Rachel Kiser
Blogger | Mom of Two

There is nothing like your first pregnancy and the expectation of your first baby. The hope-filled plans, the what-ifs and dreams. Advice is flying at you from all sides and everyone wants to tell you their stories and exactly what worked best for them. It can be overwhelming at times! It’s sound advice to take a breather and step back from all of the noise to focus.

That’s exactly what Twilight celebrity and glowing mama-to-be Nikki Reed and her husband Ian Somerhalder hope to do after the arrival of their first child, a girl, this month. Nikki reportedly shared in a recent interview with Fit Pregnancy and Baby that she and her husband plan on pulling the plug on many extraneous things for baby’s first month of life.

E! Online

Nikki shares,

“We’ll take the baby’s first month for ourselves. After the baby arrives, we’re doing one month of silence. Just the three of us, no visitors, and we’re turning off our phones too, so there’s no expectation for us to communicate. Otherwise, every five minutes it would be, ‘How are you feeling? Can we have a picture?’ You don’t get those first 30 days back, and we want to be fully present.”

My first impulse upon reading her words was a hearty ‘Bravo!’

It is my opinion that we, as new parents, are pressured into way too much after our babies are born. Well-meaning relatives and friends are practically knocking down the door of our hospital rooms to watch our children come into the world, everyone and their mother wants to come visit you at your house to snuggle the baby, and, for many, maternity leave is non-existent or shorter than ever. We are told to snap right back to it without having time to catch our breath, heal our bodies, and get to know our new baby.

All that to say, I am encouraged by a couples’ endeavor to focus on wellness as a new family immediately following a birth.

Many people seem to disagree, though. I was shocked to see loads of negative responses to the couple’s post partum goals. Articles that give them “three days before eating [their] words” and do little more than make snide remarks about how desperate they will be for their phones during midnight feedings are plentiful. Bitter virtual eye-rolls fill the comment sections.

One of the reasons this bothers me so much is that it is the very attitude that so many of us moms have come to cringe at: the just you wait mindset. You know the one. When you share your ideals with a more experienced mother and she laughs at you and gives you the just you wait? Although she may be right in the long run, nobody needs to hear that. We are all figuring this thing out as we go, aren’t we? We were all new once. Nikki and her husband should be extended the same grace that we all desired before we became mothers. It’s part of the process of becoming. What works for one family may not work for another. Who are we to tell someone what is best for them?

Good for this couple, who live their lives under the close watch and scrutiny of the public eye, I might add, for wanting to take time to adjust as a new family. They realize the importance of figuring things out without all of the noise, expectations, and advice of others.

At Mom’s Choice, we wish them well and hope for all of the health and happiness in the world!

About Rachel Kiser

Rachel is a wife and mother living in Raleigh, North Carolina. She’s a fan of good coffee, wearer of gray t-shirts, and is constantly starting books she will never finish. Her family is her joy, and she loves to engage with other moms and dads on matters of parenting. Her blog posts have also been featured on the Today Show Parenting Blog and Scary Mommy.

View all posts by Rachel Kiser here.