The 'This Is Us' star gave birth to her son, August, in February.
Mandy Moore doesn't know how her This Is Us character, Rebecca Pearson, raised triplets!
The 37-year-old actress and her husband, musician Taylor Goldsmith, welcomed a son, August, in February and she admits that motherhood did come with a great deal of surprises. On Tuesday in an Instagram Live chat with Dr. Ashurina Ream of Lansinoh’s Clinical Advisory Network, Moore opens up about her own journey with postpartum.
"I had these preconceived notions of myself going into motherhood," she admits. "...Obviously, I knew it was going to be challenging but I thought, 'Oh, maybe I have this natural maternal side.'"
Moore says she "didn't really recognize the worries, the fears" that come with being a mom, including the "concern of hitting developmental milestones."
The actress calls being a mom "all encompassing," and also "so isolating."
"The isolation is something that hit me that I wasn't really expecting," she shares, noting that while she's nursing Gus, her "life is sort of existing in these two to three hour increments and I'm always making sure that I'm producing enough [milk]."
Moore says most of her friends have older children and she's struggled maintaining her relationships. "...It's hard to find a community with new moms to talk to and confide in," she says. "It's intimidating. I'm actually a really shy person."
She advises, "Don't be afraid to reach out to your friends and family and see if they're available to be part of your village."
Another thing that surprised her about going into motherhood was how there is "so much emphasis put on pregnancy and then the baby comes and everyone moves on."
"I totally understand how women can feel lost in the shuffle," she shares.
Moore also reveals that she's faced "just not feeling good enough."
"...As his needs continued to change, I just had a rush of 'I'm not good enough to be his mom,'" she admits. "I just felt so ineffective. ...I just felt like whatever I did just wasn't right. ...When I can't do it, it would trigger me."
Moore has found some things to take comfort in, including remembering that "everything is a phase" and that "calm is contagious."
As for how being a real-life mom has changed how she portrays a parent on This Is Us, Moore says she only now has "some little inkling about what it is to be a parent that I didn't before."
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