You can't just "bounce back" after baby
Postpartum movement must reflect the new realities of your life
This week’s guest contributor is yoga and movement educator Naomi Gottlieb-Miller, author of What Moves You on Substack. (Website | Instagram | YouTube)
When I was postpartum for the very first time, I had no idea how to move my body.
That would be totally normal—if I hadn’t taught yoga and movement for eight years by the time my first child was born in 2013. I’d been a “mover” my entire life, starting with dance as a kid, team sports in high school, and running when I went to college.
But my baby would only sleep if she was on my body. I learned how to do a lot of things while wearing her—putting on shoes, making a sandwich, brushing my teeth, going to the bathroom. The one thing that I could never quite adjust to, though, was moving my body while wearing her. I did it, but I hated it.
I missed my long yoga practices and my solo runs along the creek near my house. Yoga now had to fit into quick snatches of time, often while holding her. My runs became walks with her in tow. Sometimes, the only time it made sense to move my body solo was after she went to sleep at night. Not terrible, but also not the same.
This is the problem. We’re told as moms that once we have our babies, everything should go back to “normal,” which is whatever you were doing before having kids.
We see this in everything from how we are meant to earn money or respect, to how our bodies are supposed to look and move. The expectation is that everything should stay the same, and mom just figures it out. None of it is realistic or fair, and in some cases it’s not healthy.
As a movement professional, even I wasn’t immune to this because no one told me otherwise.
No one talks about how hard it is to adjust to life with kids. I mean, we talk about some of the stuff—leaky boobs, sleepless nights, postpartum depression that doesn’t quickly fade away.
We talk about breastfeeding vs. formula feeding and that ‘fed is best.’ We talk about the inequities of childcare for moms reentering the workforce. We even talk about how problematic it is to promote “bouncing back” to pre-baby bodies after giving birth.
What we don’t talk about quite as much, however, is how much parenthood changes our routines because, in some ways, it seems obvious. “Of course parenthood changes our routines!”
Yet, the expectation to adjust into our pre-parenthood routines remains, and so we hear things like, “I don’t have time to workout or do yoga.” This is because the old expectation doesn’t line up with the new reality.
Once mom is cleared for movement postpartum, she’s supposed to figure out a way to get in her 60-minute gym workout, right? Or drive 20 minutes to her weekly yoga class, hit the CrossFit box 3 times a week again, or just hop on her Peloton at home for a speedy 45-minute sweat sesh?
That’s ridiculous, and it’s not how it works.
This mismatch of expectation vs. reality is intensified if you work for yourself. An entrepreneur doesn’t have a boss and sets her own schedule. which you’d think would make things easier for making movement happen. But in my experience, it’s harder.
One reason it’s more challenging is that running your own business can be unpredictable. You may have a certain measure of consistency (as an example, I teach online Monday through Friday at 10am and have certain tasks with specific monthly deadlines). But other things can complicate or completely wreck that schedule—a seasonal launch, a podcast interview, a website malfunction.
This unpredictability is like parenting—sick kid, special school event, your partner being out of town, doctor’s visits, afterschool activities. And your child ages, the extras and their needs change; just when you start to get comfortable, something shifts.
Nothing can go back to the way it was. Instead of trying to force movement into the box it neatly fit before motherhood, we need to learn how to make movement easier within the new shape of our lives as parents.
That tends to look like shorter movement practices that are efficient and fun, often in the comfort of your living room, even if you’re surrounded by Legos and stuffed animals and children who need your attention.
It took me over a year into postpartum to realize this. I think I knew it sooner, probably around 3 months, but I didn’t want to believe it. Would you?
In truth, the realization was liberating. I finally understood that I didn’t need a 90-minute yoga class at a studio. I didn’t need to squeeze out precious moments of my life at the gym. I can bring movement to me, and it doesn’t have to be the same as it used to be.
I can do a 10-minute workout, or even a 5-minute yoga practice. I can move my body in a short amount of time and feel good. That quick movement is effective and efficient. Not only does this make it easier and more accessible within the unpredictability of parenthood, but it also gets me back into all of the other stuff I need to do when I’m done moving.
The opponents to this will say to me or other moms, “you’re not giving yourself enough time” or “10 minutes is insufficient for true strength training” or “you’re selling yourself short in the self-care department.” To which I say, I don’t need your guilt or pressure.
I don’t need your outdated expectations for what movement is for me or for anyone. I don’t need your standards of perfection that are meant to hold me in place rather than allow me to grow. I just need to move my body.
While I’ll admit that sometimes those pressures still feel very real and very internalized, most of it dissolves when I actually get on my mat to move. Because movement is enough.
What matters to me isn’t how much time I move, how much I sweat, or how sore I am the next day. What matters is the consistency and how I feel. Those metrics are far more important than minutes spent on mat.
I remember a private client I once had who didn’t didn’t go to a yoga class the entire time she was raising her kids. She finally made her way back in her early 60s.
I don’t want to set aside my needs until my kids are grown. I want to tend to myself now, allowing my movement practice to adapt and grow with me. That can’t happen if I expect it to be the same as it was before I had kids. There is no going back.
Naomi Gottlieb-Miller (she/her) is a mover, a maker, and a mom of 3 wild, wonderful kids. Naomi has been teaching yoga and movement since 2005 and has been writing for even longer. She writes about the intersection of motherhood and movement and how it all fits into the culture we love within. Naomi specializes in teaching short movement classes that pack a punch, making sure you can easily squeeze your daily movement into whatever pockets in your day you happen to have. When Naomi isn’t teaching writing or teaching, she loves reading books, going on outdoor adventures, dancing in her kitchen, and eating chocolate chips by the handful. She’s the author of What Moves You on Substack. (Website | Instagram | YouTube)
Love this, it's what I needed to read!