How to lose your baby belly……a realistic plan

Just how long does it take for the baby belly to go down? If we were celebrities? Not long at all! This is the high standard that we have to live with (but shouldn’t compare ourselves too). I for one have not had kids (yet), but work in weight loss and hear countless women express how helpless they felt managing their weight post birth. Understandably you would feel overwhelmed! Eating for weight loss isn’t easy at the best of times, but post baby arrival can make it feel like a lost battle. I wanted to do a bit of research into the anatomy of the ‘baby belly’ just so I could get my head around the challenges that are faced…

Why does your belly still look 6 months pregnant 1 day after birth? 

Having a baby belly or ‘pregnancy pouch’ (another name) is quite normal. Throughout the 9 months of pregnancy, the body slowly caters for the little bundle of joy. When I say cater, I mean:

  • abdominal muscles stretching
  • uterus stretching
  • skin stretching

Unfortunately, these don’t just spring back into original position once your child and placenta are out. They take time to tighten.

How long does it take to ‘tighten’?

The baby centre and NHS discuss that going back to normal may take months and sometimes, the body may not return to exactly what it once was. A women’s progress will be dependent on several factors such as: weight gain during pregnancy, exercise level, normal body size/shape and genetics.

Is there anything I can do to speed this up and get back to normal? 

Cheer up -it isn’t all doom and gloom. There are things you can do to give your body a hand:

  • Breastfeeding – This has a double whammy effect because breastfeeding stimulates the uterus to contact and also burns calories. Regularly breastfeeding is the easiest way to get results for little effort.
  • Keep moving – Moving doesn’t mean marathons (Settle down perfectionist). Simply walking about routinely is beneficial.
  • Work the floor – Pelvic floor exercises help with not only tightening your core, but also with controlling a leaky bladder (common amongst women post birth). The Chartered Society of
    Physiotherapy have some good resources for pelvic floor exercises.

Although there is no particular food you can eat (sorry ladies, there’s no silver bullet), keeping a healthy diet is the key. If you need to get your weight down (your doctor or nurse can let you know this) consider these diet musts:

  • Eat regular meals – This doesn’t mean grazing, it means eating a breakfast, lunch and dinner. You’ll find this most challenging in your early weeks post birth. Here are some great suggestions I have come across – keep ready meals in the freezer, get your family to cook for you, chill/ freeze meals and have pre made sandwiches available. Something to eat is better than nothing! Skipping meals can make managing weight difficult.
  • Portion control – A well portioned meal (lunches and dinners) should be 1/3 carbohydrate, 1/3 protein and 1/3 vegetables.
  • Keep hydrated – Sip on water over the day. Concentration is supported when you are adequately hydrated. You’ll be tired (Captain Obvious statement) so instead of reaching for sugary treats, go for water instead.

Feeling too overwhelmed? Chat to a dietitian who can give you tailored advice to meet your busy lifestyle demands.

Oh and Kate Middleton, if you are reading this, congratulations for your new little family! Don’t feel pressured to lose that bump at ridiculous speeds. You are just like every other women at the end of the day!
Perryn Carroll- Registered Dietitian
MNutrDiet, BSp&ExSc

Twitter: @PerrynCarroll

www.hungerpains.net/

perryn

Camping holiday with a baby (is it a holiday?) – list of essentials

Relaxing amidst lush green fields, beautiful beaches with freezing cold water, eating stinky cheese and baguettes for ten days solid and drinking only the reddest of red wine. Our camper van trip to France was full of potential for our first family of three holiday – and it was fabulous – really lovely. Daisy loved the seaside – shouting with excitement each time she saw dogs jumping the waves, ponies trotting down the beach, and seagulls swooping down to scavenge picnics. To watch her little inquisitive face trying to work out all of the new things that she was seeing was fabulous.

But seriously… nobody tells you that camping with a baby is HARD WORK! I can’t decide if we came back more tired than when we left (actually, we definitely did!), but on reflection it is definitely worth it. So go ahead and book that ferry crossing, dust down the camper and get packing.  My advice is: know your subject.

So, here is my holiday essentials checklist for camping with a baby:

–          awning or  gazebo come rain or shine to avoid sunstroke and to keep the pram dry during downpours
–          at least two beach or yoga mats that can be your base when back at camp and can be taken to the beach etc for picnics (beach picnic with baby on the move = very tricky)
–          tiny blow up paddling pool (AKA baby bath) to keep baby clean and to cool down on a hot day (we got ours from the pound shop – best £1 I’ve ever spent)
–          highchair – this may seen excessive but is probably no. 1 on my list of essentials as Daisy was SO distracted when eating picnic style as she just wanted to crawl around.  The highchair enabled me to keep my sanity during mealtimes and prevented Daisy from starving (luckily, we’d splashed out on the Baby Bjorn highchair which folds flat and is super neat, so didn’t take up too much precious room in the camper).
–          sterilising tablets to keep baby alive (and another top tip: be vigilant about rabbit poo on the floor = BAD when put in baby’s mouth)
–          plenty of hats / bibs / vests / weaning spoons and bowls
–          easy to put on / take off cardigans and warm layers
–          WET WIPES
–          head torch
–          warm, runny baby porridge for the morning – drunk from a bowl (I consider this to be the baby equivalent of the early morning caffeine fix….an essential kick start to the day)
–          bananas (the simplest,  healthiest, easiest of all foods for littluns, non?) and other easy to access snacks (esp. for driving days)
–          small selection of toys

Finally, don’t forget to take a healthy amount of humour for the ride – it was much needed at times, especially when the tiredness crept up on us!

Enjoy the trip brave travellers – your baby definitely will – but be prepared to book grandma in for a day on your return so that you can rest up and recover!

 

5 important things to know about weaning

  1. Do not start early.

By 17 weeks or so your little one will start watching your every move, including everything you touch and what you eat.  If they are doing this, counts your stars that your baby has good eyesight, but don’t be fooled by thinking that means they want what is in your hand.  Babies are physiologically ready to wean between 24-26 weeks; starting earlier then this puts pressure on them to perform a skill their body isn’t ready for – it can put pressure on their stomach, intestines and kidneys to absorb a food they are not ready for (which may lead to long-term complications e.g. leaky gut, allergies etc) and it is more work for you, as you are trying to feed someone that isn’t ready to eat.  You have your whole life to shop, cook and clean up after them – don’t rush it!

And if you think your little one is hungry, just remember that that milk contains more calories than any weaning food, so a truly hungry baby is going to be better off with another feed rather then anything solid.

  1. Learning to chew takes practice

In the same way you didn’t expect your little one to nail rolling over, sitting or crawling day 1, it is the same with chewing.  They will gag and even have the odd vomit.  They are also likely to try and re-eat what they’ve just vomited or gagged!  It can create some less memorable moments, but gagging is normal and will happen more than once as your little one masters the concept of putting food in their mouth and then sorts out chewing.  Try not to act overly concerned when they gag or vomit – even though it can be a bit scary.  If they know they can get a reaction from you, it can become a way of gaining attention.  And most of all, don’t revert back to purees – gagging is a normal part of learning and no reason to take steps backwards.

  1.   Do not buy any fancy equipment

Of course the companies that sell the fancy equipment are going to tell you that you need them, but truly you don’t.  The only piece of equipment you really need to have in the kitchen is a potato masher to make mashed food and then lumpy-mashed food.  From there you can start cutting the meals into small pieces (ok so a knife is beneficial too).  Having lots of little freezer-friendly containers of various sizes is a definite bonus, but save your pennies that you would have spent on a puree-type machine and spend it on a massage for yourself.  You’ll enjoy it much more and won’t have to find space in the cupboard for it later on either.

  1.   Finger-foods are your best-friend.

To teach your baby to chew, the best foods are finger-foods and there aren’t many foods that can’t be offered to a baby to hold and chew/suck.  In every meal there will always be something your baby can hold to get used to the texture and have that ‘control’ over the meal that they desperately want.  Pasta, strips of meat, vegetable sticks, bread ‘soldiers’, sliced fruit, flakes of fish, chunks of potato or sweet potato… And as your little one gets more confident they will probably want to start feeding themselves the rest of the meal too.  Within weeks your little one will be able to sit and eat whilst you can do other stuff! Bliss! Check your email, call a friend, start preparing another meal, or even eat your own meal – you will love finger foods and the independence it brings you both.

  1.  It will be messy, messy, messy…

Whilst finger-food and self-feeding are good ways to avoid fussy eating, it is a messy business.  For as many things that successfully go in your baby’s mouth, there will be little bits squashed onto fingers, rubbed into eyes and hair, wiped onto highchairs, under table-tops, down table-legs, thrown onto the floor, kicked onto another chair… The list goes on.  I swear I have a 1mx1m space in my kitchen that should be the cleanest place in Britain as I’m on my hands and knees wiping it down after every snack and meal.  Instead I continue to find bits of rice, smears of yoghurt, breadcrumbs and the odd dehydrated blueberry in places you swear you cleaned earlier.  Oh and couscous? I recommend it from a Dietitian’s view on variety, but it is truly the worst thing in the world to clean up.  You have been warned.

Contributed by our guest blogger Fiona Nave, who is a Registered Dietitian. You can find her at Diet Angels and on Twitter @FionaNave

Fiona