Today’s episode covers the personal story of a mother who has been through postpartum anxiety, severe colic, and complicated family transitions. Through her difficulties, she has thrown herself into learning about perinatal mental health challenges, supporting herself, and helping other families.
Christine Carrig is the director of Carrig Montessori School in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education as well as a Montessori certification. Christine has trained as a postpartum doula through both DONA and Ayurvedic Mamas. Most recently, Christine founded The Family Flow, a community that offers online courses for parents of young children, with the aim of helping parents understand and support their children so they can guide them through the messy terrain of development. Christine lives in Queens with her husband and four young children.
Show Highlights:
- In 2012, Christine’s first daughter was born after a wonderful pregnancy
- As a new business owner of a Montessori school, Christine pushed herself too hard as a new mom and was shocked at her hypervigilance and how it depleted her energy
- How Christine noticed that her daughter was extremely sensitive and easily overwhelmed by her emotions and frequently overstimulated; she also had sleep issues
- In 2015, her son was born after a more challenging pregnancy for Christine, and she felt like there was a cloud over her all the time
- How her daughter started showing harmful aggressive behavior toward the baby and Christine to the point she feared being alone with the two children
- How Christine felt inadequate to walk through this terrain of transition with her daughter to the point that she felt like a failure as a mother
- How Christine’s relationship with her own mother changed and left her feeling unsupported and isolated in an extended period of estrangement between them
- How her newborn son’s fussiness and vomiting escalated into full-blown colic, and Christine drew strength from her husband’s calm optimism
- How an interaction with her sister gave Christine a new perspective on her situation
- When her son’s colic settled down around nine months, she sought help from acupuncture, therapy, and learning more about her daughter’s unique needs
- When Christine became pregnant again, she feared a repeat of her postpartum experience, so she took maternal mental health training and listened to the Mom & Mind podcast, trying to make a different plan for herself and her older two children
- How Christine took physical and emotional space after the birth of her third child to authentically bounce back and learned to ask for help
- With her fourth baby, she hired a postpartum doula to help and learned how to ask friends and family for specific help
- How she made her basement her “recovery cave” and took some “sitting in” time, which left her recovered, steady, and calm as a new mother of four children
- How Christine helps other families through her Mindful Parenting program at her school and her online classes
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