Get outdoors with your baby

Feeling isolated and bored is a major complaint among new mothers, so don't just mope around at home, get outdoors. You and your baby will reap the benefits.

Studies suggest that children who have early memories of nature tend to be more active outdoors as adults. When out and about with your baby, introduce her to the changing seasons by allowing her to see, touch and smell nature in the form of scrunchy leaves, sticky buds, soft pussy willow and hedgerow fruits.

Arrange to meet other parents with babies in buggies once or twice a week. Take a walk to a baby-friendly cafe or gallery, or take a picnic to the park. Look for a hill to push the buggy up, or join a baby-walking or stroller fitness group.

Think of baby's buggy time as mum's fitness time. Slowly build up your walk with the pushchair until you're taking a regular 40-minute brisk walk. Remember to hold yourself upright with tum tucked in to help build up those abdominals after pregnancy.

Babies are much more immobile than in the past, strapped into travel systems that enable you to move them without disturbance from car to supermarket trolley to bedroom. 

Some paediatricians fear that an increase in cranial distortion, or flat-head syndrome, may in part result from babies spending extended time in car and bouncy seats, infant carriers and swings.

Protect your baby's head and spine by taking her out of the car seat when you're not driving and wean her off sleeping in seats. Instead, carry her in your arms or a sling, sit her on your lap or place her on her tummy.

1001 Ways to Get in Shape by Susannah Marriott, £12.99 Dorling Kindersley 

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