Am I ever going to be able to exercise again?

[Petsville]

DS is 6 weeks old and exclusively BF on demand. I'm sore, achey (particularly my back) and look so dreadful I can't bear to face the mirror any more - I fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes but I don't look like myself at all. I exercised all through the pregnancy and stayed pretty fit, and now I'm desperate to get back to some kind of exercise but can't see how when DS is so unpredictable. I can't leave him with DH for an hour and a half if he's likely to spend all that time screaming for food, and I haven't been able to express much so far because DS seems to want to feed so much at the moment.

I hate to mention routine - I know it's a dirty word on here - but when is he at least going to get a bit more predictable? Am I going to have to start giving him formula if I want to get any exercise and feel better? Feeling really low this morning, please help.

Things often get quite a bit better around 6 weeks, but different babies are different.

First of all, how is feeding going generally? How often is he feeding, and for how long? Some mums find that just writing down when the baby feeds and for how long helps them work out if there are predictable gaps. (Goodness knows, if you're tired and worn out, it's hard to see a pattern.)

Second of all, what's up with your back? Do you need to see a physio? Or work on your feeding positions? Or do some pilates?

What sort of exercise did you do pre-pregnancy? How is your health generally?

Can't help with the routine I'm afraid my DD is 11 weeks EBF and still feeds every 1.5 to 2 hours for at least 30 mins.

However is there a mum's walking group near you? You could take your DS in their buggy or a sling and get fit and meet mums at the same time. If your DS is anything like my DD they will sleep all the time you are moving about so you shouldn't have to feed them during the walk.

Check on either the Mumsnet or Netmums Local boards to seee if there is one near you.

Alternatively you could always try expressing at night when DS is asleep to build up a supply of expressed milk. Personally I'd prefer to sleep at night instead though :)

Also although 6 weeks feels like a long time it's still early days so don't put too much pressure on yourself to snap back into shape.

Of course you are OP! Take it easy though - the baby is still very small (congrats by the way) and you're still recovering from birth. When DS1 (and DS2) were around 8 weeks old I started doing gentle exercise again (walking everywhere with baby in sling is a good start!) and when they were 10 weeks old started to do pushymothers (a mum and buggy based exercise group - google them and see if there is one near you) which was great. As its other mums, they're v understanding if you need to stop to feed your baby and will do exercises while you're feeding. Also did postnatal yoga and pilates which were good for a recovering body. And then when they were both 6 months old I rejoined a gym and resumed my usual pre-baby exercise regime 5 days a week.

I think my DD got herself into a little routine at around 3 months but it changes all the time!

I agree with the walking, I used to take DD out in her pram for a good old power-walk around a country park. Stick some good tunes or a podcast on your ipod and go for it.

I also got an exercise DVD and stuck DD in her bouncy chair while I did it, she seemed to quite enjoy watching me bouncing round the sitting room like a loon.

Once your DS is a little older (6 weeks is so tiny still!) then you could check if your local gym has a creche facility, most of them do.

OP - I can sympathise, as I was also a fit person up to and including pregnancy and was really keen to return to it.

I walked for miles in the early days as a gentle form of exercise.

I also did some DVD with DD watching me in the bouncy chair - tbc its a LOT easier to do this now than it will be in 6 months or so when he is mobile!

In terms of routine, well tbh I think it was around the 3 month point before I suddenly realised one day that we did have some sort of routine! I started an evening routine early (3 week point) but had just fed on demand all day in an effort to 'tank her up'(!). By 12 weeks she had started to feed at around 3 hourly intervals quite naturally - but they all different I guess.

If you think it would help, then I would carry on trying to express. I used to express first thing in the morning....I expressed from one breast whilst dd fed from the other and managed to get a fair amount that way. I then 'topped this up' during the day so I had a big bottle by late afternoon. Dh then used to do the early evening stuff with DD, allowing me to run or go out to the gym. It take me until the 9 week point to be able to run though; a high forceps delivery and loads of stitches meant my undercarriage felt like it was going to drop off when I tried before then!

From day one you can do stuff like pelvic floor exercises, progressing to trying to suck in hold your tummy. This can all be done whilst holding/feeding DS.

Good luck.

What sort of exercise were you thinking of?

Can I recommend the 10 minute solutions series of DVDs, they all have 5 10 minute workouts which you can combine or do one at a time. I had a prenatal pilates one, and I also have pilates on a ball, which I really like. They do them in a range of types of exercise. www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_10?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=10+minute+solution&sprefix=10+minute+

I find this sort of thing is easier to commit to as I really just need to throw on a sports bra and go. Because they are in short sections, it's not the end of the world if you planned to do 40 mins but baby wakes up after 20.

Thanks for the replies. Sorry, my first post was a bit misleading: I am getting out with DS in a pushchair (he hates the sling, so no luck with that), so it's not that I'm getting no exercise at all. But I really, really miss proper exercise: even while I was pregnant I cycled everywhere and swam twice a week, and walking with the buggy just isn't enough. (Health is generally good, NotQuiteCockney, and the feeding is going well except that it's making me miserable because I can't do anything else.At the moment he seems to be feeding all the time during the day, but sleeps for quite long stretches at night.)

More importantly, I've done Pilates for years to protect my lower back, and I'm worried that it'll just pack up if I can't get back to classes fairly soon. If I can go to regular classes, I don't need physio or any medical help. It looks from these posts as though I'm not going to be able to, though, so I suppose I just have to grin and bear it unless someone starts a postnatal class near me that I can take him along to - there isn't anything at the moment.

Also found postnatal yoga good - I think most classes let you take the baby with you, mine did. Some of the baby swimming organisations can start from quite small, e.g. waterbabies (try their website) and bouncing your dc around in the water etc. is quite good exercise! Can be expensive though. Buggy walking and sling carrying are free of course. 6 weeks is still quite early, you will get back into it I'm sure.

Sorry, cross-posts - I've been doing pelvic floor exercises and gentle Pilatesexercises, notyummy but I'm crap at getting things in the proper alignment and I need a teacher to tell me where I'm going wrong - I'm afraid of doing more harm than good otherwise.

xpost, sorry. I'm pretty sure our leisure centre here advertises post natal pilates, could be worth looking for similar near you?

xposted again - you already looked for pn pilates! Perhaps someone will start one up, fingers crossed for you.

Frankly, if you feed him just before you go and then he howls a bit during the 1.5 hours you're away, this is not necessarily going to do him harm. I used to leave my son to go to church. I was out for 1.5 hours and yes, my husband was VERY pleased to hand over a yelling baby. My reckoning was that he couldn't be that starving if I'd fed him just before I left and they could manage for a short period once a week. I encouraged my husband to put him in the pram and push him round the streets if it was driving him mad. He didn't cry all the time and I thought it was good for my husband to come up with some soothing solutions of his own. Supposing we all fell under buses?

Just do it. Your health is important, too.

could you and lo and DH all go swimming together once a week? then you can get a few lengths in while DH and lo play, you can take a pit stop to feed if needs be then go and do some more lengths.

If the pilates is really crucial to you could you splash out on some private classes for 3 months or so? If you've been a regular for so long would your previous teacher consider home visits? then schedule them for when DH or someone else can be around, feed lo and send them off on a walk, the worst that would happen is that lo will cry and they'll come home.

saying that aren't most classes an hour? it won't be long before lo will easily go that long with out a feed - you can feed just before a class, send lo and DH off and you do the class.

At 6 weeks everything seems impossible, but soon enough you'll figure out ways to do what you want to do.

Can you get swim nappies for such a small baby, RobynLou? I've only seen 3 months plus.

get some plastic pants that are normally used with reuseables and use them over the normal nappy.

We used terry nappies and DD never had swim nappies for swimming, just her normal plastic pant covered terry.

This is really early to be despairing.

Do you run at all? (I don't, but people do). There is a lot of running mummy type stuff around: look for "Mumifit", "PowerPramming", "Running Mummies", etc.

Your local council and/or leisure centre may produce a magazine with local listings. Many classes are on a drop-in basis, so you can see how you feel on a day. Leisure centres would have somewhere for DH to sit and have a coffee while you exercise. He and DS will be out of sight and out of hearing, but not out of reach!

abr1de's point about getting DH to develop his own soothing strategies - is an essential thing to incorporate into your strategy. Otherwise, sooner or later, you will be posting on a thread about how 'DH doesn't believe I do "anything" all day - help!'

waterproof nappy covers for newborns -

www.amazon.co.uk/polyutherene-Waterproof-breathable-Elasticated-Especially/dp/B0012X91AY

and abr1de's right of course, I left DH to get with DD from about 3 months for an hour or two at a time, she fed constantly when I was there, but when I wasn't they learnt to get on with it, they now have a wonderful relationship, largely because they have been allowed to have their own relationship away from me from so early. I'm pg agin now and DH will be having this one on his own from even earlier hopefully!

try again with that link...

www.amazon.co.uk/polyutherene-Waterproof-breathable-Elasticated-Especially/dp/B0012X91AY

Petsville, I really, really sympathise - I'm missing proper exercise SO much, it makes me very achey and miserable if I don't do anything. I'm doing a lot of buggy walking, but have to be fair to DS who doesn't necessarily enjoy being loaded into a buggy and pushed around for 2 hours. Buggy walks are also fine as long as the weather's fine, but on a rainy windy day, it's not that simple. And it doesn't give me the same feeling as 'proper' exercise.

It's not just the 'getting in shape' aspect of exercise for me, it's the endorphins and the emotion. I miss the 'whoosh' of energy I used to get running, and I don't know that I'll be able to run until DS is mostly weaned, tbh. (I'm a 38FF, btw, which doesn't make the bra situation any easier.)

DS is 11 weeks now, and I did actually manage a couple of gentle gym sessions before my latest bout of mastitis, and it was SO GOOD....

I can express and leave a bottle of BM behind for DS in case he gets peckish, but even then, it's not as simple as that - I have to exercise with boobs that are as empty as can be, and be very careful with sports bras as compressing BF-ing boobs is a bad idea and can cause... mastitis! Grrr.

So much depends on circumstance - how near a gym you are, for example - if it's going to take you 20 mins to get there and 20 mins to get back, that doesn't leave you much time for exercise when you're there.

Atm I'm managing by doing yoga in the house when I can, as all I need there is a 10 or 20 min break. But I see what you mean about not wanting to do too much unsupervised.

If you can't take your DS swimming, and 6 weeks sounds young to me - I know waterbabies insist on specially heated pools for that age - could you beg/cajole your DP to at least come with you, bringing DS, but remain poolside, or in the car even, so that DS can be within reach if he gets hungry, and you have to jump out of the pool and feed him?

Sounds utterly daft, but I know I'm so desperate for exercise, I'll consider desperate measures...

Hi, Pluperfect - DH is not the problem, or even part of the problem! He's spending a lot of time with DS winding, changing and soothing him - in fact in most respects he's much better with him than I am (useless mother all round, that's me). It's just that, at the moment, he's doing it with me somewhere else in the house, or only out for ten minutes or so, so that I can feed if DS is hungry.

I don't run, incidentally - really can't do it and couldn't even when I was a teenager. Cycling's always been my thing.

Thanks for links for waterproof pants, RobynLou. Might try that.

Barkfox, I crossposted - sorry you're not having fun either, but I'm meanly grateful to know that I'm not the only one who feels like this! Buggy walks are really not the same. Know what you mean about the bra situation too - I'm a 28HH at the moment, which is just ridiculous. I've never been a runner, but I'm worried about giving myself two black eyes even in a Pilates class!

Petsville - I had a brilliant pilates for mothers dvd (got from Amazon) that I did after DS1 (no post natal pilates classes near me in those days) which was good for easing me back into pilates - worth checking it out.

Pluperf. isn't saying that (if I may presume). The point is that your husband might have to spend and hour and a half of 'intense' time with the baby, jigging him, walking with him, singing to him, but this won't do either of them any harm one night a week. But the one night a week in the gym or wherever will do YOU a lot of good. It is really important that you look after yourself.

Swimming and pilates definitely the way to go, and a session only need take an hour. If your DH won't or can't mind the baby at the pool/pilates class, could you pay a babysitter to come with you?

There are pilates classes near me (and I live in the sticks at the moment) that even allow nursing mothers to bring their babies -- I'm sure you could find something.

Otherwise, power walk!