Calling all mums of big, heavy babies...

[cyteen]

...how do you manage the wear and tear inflicted on your bodies by lugging them around all day? My DS is 6 months old and seemingly made of solid rock. I didn't realise quite how heavy he is until I picked up a friend's 12 month old daughter yesterday and discovered she weighs about the same as my cat.

Anyway, much as I love him, he is making my body hurt. All my joints ache, but especially my elbows, knees and wrists. My left wrist is really bad - it's weak and achy all the time. My back is constantly stiff as well but tbh it was quite rubbish before he came along, so I'm less bothered about that.

I do ten minutes of warm up exercises every morning before we start the day, which does help, but was just wondering if anyone else had any wise words of experience...

ds was 10lbs 11oz at birth and been a big lad ever since. He was a late crawler and walker and I was completely exhausted and achey carrying him about all of the time. No advice really, just to let you know it does get easier as they get steadier on their feet. Xxx

Ah, that's good to know. My little pudding hasn't even rolled over yet, so I shall be interested to see whether he crawls early or late...

Aha! I suffer(ed) from this too (DD now 9mo and 9.7kg). I thought it was arthritis or something. But as usual MN to the rescue. It's a reasonably common postnatal complaint, I think, and may be linked to pregnancy hormones, etc.

I started taking a cod-liver oil supplement with Glucosamine, Omega-3 and Chondroitin.

I don't know for sure, obviously, if this has done the trick, or whether over time I would've felt better anyway, but I feel MUCH better now, and barely suffer from this anymore.

HTH!

Oh wow Penthesileia, thank you Weirdly comforting to know it's not just my crappy old bones caving in.

I know - I was pathetically grateful to find out that other people were suffering the same! I thought I was old before my time! They don't tell you about this in the baby books, huh?