The Mental Load Begins Long Before Motherhood

Dec 9 / Sol Alonso
The mental load doesn’t begin when a baby is born. It often starts long before.

Many women begin carrying it during the journey of trying to conceive. We track cycles, take notes on symptoms, read about fertility, try to “do everything right”, and suddenly our brain is working overtime long before a pregnancy test shows two lines.
Then comes pregnancy, and the list gets longer. Scans, blood tests, pregnancy risks, birth choices, breastfeeding decisions, hospital policies, vitamins… and the feeling that we should research every single thing to make good decisions. By the time the baby arrives, the mental load is already heavy. Postpartum doesn’t create it. It simply puts everything on the table at the same time.

I see it constantly in my classes and sessions: the pressure isn’t only physical. It takes hold in the mind. We want to be informed, choose well, follow our values, look after the baby, look after the house, respond to work, reply to messages, take care of relationships, and, somewhere in the middle, take care of ourselves too. All of this while feeding a baby, sleeping in fragments, and doing most things with one hand.

This isn’t about being “disorganised”. It isn’t about time management, planning better or learning to “delegate”. The truth is simpler: this is work that almost always ends up on women’s shoulders, even when there is a supportive partner or family. It’s invisible work, but it costs energy, attention, sleep, self-care, and sometimes our sense of self.

Naming it does not make it heavier. It actually brings relief, because when we understand that this load didn’t come from personal failure, we stop fighting our body and start seeing what kind of support we actually need.

Three gentle ideas to make the mental load easier

These are not “solutions” or time-saving tricks. They are small shifts that help us feel our needs instead of ignoring them:

1) You don’t need to decide everything alone.
 Asking for shared decision-making is not asking for help. It’s asking for responsibility to be shared.

2) You don’t need to know everything before it happens.
 Information is valuable, but so is learning as you go, especially when your body and baby change week by week.

3) Rest and pauses are not a reward for “finishing things”.
 They are part of caring for a nervous system that is constantly processing decisions.

Naming the load won’t eliminate it overnight. But it makes space to breathe, to ask differently, and to stop expecting yourself to “handle everything” just because you’re capable.

With warmth,
Sol
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