Welcome back to Bounce Forward with me, tip Hal.
I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which I'm recording this podcast, the Werendar people of the cooler Nation.
I pay my respects to elders past and present.
Welcome to part two of my chat with Jesse Stevens. She's an author, executive editor, a mum and me as well as a host of two incredibly successful podcasts, and I've loved talking to her. I called this podcast Bounce Forward because it was initially about bouncing forward, not having to snap back into your pre baby body and all that terrible toxic talk.
But what was your recovery like.
And did you experience any of that bounce back kind of toxic culture because you work in the media.
Yeah, I certainly really wasn't feeling like myself towards the end of my pregnancy, and I was doing a bit of the project and even putting clothes on and seeing your fail like you just don't feel like you look like yourself. And I struggled with that, and then I had a really straightforward birth, which I'm so grateful for because even my sister I did and Caltoren sister, very different experience, and I was really surprised how I felt. A week after, I actually felt really good, so I
would go for little walks. And then I'd been working with a pelvic floor physio and she had done really great work with me during pregnancy, so I just whatever she said was gospel, and I thought, if you rush this like you could really hurt yourself and do damage. So I was just really gentle and it reminded me a few years before. Actually, about a year before falling pregnant,
I had a really bad injury. I broke my tibia and I needed surgery, and that was actually really good mentally to know that you do recover, that it's slow, that it's baby steps, and to also like listen to your body. If something feels like it's too much, then stop. So that was a really good blueprint for me, I think in terms of fitness and exercise.
Looking at it as like an injury, like you've gone through something that requires recovery. Yes, and that fourth trimester is so important. So going from that, you are so busy, you're a writer, TV and podcast hosts, extraordinary, how do you find time for yourself and for a bit of mental health.
How do you look after your mental health?
I have found this really interesting in the postpartum period because I don't know if this is everyone experience. But my husband from day one is really good at advocating for his time. So he would say, I need a bit of Luca time this afternoon, and he would go for a walk or have a lay down or whatever. And at first I was sort of like, well, I don't get any Jesse time, Like why does he get? And then I thought no, I think advocating for your
own time is important and I don't. I'm not going to be a martyr about this, so I just started going all right, well, Jesse needs to go to the gym three times a week to feel like herself, and I've made it happen, so I, you know, on a weekend, I try and go on like a Saturday or a Sunday. And then during the week I say to him, you know, at six point thirty, when Luna's going bath, in bed and all of that, I'm going to run up the
road and go to the gym. And having a gym that's walking distance, I just classest one had to be done. I have really prioritized that, and I am it's a cliche, but like such a better mum when I have been out of the house for an hour and can just get some of that energy out.
It's everything, isn't it. It's just everything. What have you learned from being a mum? I think.
A bit of more self compassion than I've ever had because I look at Luna and she is the most perfect thing I have ever seen in my whole life. I wouldn't change a single thing about her, And then I think, and I also actually even in terms of food and the care that I give her, I saw something recently that was like, we should all treat ourselves more like babies, and I thought, yeah, like, yeah, when Luna needs a nap, she needs a nap, and when
she needs a snack, she needs a snack. And I'm really conscious of, you know, food and all that stuff that I give her. And I think I've been better to myself since since having her, And I've also, again a cliche, but like my days at home with Luna are the best days of my week. Like it's taught me to slow down and to go those things that you were chasing that you thought that when your book
came out, you would suddenly feel this happiness. I've felt one hundred times that happiness because Luna says.
Dog wrong, Like yeah, and that.
Has been a brilliant lesson.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I guess for you working in the media where it's so fast and social media and to just I noticed that with my own daughter, like you know, working in the media as well, and seeing her just say, Bobo yesterday where there was a rainbow, I'm like, yeah, that's that's what it's about.
That's what it's about. The Bobo. You are so close with your family. You work with your sister, your husband, your in laws.
Now do you have in build babysitting in the office, Like what is that? Like?
You know, I wish right now, I've got my mum is downstairs with Luna. The family help that we've had has been amazing. And my mother in law, who is the co owner of Mamma Maya, she has a day on Friday that she's like rearranged her whole week so that she can have her time with Luna, like they are just even last night. My Luca's away this week and you know, she came over at four point thirty and I was like.
I'm taking her for dinner.
I'm taking her for dinner and a buff And she came back at seven and was like that was the highlight of my week. So that's been She's the first grandchild, so I yeah, a great thing. And then otherwise I must say since ramping up work a bit more, it's like the jigsaw of you know, a babysitter and childcare and all of that has been.
Hectic, isn't it.
But where it's like you need three lines of defense because something always fall through, someone's sick and then you just go, I can't go to work tomorrow, Like what do I do? So, yeah, that's tough.
It's crazy. How do you work with your family? Like I have a family business. They teach martial arts, right, martial arts schools in Melbourne and mom and dad are like the head martial arts instructors.
My sister works in it. You know, I work in a little bit.
Teaching and I mean it gets intense sometimes. What are your top tips for like even working with your sister, Like I work with my sister, but I have to have like small doses sometimes.
Like oh yeah, what's your top tip?
Because you guys podcast together and it just seems like you've got the best relationship in the world.
We're very, very close. But we were laughing recently. I was not a great pregnant person and Claire was not
a great pregnant person. We were miserable and uncomfortable and sleep deprived, and we were laughing that we'd come into work in a terrible mood and the only people we could take it out on were each other, because we know that, you know, I'm going to be awful to the podcast producer, so I would have some spray at Claire, which the podcast producer is watching, going I feel incredibly uncomfortable about this fight going on, Like we fight like sisters.
Yes, and in.
A way, that's good that you can have that outlet, so you're not being awful to people who don't Ye, that's true, but it's it's funny. It's we have a few lines. Like even my husband works at we work together, and you know, sometimes he'll come home from work and I'll ask him a question and he's very boundaried, like he does not want to talk about work at home, and saying with my mother in law, like it's funny.
It's like when we're not in the office.
We talk about things that any daughter in law and mother in law would talk about, which is mostly lunar or television shows or.
You know, leave it at the office.
We leave it at the office. And you know, we've not always done that perfectly, but it definitely works. And I think that because I've always I've had a tweet in my whole life. So the idea that you know, I'm very close to people I work with and everything is not true totally foreign to me. Yes, So I've always mixed, and you know, same with Luca and same with Maya. We've all always mixed family and work and social. It's a big mess, and I don't think we'd have it any other way.
That's beautiful. I love it.
But you recently took Lunar for a European trip. I got to ask, how the heck did you manage that?
How old was she?
She was eleven months eleven months, which since going a lot of people have said, and I would have to agree, got to be probably the hardest age because no, I like, she wouldn't have been interested in an iPad. It's she is awake, she only has two naps a day, and she needs to be stimulated.
So it was hard. But what we did was my parents.
I'd never been overseas with my parents before, and so we said, hey, we're going to Ireland for this wedding, you and mum and dad should come and we would like get these airbnbs or whatever. And Mum and Dad were able to help with the childcare as well. So even because we're going to this wedding and they would look after the girls or like we had little even when we're in France. I think one night we went out for a drink or whatever and Mum and.
Dad were there.
That was amazing, but it was hard.
The fly.
The fly, yes, so long, it never ends and you look at your watch and you think, oh, I thought it's been like an hour, and it's like been four minutes. Yes, I just and I'm just talking from experience of like taking Vader when she was a few months to Bali and just literally counting the seconds down until the plane landed, and that's what five or six hours, But Europe's a whole nother Wow.
Yeah, I'm stand still. And Luca had to come back for work early, so I did that flight back on my own, and there was a point where I went to the bathroom obviously with Luna because who else is going to hold her, and just sobbed. I just went, yeah, I am too much trapped. I can't go anywhere. I can't I couldn't eat because she was on my lap. I couldn't have water because if I drank water, I would need to read just as she went to sleep, So I just had to sit there and read the same book to her.
Yeah, every and over again.
I al was like, if I can survive that, I can survive anything.
My sisters just moved to Portland and she's like, come on over, and I'm like, it is the other side of the world and I have a two year old, she's just turned two, and I just can't think of anything worse.
But I've got to get there. I've got to get there. So tell me last question.
What was the most helpful advice you were given to becoming a parent and what was the most unhelpful advice?
Ooh, the most un Oh, what's the most Okay, the most helpful advice.
Was get out of the house every day. Yeah, great, and that has and maybe not everyone's like this, but it makes you feel a part of the world, and sometimes you think that you can't possibly and your baby's gonna scream. Luna's just a way better baby when she's been out and about and stimulated and everything. That's And I think I got my confidence up early when she
was two weeks old. It was my first day of maternity leave on my own and Barbie had come out, and I was like, I'm going to go to the mums and bub session with my two weeks old.
Fab crazy thing to do. Yeah, loved it like it was.
It was fabulous, But like I bought myself popcorn and then I had Luna, I just went, you don't have enough hands for popcorn, like it was a baptism by fire. So get out of the house every day. And probably I'm trying to think what the worst advice would be. I think that people who suggest that you sleep when the baby sleeps, yeah, don't understand that you don't know how long the.
Baby's going to sleep.
So then you go, all right, I'm gonna to lay down, and just as you get to sleep, they wake up because they only sleep for twenty minutes at a time, and there's no way not to be sleep deprived. Yes, and telling you that you should just sleep more. Is kind of annoying.
It's so annoying, isn't it. It's the most annoying thing. Leaning.
Yeah, you just got a leaning. Oh Jesse, thank you so much for joining me on Bounce Forward. I love chatting to you today.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks so much for listening to bounce I love having your company. So please DM me on Instagram at tifhaul Underscore XO and let me know all the questions you'd love me to cover. Don't forget to rate and review me on your podcast out Speak soon.
Happy Days,