How can I exercise with my baby?

After allowing your body to rest and recovery from delivery you’ll eventually have the energy and need to get out and exercise. Give yourself at least a month before beginning an exercise routine. One of the best ways to exercise with your new baby is to walk with him in a baby carrier. This form of exercising has many benefits for both you and your new baby.

Walking outside in the daylight actually helps babies sleep better at night. Additionally, walking with your baby exposes them to sunlight, providing them with Vitamin D. Vitamin D is actually produced by our bodies when we expose our skin to sunlight. Vitamin D is crucial for normal growth and development, especially in the formation of bones and teeth. Two hours a week of sun exposure to the face and head supplies light skinned babies (and their moms) with their daily requirement of this important vitamin. Dark skinned infants may require more sunlight to create the same amount of vitamin D.

Babies are used to a continuous state of movement that they felt in the womb. Walking with our babies carries on this familiar state as they get accustomed to being out of the womb. This is very calming to them. You may find that your baby has a particular difficult part of the day when he cries more often. Taking your baby for a walk in the baby carrier at this time will be an easy way to calm him, allowing you to get your exercise at the same time.

One benefit babies receive in a carrier which they don’t get in a stroller is being close to their mother. Carrying your baby allows them to hear, smell and feel you; thus creating a much stronger bond and knowledge of who their mother is than they would if they were being rolled in a stroller. Your heartbeat is already familiar to them from their time spent in the womb and simply feeling and hearing this while being held in the baby carrier is soothing. Language and social development is also heightened when babies are carried in a baby carrier because babies make more eye contact with their caretaker and whoever their caretaker engages with.