Going through a pregnancy and giving birth is an amazing experience, but it leaves your body pretty out of whack. Shoot, I remember just trying to walk to the shower the day after giving birth to Mini Terrorist and nothing felt like it was where it was supposed to be. The joy of our newborn babies quickly turns into self-loathing for our new ‘mom bodies.’ We’re desperate to change our bodies immediately but… we’re exhausted. And our time no longer belongs to us.
I do believe that feeling frazzled and exhausted and all around psychotic are great reasons not to exercise for the first six weeks of postpartum healing and adjusting to mommyhood. However, once you get the okay to resume activity from your OB…
You gotta let those excuses go. I know, you’re tired. Life is chaos. You feel like a hot mess and half the time you don’t know where you are. The truth is, there’s no telling when your kid is going to sleep through the night and waiting for that to happen is just going to make it harder for you to take action. Adding some fitness to your life as soon as you can will bring you more energy and help restore your cognitive function so that maybe you can finally find whatever you did with your car keys!
So how do you make time?
You could wake up early. I know, sleep is a precious commodity and the idea of waking up at 5 am after being woken up every couple of hours is a bitch. However, life isn’t going to always be that way and toddlers require a lot of energy and physical strength from mom so, this is one sacrifice I absolutely urge mamas to make.
You can wait until it’s midday and baby is napping, if you’re an at home mama. This is a bit less painful than waking up at the butt crack of dawn, though it’s also more challenging because this is where we find ourselves battling excuse. Best advice for naptime workouts – as soon as you’re up in the morning, put on your workout clothes. Then as soon as baby’s napping, don’t even think about it just go workout. The more you think about it, the more likely you are to start bargaining with yourself and then that workout is not going to happen.
Or.. you could involve your baby in your workouts!
You can lunge walk while holding your kiddo.
If they’re too little to hold their head up yet, make sure you face them the other direction – toward your body .
Sit with good posture, engage our core and bounce your kiddo on your legs.
Give baby a chance to work on his flexibility with a little ‘toes to the nose’!
Some baby lifts will help get some upper body strength back – the higher you get your arms above your heart, the more calories you burn! That’s not saying toss your kid into the sky, no matter how tempting that may be some days…
You can do ‘superman’s'! Lie your babe on your shins or have him sit up and do sit-ups while holding him up there!
And don’t forget just getting out of the house with baby in the stroller or even in the Bjorn if your back can take it yet. Some fresh air and a new environment will be great for both of you! Especially on those wonderful days when the kid is crying and there seems to be no reason AT ALL for why and nothing you can do to stop it and you’re wondering why the hell you decided to have kids in the first place…….. yeah, we’ve all been there. No shame in it. Getting out of the house and changing the scenery can be just what you need to come back to earth!
It’s challenging, I know, I get it, but it’s absolutely worth it to start getting active as soon as you can. Make time. Push yourself into motion. Your body, your child and probably your sanity (or whatever’s left) will thank you.