything that removes tasks from your plate. If that’s not financially feasible, accept offers from friends and family. People want to help, they just don’t know how. Tell them specifically what you need.
What to Do During Pregnancy
Have the Conversation: Talk with your partner about postpartum expectations. Who does night wakings? How will you handle household tasks? How will you support each other? What does each person need to feel supported?
Set Up Your Recovery Space: Think about where you’ll spend most of your time postpartum and stock it accordingly. Water bottles, snacks, phone charger, burp cloths, diapers, whatever you need within arm’s reach of where you’ll be feeding the baby.
Prepare Older Children: If this isn’t your first baby, talk with older children about what to expect. Line up childcare or activities to keep them occupied during the first weeks when you’ll be focused on the newborn and recovery.
Lower Your Standards: Your house will be messy. You will wear the same clothes multiple days in a row. You might not return text messages for weeks. All of this is fine and normal and temporary.
What You Cannot Plan For
Some aspects of postpartum are unpredictable. You don’t know how your birth will go, how your baby will feed or sleep, how your body will recover, or how you’ll feel emotionally. That’s why flexibility is built into your plan.
The goal isn’t to control every variable. The goal is to remove as many logistical obstacles as possible so you can focus on the immediate needs: healing, feeding your baby, and sleeping whenever possible.
Research from Johns Hopkins Medicine shows that women who feel adequately supported postpartum have better physical recovery, lower rates of postpartum depression, and higher rates of breastfeeding success (if that’s their goal).
The Bottom Line
You cannot prepare for everything about postpartum, but you can prepare for many things. Having a plan doesn’t guarantee an easy postpartum period, but not having a plan almost guarantees a harder one.
If you’re pregnant right now, stop researching baby gear for a moment and invest time in postpartum planning. Talk to your provider about what to expect, line up your support people, stock your freezer, and set realistic expectations for yourself.
The weeks after birth are not a test of your independence or capability. They’re a recovery and adjustment period that goes better with help, planning, and realistic expectations.
Pregnant and want to create a comprehensive postpartum plan? Schedule a prenatal planning consultation to discuss recovery expectations, feeding support, mental health resources, and strategies for the fourth trimester.
Sources
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2018). ACOG Committee Opinion No. 736: Optimizing Postpartum Care. https://www.acog.org/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Infant Feeding Practices. https://www.cdc.gov/
Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2024). The Fourth Trimester. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/
March of Dimes. (2024). Postpartum Care and Support. https://www.marchofdimes.org/
