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Adventures in Attachment Parenting: Taking Care of Me by Allison Silver


I haven’t posted a blog in a few weeks because I’ve actually been taking some time to take care of myself. Shocker, right?! As mothers most of us put our own physical and emotional needs on the back burner in order to meet the needs of our family. This is especially true when we have babies and young children. Or at the very least it’s been true for me.

Ever since the birth of my daughter, two and a half years ago, I have put most of my own needs on hold to make sure that hers were being met. Shortly after her birth I started having hip pain. I kinda brushed it off and just thought it was because I was sleeping on one side all of the time since we were cosleeping with our baby. At my six week postpartum checkup I told my Ob/Gyn about it and he told me that it should’ve resolved itself by now and all he could do was prescribe me physical therapy. Since I thought the idea of leaving my six week old baby at home to attend physical therapy was ludicrous, I declined the offer. I continued to have the hip pain and noticed it was typically worse at night and until my daughter was nine months old I had to sleep with the Boppy pillow between my knees at night or my hips would ache. After she turned nine months the hip pain seemed to get better and I just assumed that perhaps it took my body a bit longer to recover from having a baby. However, the hip pain never went away completely.

I recently started attending Yoga again thinking it would help and mentally it definitely has. In fact, I highly recommend Yoga for anyone who has a two year old! But my hip pain has almost gotten worse! Since we are beginning to think about baby number two over here my husband and I both agreed that I should try and get this hip issue resolved before we add another pregnancy to the equation.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I had already tried therapeutic massage, yoga, and didn’t really feel like western medicine could help me. By chance I ended up talking to a naturopathic doctor about it and she suggested I try a chiropractor and referred me to someone local. To tell you the truth I was a bit hesitant to try it. I was nervous that it was going to hurt or that he would break my neck! But something that my yoga instructor had said resonated with me. She said, “Pain should not be ignored. It’s the body’s way of saying something is wrong here.” Well, I had ignored this hip pain for long enough.

So I called the chiropractor on Friday and made an appointment for Monday morning. When I got to my appointment on Monday he looked over my history and told me that I was the third or fourth patient to come in with postpartum hip pain. That doesn’t even count two of my close friends who have told me that they are having similar issues! My first adjustment was really easy and I didn’t even really feel anything. I told the chiropractor, “I was really afraid it was gonna hurt.” And he said, “Don’t worry I will ease you into it.” Oh, great!

So far I have gone a total of three times in the past two weeks. I won’t lie it’s a bit nerve wracking to hear your body popping and cracking but it hasn’t hurt and I even jet him adjust my neck this week. I am typically sore after my adjustments but my hip pain has gotten a bit better. In fact there have been a few nights where there has been no pain. So that’s a definite move in the right direction!

During my second appointment last week he suggested that I do more exercises to build up my core strength. He feels that the adjustments will stay longer if my core is stronger. He was going to give me a list of exercises to do but I know me and I won’t do them! So I spoke with a friend who is a local owner of Stroller Strides. I remembered that she had told me that Stroller Strides really focuses on toning up those post baby muscles and does a lot of core strengthening. So I decided to sign up for a trial week. Plus, I really like that I can bring my daughter with me.

Yesterday was my first session at Stroller Strides and I’m not sure about you but I really didn’t think it would be the greatest workout! It’s just a bunch of chatty moms pushing strollers, right? Oh my gosh! It was intense! A friend of mine went with me and there were times both of us almost threw up! It was definitely more then I would do on my own. And my daughter did pretty well too. She got a bit antsy towards the end but I think she may do better once she gets used to the routine and understands that she can run around at the end. I will definitely be returning to Stroller Strides on Friday and I am interested to see if the chiropractor can tell a difference and more importantly if I feel a difference! So slowly but surely I am trying to take care of me.

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