The Post-Partum Tummy Routine

Having a baby is a beautiful and exciting thing. What is less beautiful and exciting, however, is the extra weight that hangs around the midsection after the baby has been born. The best way to go about shedding this baby belly is proper diet and an exercise routine, which may not always be easy to do for a new stay-at-home mom still reeling from a pregnancy. The good news is that working out and eliminating the extra belly fat will give you more energy, so you can spend more quality time playing with and caring for your new rugrat. Here are a few simple exercises to set your on your way toward baby belly freedom. As with any workout routine, be sure to consult a professional before beginning and always warm up properly to avoid injury.

Progressive Crunchless Crunch
This stomach exercise works your abdominals as well as a crunch does, but without the strain to your neck and back. Begin by sitting in a chair, placing one hand above and below your belly button in order to feel the contraction of your abdominals. Take one big deep breath, so your midsection expands completely. Then let the breath out as you pull your belly in, imagining your belly button being pulled inward toward your spine. Finally, briefly contract your abs five times. Do a full set of repetitions of all three parts. You can also try this exercise lying on your back. Try both to see which one helps you feel the contractions of your abdominal muscles better.

Contractions
This exercise starts off very much the same way as the last one, but involves quicker steps and more repetitions. Begin by sitting in the same position as in the progressive crunchless crunch, and taking the same deep breath. This time, instead of bringing your belly all the way back, exhale and bring it just about halfway. Then pull your belly button back toward your spine. Contract and hold for a count of one. Repeat from the half-exhalation point. Do the whole thing one hundred times.

Crunchless Crunch
As you can tell from the name, this stomach exercise is very similar to the first. Instead of making a few stops as you exhale a deep breath, however, this exercise consists of just one move. To start, either lie or on your stomach or kneel. You might want to try both ways and see which helps you feel the exercise better. Relax your body as much as possible, then try to use only the lower abdominals to move your belly button toward your spine. Hold for ten seconds. If holding for ten seconds feels easy, hold for a longer period. The goal is to hold the contraction until you either cannot feel it, or you feel other muscles working harder than the transverse abdominus. When you feel this, let the contraction out.

If you start doing these stomach exercises at home in your spare few (very few) minutes, you can lose your baby belly and be fit and trim and just a few months-- just in time to start chasing after Junior once he learns to crawl!

Baby Games To Play At A Baby Shower

Babies are so much fun. My sister has a baby shower coming up and it gave me the idea to write about the games played at Baby Showers. Games at a baby shower are lots of fun since moms-to-be, godparents, grandparents, and other invitees in the baby shower can get to play childish games again.

Some of the baby shower games that can be played include Sing It, Baby!, Measuring up Mommy, Here's Looking at You, Kid!, Don't Say Baby, Baby Truth or Dare, The Seventh Gift, and Dig out the Pins.

These baby games are the common baby shower games usually played. They are a great way that would let the guests mingle and get to know each other, if they aren't acquainted yet. This is also another great way to give honor to the mom-to-be for having that precious baby on the way.

How do we play these games ? Here is the run-down on how to play these games and create good memories of a great baby shower.

In Sing It, Baby!, the guests participants form a circle. They can sit or stand. Then, each guest must sing a line or two from a song that has the word "baby" in it. When the first game player has finished, the next person seated on her right has ten seconds to sing another "baby" song. "Baby" songs cannot be repeated, thus, participants who repeat a song or cannot think of a "baby" song gets booted out of the game. Last person singing in this baby shower game wins the prize!

How big has mommy become? Measuring Up Mommy is the baby game shower to play as this gives the guests the freedom to measure mommy's size. Have a couple of toilet paper rolls ready and ask each participant to estimate the size of mommy's girth by cutting the toilet paper to their guess size. Then each one wraps around the new mommy's stomach the toilet paper they cut. The nearest length approximating to the mommy's stomach wins the prize!

Remember how you looked when you were a baby? This game takes you down memory lane as you need to dig up those baby pictures of yours. Because you need them to play the baby game shower Here's Lookin' At You, Kid! Before the party itself, request all the guests coming to bring the cutest baby picture of themselves.

Upon their arrival, secure each baby picture and assign a number per picture. During the game, lay all baby pictures and give each participant paper and pen and ask them to identify as many baby pictures as they can. The guest with the most number of correct guesses is the big winner.

This game makes you NOT say what you are suppose to be attending to! The game Don't Say Baby is precisely that! Don't say "baby" during the entire length of the shower or the diaper pin that was given to you upon your arrival will be taken away from you. The person with the most number of diaper pins collected at the end of the shower party wins a prize.

This baby shower game is for those who love baby trivia and the like. Play Baby Truth or Dare by writing down some baby trivia, some correct and others purposely written incorrectly. During the baby game shower, ask randomly if the baby facts are either true or false. Those who guess correctly gets a prize while those who don't will be dared to perform in front of everyone else.

We all know that the single lady who catches the bride's wedding bouquet is said to become the next bride. In The Seventh Gift, it is not so much a baby shower game but more of a fable that says that the giver of the seventh gift unwrapped will be the next expecting mother. However, avoid "planting" the seventh gift.

Last but not the least, Dig Out the Pins is the baby shower game that tests the agility of the guests as they fish out the most number of diaper pins from a large bowl filled with uncooked rice and diaper pins in under two minutes. The participant that has the most number of pins brings home the prize.

Have fun with these shower games...