Throughout their pregnancies most women are advised to continue their exercise routines. This continued exercise during pregnancy helps women to tolerate labor more efficiently and to recover from the stressors of delivery faster. Exercise during pregnancy also helps to reduce the risk of preeclampsia and diabetes during pregnancy.
But once the baby is born, life changes significantly and women often find it difficult to find the time to exercise. Their days are taken up with feeding, play time, laundry and in some cases going back to work. Finding an extra minute often means mom is taking a nap and not considering how to work out. And for the most part, most women must find the time to work out when their baby is sleeping or someone else is caring for them.
Instead, let’s consider how we can include the baby during the time mom is exercising in order to make the most of every minute, every day.
There are several ways of exercising while you have baby with you. The first thing you can try is going for a walk with baby in a stroller during nap time. Infants spend very little time awake during the first couple of months of their lives and while they are awake they should spend that time in interaction with others. So while walking with a stroller is good exercise for mom, if it is done while baby is awake they are losing out on precious interaction time with mom or dad.
Instead choose middle of the afternoon to go for a walk with your friends while pushing the stroller with your napping baby. This gives you the opportunity to spend time with friends in adult conversation, which moms seem to get very little of. And, because baby is napping, you won’t be spending time tending to his/her needs while struggling to push the stroller along.
Another option for moms in spring and fall is to walk with their newborns in a snuggly or sling. Both of these devices hold the baby close to mom while adding just a slight bit of weight to mom’s exercise program. This doesn’t work well in the summer because it increases the amount of sweat that mom will experience over the area of the body where the baby is.
Moms who find it difficult to find time to exercise with their new baby is to purchase an exercise machine that can be placed in a non-draft area. When baby is awake set him/her in a bouncy seats or infant chair facing you. Be sure that the baby is far from the exercise machine and you can exercise while talking to and engaging him/her. This increases your workload because you are talking during exercise and it gives you the opportunity to interact with your child and exercise at the same time.
Using a baby jogger is another option where baby can be snuggled in tight and napping while you are jogging or running. Placing infants in a bicycle seat in not safe until the child is at least two years old and can hold his head up with the helmet on. Otherwise your infant is in danger of neck or head injuries.
It may be frustrating and challenging to find ways to exercise with a newborn but the benefits will far outweigh the frustrations as you improve your overall health and decrease your risk of other health issues.
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