When a baby is born, the world shows up.
Texts pour in.
Friends you haven’t spoken to in years suddenly remember your address.
Meal trains appear.
Flowers arrive.
There is a collective understanding that this moment matters — and that you, the mother, are in a fragile, sacred window.
There is permission to be unavailable.
Permission to be messy.
Permission to rest.
And then, quietly, the permission expires.
Not because anything has resolved — but because time has passed.
Around four, five, six months postpartum, something shifts. Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just enough that you begin to feel it in your body before you can name it in words.
People return to their lives.
Support fades.
Expectations rise.
And if you’re a business owner, this is often the moment when the wheels start to wobble.
The Part No One Prepares You For
Most women are told the first six weeks will be the hardest.
And yes — those early weeks are intense. You’re healing. You’re learning how to keep a tiny human alive. Sleep is fragmented. Everything feels new.
But biologically, emotionally, socially — you are protected.
Your job is simple, even if it’s not easy: survive and bond.
Your world shrinks.
Your responsibilities narrow.
Your nervous system runs on adrenaline and oxytocin.
There is a bubble.
What no one tells you is that the bubble pops — and when it does, you’re often more depleted than you were at the beginning.
I can say this plainly now, with distance and clarity:
Six months postpartum was harder for me than two weeks postpartum.
Not because I was failing.
Not because motherhood wasn’t “working.”
But because by then, the rules had changed — and no one announced it.
When the Excitement Wears Off but the Work Hasn’t
In the early weeks, everyone understands that you’re “in it.”
But around four to six months postpartum, there’s an unspoken assumption that things should be settling.
You might be planning your return to work.
Your baby is bigger, sturdier, more alert.
From the outside, it looks like you’re past the hard part.
Inside, you are carrying something very different.
By that point:
- You haven’t slept a full night in months
- Your body has been giving constantly
- Your mental load has only grown
- Your responsibilities haven’t reset — they’ve compounded
For me, this was the moment when the newborn glow faded and reality sharpened.
Breastfeeding a hungry six-month-old meant I was producing just enough milk to meet demand. No freezer stash. No margin. Just-in-time nourishment.
Which meant I stopped what I was doing — meetings, writing, thinking — to feed my baby. Over and over again.
Not in a cocoon.
Not in a quiet, protected season.
But inside a business that still needed decisions, leadership, and presence.
It felt like I had all the responsibility, and none of the buffer.
The bubble had popped.
The Adrenaline Is Gone — But You’re Still Running
In the beginning, your body carries you.
Adrenaline fills the gaps.
Urgency sharpens focus.
You’re tired, but buoyed by novelty and chemistry.
By six months postpartum, that chemical support is gone.
Your nervous system is no longer in sprint mode — but you haven’t stopped running.
This is where many women begin to think something is wrong with them.
Why am I more emotional now?
Why is it harder to focus?
Why does everything feel heavier?
The answer is simple and deeply inconvenient:
You’ve been doing this for months.
This isn’t acute stress anymore.
It’s sustained output without recovery.
And for business owners — especially those who stayed mentally or operationally engaged early postpartum — the cost shows up later.
You didn’t rest first and then work.
You worked through recovery.
Support Has a Shelf Life
There’s another quiet loss in this season, and it’s one we don’t talk about enough.
Support expires.
No one means for it to happen.
It’s not malicious.
It’s just human nature.
The meals stop.
The check-in texts slow.
The assumption becomes: she’s good now.
Meanwhile, you’re navigating:
- Identity shifts
- Cognitive load
- A body that still doesn’t feel like yours
- A business that needs you in a different way than before
This is often when mothers feel loneliest — not because they are alone, but because the gap between what’s required and what’s supported has widened.
The Health Layer (Brief, But Real)
There are physiological reasons this window is destabilizing.
Around four to seven months postpartum, many women experience:
- Hormonal recalibration
- Dopamine suppression (especially while breastfeeding)
- Cortisol dysregulation
- Nutrient depletion
- Thyroid fluctuations
You don’t need a diagnosis to feel the effects.
They show up as:
- Brain fog
- Low motivation
- Emotional sensitivity
- A nervous system that feels thinner
This doesn’t mean something is broken.
It means your body is asking for a different kind of care than it needed in the beginning.
Why This Hits Business Owners Differently
Traditional maternity leave assumes a clean arc:
- Stop working
- Recover
- Return
Entrepreneurship doesn’t work that way.
Many business owners:
- Stay lightly involved early on
- Carry responsibility even while “off”
- Don’t fully disengage — by necessity or by design
So when month six arrives, they’re expected to be fully operational — without ever having fully rested.
This is where burnout gets mislabeled as a mindset problem.
It’s not a mindset problem.
It’s a sequencing problem.
The Reframe No One Offers
Here’s the part that matters most — and the one that rarely gets said out loud.
As a business owner, you are not required to follow the traditional maternity leave timeline.
You can design a different one.
Instead of front-loading all your time off during the newborn phase, some women choose to:
- Stay digitally involved early on, when adrenaline and bonding hormones are high
- Preserve income and continuity
- Then take deeper, more intentional time off during the four-to-six-month window — when stress often peaks and support drops
This isn’t about hustling through postpartum.
It’s about aligning rest with reality.
It’s about understanding that the hardest part may come later — and planning for that instead of being blindsided by it.
You’re Not Behind — You’re at a Turning Point
If six months postpartum feels harder than six weeks, it doesn’t mean you missed your chance to recover.
It means your body, brain, and business are asking for a recalibration.
This season isn’t proof that something went wrong.
It’s evidence that the original plan didn’t account for how long transition actually lasts.
And the good news?
You’re not stuck with the original plan.
You can slow down now.
You can redesign now.
You can build systems that carry weight while you rest.
Not because you’re weak — but because sustainability requires timing, not toughness.
You’ve got this.
Warmly, Aly
P.S.– here are the two best ways to get support right now so you don’t have a 6-month stall out with time and sanity…
