in defense of yoga pants
As a birth doula I get a lot of questions postpartum…
When will this squishy belly disappear?
I haven’t showered in 8 days… is that ok?
When can I work out again?
What am I supposed to do with this thing (baby) all day?
You get the idea. I’ve read all the books and searched all the blogs for the latest and the greatest advice for postpartum moms. But most of what I’ve found is complete rubbish. And they all seem to say the same thing…
- Be sure to dress well every day! You’ll feel better for it!
- Be diligent about working out! It’s sooo important for feeling and looking your best!
- Sleep when the baby sleeps.
- Let the house go and just focus on your precious peanut.
You’ve all read these tips, right? I don’t really have anything against them, per se. But I’m not convinced it’s the best advice. So I decided to come up with my own list for new mamas. Here’s what I usually tell my clients postpartum…
- Lookout. Whether you want it or not, you are about to get an absolute onslaught of advice. The woman at the pharmacy, the stranger on the street, the kindly grandmother-type in the bathroom at church… they all know how to take care of that baby better than you do. But you know what? It’s not true. You are doing just fine. Your baby will be f i n e, even if you dressed her too warm, swaddled him too tight or burped them all wrong. Relax, take it in stride and treat all the pieces of advice (like this blog post, for starters) like shoes. Try ’em all on for size but only keep the ones that fit. You got this.
- Don’t exercise. Seriously. Exercising is not what you need to be doing right now. The drive in our culture to get back to the gym, onto the treadmill, back in those skinny jeans as soon as possible is ridiculous. And dangerous, people. One of my clients last year fainted at the gym. Why? Because she was there just 3 weeks after delivery. You body just did something mind-boggling. And the process took nine months. Give it some time to heal, for all your innards to readjust, for crying out loud, and for your hormones to stabilize just a tad. If you are honest with yourself, I’m guessing that your driving motivation in working out is not to feel good but to look good. It was for me. Fight the urge and do what is best for your body and your soul, which at the most is probably walking. Walking is great. Take all the walks you need and leave it at that for at least six months.
- Buy some yoga pants. Ahhh, yoga pants. They get such a bad rap. And I’ll admit that I’ve never been accused of being terribly fashionable, but I think the advice to dress up everyday is just silly. I’m not advising you to stop showering, dress like a slob and shuffle around town in your jammies. But dress for the job. It’s common sense. Wear something comfortable. It might not be yoga pants for you (I can see a few of my friends shuddering right now) but skinny jeans and knee high boots might not be it, either, when you’re spending 8 hours in the glider nursing your newborn. Just a thought. Figure out what’s comfortable and save the skirts and heels for going out to dinner or meeting up with friends.
You aren’t exactly doing this in your yoga pants? No biggie. - Make your bed. You might not be able to dust and mop and scrub like you used to, so yes, you might have to “let the house go,” but make your bed everyday. For some reason this made me feel like I still had a semblance of my life together after I had Gryffin. No military corners or anything. I just pulled the sheets and bedspread up, fluffed the pillows and called it a day. It takes one minute, tops. I still do it every day. Makes me feel more legit, more look at me, I still got it, even my bed is pulled together. Try it.
- Give someone else your baby. For at least 2 hours every week. And start as soon as possible. There are so many options out there for this, from a personal babysitter to a friend to a mom’s group with childcare. I know it’s hard to leave your baby at first. I do. It’s almost physically painful. But it’s so, so good for you. After I had Gryffin, I didn’t leave him anywhere during the week until he was 17 months old. Seventeen months! And then I started going to a mom’s group on Thursdays with free childcare. Best decision ever. So almost immediately after Isaiah was born, we joined the Y so I could have 1.5 hours every day to
sit in the hottub,workout, WALK. - Find some other mamas. If you aren’t lucky enough to join a waiting tribe of friends with babies, find some other way to connect with other mamas. Whether it’s a PEPS group or a mom’s group of some sort, you need friends to pass the long days with, to laugh at your neurosis, to help you troubleshoot all the various parenting dilemmas, and someone who gets it when you talk about sleep deprivation and poop and the bovine humiliation of pumping.
- Speaking of bovine humiliation, read Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott. Nobody beats Lamott for giving words to the soaring heights and despairing depths of having a baby.
- And the best advice we got, right before we had Gryffin, was from our friend, Greg. He told us not to expect that our life would be the same, only with a baby now tagging along. Expect that your life will be completely different, he said. Because it will. It should be. And he was right. The sooner you figure this out, the easier it will be. It’s a hard adjustment, having a baby, and the learning curve is really steep. But the pay-off is exhilarating, expanding, life-altering goodness. So embrace it, enjoy the ride, and pick up a new pair of yoga pants while you’re at Target for the 8th time this week.
———-
Agree? Disagree? What else should I add to my list? What was the best advice you got when you had a baby?