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Nothing like Easter to sabotage a new diet/fitness plan… who am I kidding? I started sabotaging myself a week early! I’d love to say that the discipline lasted for longer than a couple of days, but it didn’t :/ The guilt I’ve been beating myself up with while stuffing myself on goodies is the reason I haven’t posted in a few days, but I decided I can’t hide from this wonderful mode of accountability! I will start again now! From this point on, I will have discipline with myself.
Though I have not been behaving myself, I did go out and do some research and, as promised, have found some fun fitness moves that incorporate babies! The best move I found, which I will share with you in this post, also helps calm a very cranky, screaming baby! This move is out of a baby yoga book called “Itsy bitsy yoga : poses to help your baby sleep longer, digest better, and grow stronger” by Helen Garabedian, which I must say is one of the best baby books ever! I have found some really awesome moves that help my baby relieve gas as well as reduce acid reflux, which came in VERY handy on the four hour plane trip we just took because they don’t require more space than you have on your lap. The gas/digestion one we used on the plane was called toes to the nose(pretty self explanatory and amazing – talk about flexibility!). The acid reflux one is called something along the lines of gentle tugs and has to do with gently tugging your infants arms. Both of these moves, along with loud shushing, my breast, and a pacifier, helped keep us safe from the other passengers on the plane… phew 😉 Please keep in mind that these poses require your baby’s cooperation and you really need to read your baby’s body language and not force anything, and really you should read the book before trying any of the moves I’ve tried to describe, as I am definitely not an expert.
And now, the pose I’m sure you’ve been anxiously awaiting… the magic pose that brought Dylan instantly from screams to smiles: squats! You hold your baby out from you with his legs facing you (your left hand under his head and right hand under his butt) and quickly drop into a squat and hold that for a few seconds. Then slowly raise up and drop down quickly again. At least for me, it was the coolest response I’ve ever gotten out of my baby! If you’d rather get an arm work out, slowly raising your baby up in the air and then quickly dropping him down to your eye level seems to work too!
So now that I have successfully downed entirely too much chocolate, and thoroughly upset my sons stomach, it’s time for some more baby weighted squats and arm exercises and some much healthier eating!
>Great ideas! I'll have to try it out on Calla. Glad your trip is going well, enjoy your time with family! 🙂