Have you ever thought, “If only I’d known then what I know now?”

You’re not alone.

In this milestone episode, Dr Renee White reflects on the biggest lessons she’s learned from the last 100 conversations on The Science of Motherhood from researchers and clinicians to doulas and mums who’ve shared their lived wisdom. With honesty and heart, Renee opens up about what she’d do differently if she could experience early motherhood all over again, and how the science has reshaped her understanding of what mums truly need.

Whether you’re pregnant, preparing for postpartum, or deep in the motherhood trenches, this episode is a compassionate guide to doing things differently… with more knowledge, confidence, and self-kindness.

You’ll hear about:

• Why understanding matrescence before birth matters more than any baby book

• The mental health practices that protect your wellbeing long before postpartum hits

• What the research really says about infant sleep (and why your baby isn’t broken)

• The power of nourishment, rest, and realistic expectations

This is the episode Renee wishes she could have listened to before becoming a mum and one that reminds you that you’re not broken, you’re transforming.

Resources & Links:

📲 Connect with Renee on Instagram: @fillyourcup_

🌐 Learn more about Dr Renee White and explore Fill Your Cup Doula services

🍪 Treat yourself with our Chocolate + Goji lactation cookies

Related episodes

Ep 116. Lucy Jones – The Art of Matrescence

Ep 138. Kate Johnstone – How to Find Self-Compassion in Motherhood

Ep 192. Prof. Helen Ball - Why Baby Sleep Advice Often Fails Mums

Ep 150. Dr Laura Gainche – Latest Research on Infant Sleep

Ep 198. Julie Borninkhof - Catching It Early: How to Protect Your Mental Health in Motherhood

Ep 106. Alex Sinickas – Not All Breast Pumps Are Created Equally

Ep 108. Kate Visser – How and Where to Start on a Relactating Journey

Ep 184. Lily Nichols - Pregnancy Food Made Simple: What Your Body Really Needs

If this conversation resonates, share it with another mum or mum-to-be who needs to feel seen, supported, and reassured and make sure you’re subscribed so you never miss an episode.

Disclaimer:

The information on this podcast presented by Fill Your Cup is not a substitute for independent professional advice. Nothing contained in this episode is intended to be used as medical advice and it is not intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health professional's advice.

[00:00:30] Dr. Renee White: Hello and welcome to episode 200. This is The Science of Motherhood, and I'm your host, Dr. Renee White. In today's episode, I'm sharing exactly what I would do differently if I had [00:00:45] a motherhood do-over armed with the wisdom from the last 100 incredible conversations. Cause we did something very similar in the hundredth episode.

[00:01:26] Dr. Renee White: If you're searching for the truth about what motherhood really [00:01:30] requires, not the Instagram version, but the evidence-based honest version. And today's episode is for you, babe, 200 episodes. Oh my goodness. [00:01:45] 200 conversations with researchers, clinicians, doulas, psychologists, and mothers who've shared their wisdom and their science.

[00:02:36] Dr. Renee White: The exact steps I would take if I were doing this all over again. It's the episode I wish I could have [00:02:45] listened to before I became a mother. This episode is proudly supported by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village. If you are pregnant or have a new baby, we have doulas ready to look after, [00:03:00] nurture and nourish you across Melbourne, Geelong, Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, gold Coast, Hobart and Perth pop over to our website, I fill your cup.com in the show links. Alrighty, let's dive in.[00:03:15]

[00:03:43] Dr. Renee White: Like the text [00:03:45] messages I get are just like, you know, women saying that listening to a conversation about some piece of evidence or research has just completely reframed their thinking, has put them [00:04:00] at ease, have, you know, really empowered them to make the decisions that they're making and stand up for what they believe in, because I often get a message where it's kind of like, innately I have felt X, Y, Z [00:04:15] about something, but I didn't have, you know, the resources or the mental bandwidth to kind of deep dive and find information to support it. And then they've listened to one of our episodes and they're like, that's it.

[00:04:53] Dr. Renee White: For this special episode, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to, you know, have something [00:05:00] deeply personal. This is a really passion. This is a passion project for me, this podcast. And I wanna take you on a journey through what I would do if I had what I'm gonna call a motherhood do over armed with all the knowledge I have gained from [00:05:15] these 100 episodes now.

[00:06:04] Dr. Renee White: Okay. The first thing I wanna talk about is preparing for the reality of motherhood. So let me start with something fundamental that I wish I'd understood before [00:06:15] becoming a mother, and that is the concept of matresence. Now, in episode 116, I had absolute pleasure and privilege to speak with Lucy Jones, who's a journalist and author based in [00:06:30] England.

[00:06:58] Dr. Renee White: And I guess here's what I [00:07:00] would do differently. I would read this book during pregnancy. I would not be reading baby sleep books or another pregnancy week by week guide. This book because Lucy explains [00:07:15] with both, I guess, scientific rigor and beautiful honesty, exactly what happens to you when you become a mother.

[00:08:12] Dr. Renee White: And I guess Lucy's work [00:08:15] and the concept of mares essence itself would've given me permission to struggle. It would've given me permission to grieve and to take time to really integrate this new identity, this new self. And we know [00:08:30] from the research that one of the most protective factors for maternal mental health is normalisation.

[00:09:26] Dr. Renee White: Okay next topic. Number two, mental health, which is a [00:09:30] huge one here at the Science of Motherhood. I wanna talk specifically about self-compassion, though. Episode 138 with Kate Johnston changed how I think about motherhood. Now, Kate is a registered [00:09:45] counselor. She's a trained doula here in Hobart where I live. She's a mama as well and she has had her own journey with birth trauma, postnatal depression, and anxiety.

[00:10:26] Dr. Renee White: But she provided actual practical strategies for [00:10:30] challenging that perfectionism, that modern parenting culture demands of us. And here's what Kate taught me. Kate taught me that self-compassion isn't about lowering your standards, it's about treating yourself with the [00:10:45] same kindness you'd show good friend going through exactly what you are going through.

[00:11:16] Dr. Renee White: I would've practiced the self-compassion break that kind of Kate talks about and built in regular check-ins with myself asking, you know, what do I need right now? And actually [00:11:30] honoring the answer. And in my Instagram post I talked about giving myself grace, permission to not be a super mom, to prioritize my sleep, my recovery, and health first.

[00:12:08] Dr. Renee White: And I love this, of course, I love this, but sometimes I just need to have a rest. And so I'll say to [00:12:15] her, I need to go have a lie down. It'll be a 15 minute power nap. If you want to come and sit with me, you can with quiet activities like reading a book or something like that. And that shows her that, you know, if she's tired and exhausted [00:12:30] that she can respect her own body and, you know, have that conversation with people around her.

[00:12:59] Dr. Renee White: Number [00:13:00] three, mental health early intervention. This is a really big conversation, and it was only two episodes that we spoke about this. This was an absolute game changer, so early intervention for [00:13:15] perinatal health, episode 192 with Julie, who's the CEO of Panda. So we've got perinatal anxiety and depression.

[00:13:45] Dr. Renee White: I managed it well with a psychologist, but it never occurred to me that this meant I needed to be proactive about my mental health in the postpartum period. And here's the kicker. I personally think [00:14:00] postnatal depression gets all the airplay. Everyone talks about it. It's on the screening forms, but postnatal anxiety.

[00:14:32] Dr. Renee White: So many people can resist for help because they think, you know, other people have it worse, or I should be able to handle this on my own and I did exactly [00:14:45] that. I looked at other mums who seem to be struggling more visibly than me, and I thought, oh. I can't possibly use resources like Panda and their helpline and, and things like that.

[00:15:20] Dr. Renee White: Course correct before you are really in the depths, really down that rabbit hole. And so if I had my do over, here's what [00:15:30] I would do. Mental health check-ins scheduled in advance. So exactly like what I said in my Instagram post standing appointments with a psychologist booked before the baby arrives.

[00:16:02] Dr. Renee White: So you know, to check if you know you've got to go get a mental health plan from the GP and then you've gotta find a psychologist that you resonate with and so on and so forth. It's a lot. It's absolutely a [00:16:15] lot. So Julie also talked about what partners and family members can do to support someone with perinatal anxiety or depression, and that conversation would've been so valuable for my husband to hear because you know, it was on the radar, but I [00:16:30] just don't think he knew what to look for. So my advice, don't wait until you are drowning to learn how to swim. Set up your mental health support system while you're still pregnant.

[00:17:00] Dr. Renee White: So let's buckle up sisters. Um, if I could go back and change one thing about my preparation for motherhood, it would be understanding. What normal infant sleep actually looks like, and I had two [00:17:15] incredible conversations about this topic. First one in episode 150 with Dr. Laura Gainche and episode 192 with Professor Helen Ball.

[00:17:49] Dr. Renee White: If you're going to get information, she's your gal okay, full stop. And what they taught me would've saved so much anguish and [00:18:00] anxiety. So here's what happened to me. I was told my baby was broken because she was cat napping, which I now know is normal. They said that I had to quote unquote fix her, and that I had to teach her how to [00:18:15] sleep.

[00:18:44] Dr. Renee White: So, [00:18:45] cue the anxiety stage left. I was so anxious, so exhausted, and convinced I was failing at the most basic job of motherhood, and that was getting my baby to sleep. [00:19:00] But here's what Helen and Laura taught me. None of that is true. None. Babies don't need to be taught to sleep. They already know how, and that makes sense because if our [00:19:15] child doesn't know how to sleep, that would be a huge issue with our evolutionary mechanisms, right?

[00:19:40] Dr. Renee White: It's exactly what human babies have done for millennia. It's society [00:19:45] that tells us they're broken. So instead of supporting the, the grownups, the adults around them who are caring for these babies, we try to fix our babies right. Which is not it, it you're at the wrong end of the stick. Guys, [00:20:00] the idea that babies should be sleeping through the night by a certain age, or that they should be able to self-soothe, or that parental presence is creating bad habits, and I'm doing bunny quotes here guys.

[00:20:40] Dr. Renee White: Now, I know this can be quite controversial, and I know people have strong [00:20:45] feelings about this, but here's what I learned from these episodes and from my own experience now, whether it's a bedside bassinet, a floor mattress, or a proper co-sleeping arrangement, you know, following the safe sleep guidelines with Red [00:21:00] Nose, having my baby close gave me the most restorative sleep compared to getting up every hour and wandering to, you know, a cot, whether it be you know, when she was quite little, you know, [00:21:15] early six months or whatever next to it, or when she grew up in another room.

[00:21:34] Dr. Renee White: I wouldn't have spent months fighting against this. I wouldn't have employed, you know, two different sleep specialists who absolutely fleeced me for [00:21:45] hundreds and hundreds of dollars and gave me a ridiculously rigid sleep schedule. What I would've done is set up a safe sleep space from day one that worked with my baby's needs and my need for rest.

[00:22:28] Dr. Renee White: In my Instagram post I mentioned [00:22:30] that she came with me in the carrier, so, you know, bonding while still getting things done. Because the research shows that babies don't need constant direct attention. They need connection and proximity. There's a difference. So understanding normal [00:22:45] infant sleep would've prevented so much anxiety. It would've allowed me to rest when I could instead of lying awake, worrying that whether, you know, I was doing it all wrong.

[00:23:17] Dr. Renee White: Now both of these women are super passionate about making breastfeeding and pumping less painful and I guess more sustainable as well. So here's what I learned from these episodes that I wish I'd known [00:23:30] before. Number one, you don't have to pump if you don't want to. This is huge thing where everyone's like, I need to get a pump and I need to get all these milk storage bags and, and oh my God, the amount of times I've just said, don't worry about the [00:23:45] pump.

[00:24:25] Dr. Renee White: Easy as that. And quite frankly. I hated pumping. I [00:24:30] had an oversupply, and so pumping just was like, woo. No, thank you. I felt like a dairy cow. It was uncomfortable. It was time consuming, and honestly. It just stressed me out more than it actually helped me. [00:24:45] The second thing I'll say is that if you do pump, not all pumps are created equal.

[00:25:35] Dr. Renee White: So that's something I definitely help our mamas with when we're doula'ing. Kate really enforced this, um, message. You know, pumping shouldn't hurt. If [00:25:45] it hurts, there's something not right, whether it's the fit, the setting, the pump itself. So if I had my do-over, I would've done my research on pumps. I would've gotten professionally fitted and honestly.

[00:26:19] Dr. Renee White: Oh my God. An I-B-C-L-C is worth their weight in gold. And if you don't know how to find one, message me. DM me. Jump on our Instagram at [00:26:30] fill your cup underscore or send me an email Hello at I fill your cup.com and say, Hey, this is my name. This is where I lived, just like a suburb. And I will help you find a reputable trustworthy [00:26:45] I-B-C-L-C.

[00:27:14] Dr. Renee White: [00:27:15] Breastfeeding is natural, but it's doesn't come naturally and there's no shame in getting expert help to hurt, you know, set yourself up for success. So reach out if you need help.

[00:27:41] Dr. Renee White: But I'm fueling my body and mind for different things these days, and that is [00:27:45] perimenopause and my power lifting. So I'm definitely in my nutrition era. That is for sure. Episode 184, Lily Nichols oh my goodness. She's the goddess of pregnancy and postpartum [00:28:00] nutrition. And we've had her on the episode, on the podcast before, very early on.

[00:28:36] Dr. Renee White: So you would've heard before, if you're a long time listener, that I thought, you know, snacking on toast and Tim Tams would've done the job after I had my baby and didn't [00:28:45] understand why I was so ravenous all the time. I wasn't eating enough, I wasn't eating regularly. I was grabbing whatever was quick and easy, which usually meant, you know, nutritionally poor choices [00:29:00] and I was running on empty while trying to recover from birth breastfeed and care for a newborn.

[00:29:33] Dr. Renee White: First thing I would do buy a standup freezer. Meal prep, like the zombie apocalypse is coming. So I would prep enough [00:29:45] meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinners and snacks for two weeks, all ready to go, ready to rock and roll. Because when you are in the thick of those early weeks, you will not have the time, the energy or the mental bandwidth to plan nutritious [00:30:00] meals.

[00:30:25] Dr. Renee White: We don't ask for specific help. We say, oh, let me know if you need [00:30:30] anything. And then you never follow up. So if I had my do-over, I would have a meal train organized before the baby arrives. Be specific about what helps a lasagna. I can freeze breakfast muffins or [00:30:45] snacks that I can eat one handed, and I would accept every offer of food without guilt.

[00:31:17] Dr. Renee White: Okay? All right, so let's put that all together. Here is the practical do over list. Get your pen and paper [00:31:30] ready here it is alright. If I were to have my do over, here's my preparation and early postpartum period, what they would look like. So before the baby arrives, here we go. I would read [00:31:45] Lucy Jones Matresence book to understand the transformation I'm gonna go through.

[00:32:14] Dr. Renee White: I [00:32:15] would research pumps properly. If I decide to pump and get fitted for correct flange sizes. I would buy a standup freezer and fill it with nutritious, easy to reheat meals. I would set up a safe sleep [00:32:30] environment that allows for proximity to my baby. I would organize a meal train with specific, helpful requests.

[00:33:06] Dr. Renee White: Here's what I would've done. Clear boundaries, no visitors in my birthing suite or room for at least two days. Recovery and [00:33:15] establishing breastfeeding would've come first, and this isn't about being antagonistic or antisocial. It's about protecting those precious early hours when you're establishing feeding and bonding and recovering from [00:33:30] birth.

[00:33:57] Dr. Renee White: Sleep deprivation [00:34:00] triggers my postnatal anxiety. Full stop. So rest becomes non-negotiable over laundry or dishes. And that's what the house cleaner is for like honestly, I would be getting like [00:34:15] secondhand prams and clothes and things like that, and I would be reinvesting in, in support. That's what I would be doing.

[00:34:48] Dr. Renee White: I would eat the nutritious meals. I've prepped and accept every meal that friends bring. I would reach out really early if I know. If I started to notice like signs of anxiety or depression, I would [00:35:00] reach out early to my gp, my psychologist, and most importantly, I would give myself grace. I would give myself permission not to be a super mum, permission to prioritize my sleep, my recovery [00:35:15] and my health first and permission to learn and struggle and not have all the answers because that's okay.

[00:35:39] Dr. Renee White: It's not selfish. That's survival. And so [00:35:45] there you have it. My motherhood do. Over informed by the last 200 episodes of conversations with incredible experts and real life experiences. Would I do everything on this list if I had another baby? Honestly. [00:36:00] Yeah, I would. I would try. I would really try. If I didn't get there, that's okay.

[00:36:38] Dr. Renee White: And I just wanna say a huge thank you for being part of this journey for 200 [00:36:45] episodes. Thank you for your messages, your questions, your vulnerability and your trust in me, and to all of our guests as well for all of their time and knowledge and wisdom. So here's to the next 200 episodes. To [00:37:00] all of us continuing to learn, grow, and support each other through this wild transformation called motherhood. Until next time, be kind to yourself. You're doing better than you think. See ya.

[00:37:28] Dr. Renee White: You've just listened to [00:37:30] another episode of The Science of Motherhood proudly presented by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village. Head to our website I fill your cup.com to learn more about our birth and postpartum doula offerings [00:37:45] where every mother we pledge to be the steady hand that guides you back to yourself.