Add disturbed sleep patterns, issues with milk and breastfeeding and just the general feeling of your whole world has now changed forever and it can all make you feel overwhelmed.
Your stepchildren may be as lovely as anything, you may love them more than anything but your whole being has now changed. Your pre-birth thoughts that your stepchildren can help pick up baby or wheel the pram may now not be what you want.
Please realise that these mixed emotions are more normal than you might think.
You are now a mother. Your stepchildren’s mother would have gone through the same feelings as you, like a protective lioness over her newborn cub.
But there is one difference. Chances are your stepchildren’s mum was not a stepmum herself at the time.
And that is a huge difference.
Why? Because, suddenly as a stepmum you begin feeling very tearful and overwhelmed at what and how you are thinking instead of realising that all this will pass.
My stepchildren came over for their alternate week visitation on the day I came home from the hospital with our son.
I remember feeling extremely weird that I didn’t want anyone around except my husband, their Dad.
That is normal! And if this is how you are feeling right at the moment, take a deep breath and relax.
Because, you suddenly realise the mammoth job ahead of you. Getting your newborn baby to the stage and age of your stepchildren is a huge challenge!
Wherever you are reading this article, at home or the hospital or birthing centre, if you have had a difficult childbirth please tell your partner that you need him.
Maybe he can organise something so that you can get a couple of weeks on your own – without the stepchildren – to get on top of all the things that are going on.
Juggling a newborn is difficult enough, juggling a newborn with stepchildren is even more difficult.
That doesn’t mean that your stepchildren can’t come over and meet their new sibling, but the whole routine of a usual weekend visit or an alternate full week visit may need to be postponed or swapped for the time being.
In the whole scheme of it, no-one will even remember, but it might just give you a chance to get on top of your new situation.
Karalee Katsambanis is the author of “Step Parenting with Purpose; Everything you wanted to know but were too afraid to ask.” You can contact her via her website www.karaleekatsambanis.com.
