Rachel Plattenwon’t stand for mommy shaming.
The"Fight Song" hitmaker— who is the latest celebrity to partner withPampers— welcomed her first child, daughterViolet Skye, on Jan. 26, and has already had to shut down mommy shamers on social media after getting negative responses to photos she posted from an afternoon spent out at aGrammysevent.
“That hurtand I responded calmly, ‘I’m just as obsessed with mine. I’m also just as obsessed with self-care and my own mental health,’ ” she adds. ” ‘I know that going out and being around powerful women at this Grammy event is something that’s going to be able to make me come back home a more strong, whole-hearted mommy.’ ”
Rachel Platten/Instagram
“I’m surethe shaming is going to keep goingbecause I’ve heard from my mom friends that it’s really normal,” Platten continues. “I hope that I can just respond with love and education. I hope I don’t let it get to me too much.”
“I felt bad because that was such an anomaly,” she says. “That was one afternoon and I quickly posted a picture of me with my nipplescoming out of a pump bra, likesleepless, because I was like, ‘No, no, no, let’s just relax. This is actually how I look.’ ”
After Violet’s birth, Platten says bringing her home from the hospital for the first few days was “unbelievable” but also “incredibly exhausting.”
“It’s really important to me that I’m not painting only a rosy picture of motherhood and early motherhood because I don’t want moms to read this and be like, ‘Wow, Rachel had it all together,’ ” she says. “Iwas certainly having sleepless nights, overwhelmed, crying, exhausted. But when you look at her and smell her little head and see her little tushy, I would just melt and be like, ‘Okay, this is why I’m doing this.’ ”
So far, Platten’s hardest moment as a mom came onValentine’s Day, when she and her husband Kevin Lazan organized a newborn photo shoot with Violet.
“My husband really thought it would be a romantic thing to do on Valentine’s Day,” she tells PEOPLE. “In my head, I completely agreed and I was like, ‘Thiswill be the sweetest thing.’ It was a nightmare! They wanted her naked in it so we took off the diapers for the first time in three weeks.”
“I will never do that again, ever,” Platten vows. “She peed on me twice, she pooped a tiny bit on my husband and threw up on me, so it was like the full monty.”
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“The newborn photographer kept having to change the sheet and trying to put her in these little positions,” she continues, joking, “There were lights and flashing cameras and I was like, ‘I don’t think you’re goingto take after your mom becauseI love the camera. I don’t know if this is your thing.’ She was like, ‘This is brutal! Why are you doing this? I hate your lifestyle.’ ”
Luckily, Violet’s usually in herPampers Swaddlersand there’s no mess — which is why Platten felt that teaming up with the brand was an honest match.
“I knew it was going to be a partnership that made sense and it felt like a fit that I wouldn’t have to exaggerate my enthusiasm [about],” she says. “I actually was going to be putting my daughter inthese diapers so it felt likean honest collaboration and something that I could support.”
Typically, Platten and her husband split diaper duty — but when she can, she passes off the No. 2s to him.
“I didn’t know you’d be able to hear a newborn’s poops so clearly,” she says. “It’s very obvious whenshe poops and I’m like, ‘She’s yours, babe!’ He’s really game and really sweet and awesome. He’s great at helping. I take the pees,so that’s how we split up. It feels fair, you know?”
For Platten, parenthood has only changed her marriage in “such a good way.”
“I let her sleepon my skin, we do skin to skin,” she says. “I’ve gotten a little bit more rest [at that time] and then I feel able to conquer the day and just soak in her little smell. I love her so much.”
Platten is still waiting to see how much motherhood will change her, but she tells PEOPLE it has already altered her outlook on life. “Things that I thought were so important seem a little less so,” she says. “I don’t know yet how it’s going to be but also music, to me, feels different in a beautiful way.”
“I sat down and played piano and I wanted to soothe her and it felt so pure to justplay music for the sake of comforting my daughter, not for me being like, ‘Oh, I need to write another hit,’ ” the singer explains. “It was just so pure playing music to comfort a newborn, who I love more than anything in the world.”
Everyone in Platten’s family seems to be adjusting well to the new addition so far, including their dog, Dino.
In the future, Platten says if she’s “lucky enough,” she’d “love to give Violet a sibling.” But first, she wants to see what it’ll be like balancing parenthood with touring when she hits the road withPentatonixfor concerts this summer.
“I might be insane, but I’m in a mommy tour group right now with other badass artists that I respect and look up to who havedaughters and sons and take them on the roadwith them,” she says. “They’re all like, ‘It’s doable. It’s crazy, but it’s doable.’ I’m going to take [Violet] and my dog and hopefully my husband will be able to come. I’m really excited to play Madison Square Garden and bring her on stage if I can.”
Jamie Squire/Getty
Platten is hoping to have new music to debut during the tour, which kicks off in May, and has already started “tinkering” on her piano.
“I feel like there’s a flood of inspiration there that I am excited to turn on,” she says. “It has only been two and a half weeks so I’m not quite in music mode, I’m still kind of in this transition, but I feel it coming and I think there’s going to be a lot that I have to say and share about this experience through my songs.”
Until then, Platten is focusing on her familyand making sure not to neglect her own self-care. “I think it is so important to do self-care so that I can be the best mom possible,” she says. “I still meditate and I write in my journal and I’ve started to do some light yoga stretching. When Violet is sleeping, I try to use that time productively.”
“I also try to just be in the moment with her,” Platten continues. “That has turned into a new kind of self-care, just being present with her rather than feeling like I need to be teaching her something or on top of somethingand taking a minute to sit there andsmell the top of her little head and hold her little soft skin.”
source: people.com
