Holding and Picking Up Babies

Kiss Kiss Kiss

Squirming, growing babies and toddlers can be heavy and hard to lift and tote for any mom. We asked master trainer Dori Ricci to give us 5 tips for easing the strain.

To pick your baby up off a bed or out of a crib, your first impulse would be to bend over and pick the baby up. The better way to do it would be to get as close to the baby as you can—slide the baby close to you—and then pick the baby up. That would put a lot less stress on the wrists, shoulders and lower back.

If you're picking up your baby from the floor by leaning over, you're putting terrible strain on your lower back and stressing your wrists and shoulders unnecessarily. So the correct way to pick up your baby off the floor would be to come all the way down to the floor on your knees, and then support the baby's neck and back, bring the baby close to your body, and then stand up.

When picking your baby up out of a stroller, most of us would us bend from the waist, pick the baby up, and that puts a lot of strain on your lower back. The better way would be to remove any obstacles, kneel down, pick the baby up, bring the baby close to the body and stand up using the legs—no lower back strain.

If you're like most moms in a hurry, you're going to just bend over and feed your baby. But that's not great on your back. What you want to do is grab a chair, pull it as close to the baby as possible, sit as close to the baby as you can, and then feed your baby. No strain on the back.

In this position we're putting a lot of pressure on the lower back, elbow and shoulder. Because she's leaning forward there's a lot of stress on the lower back, and because the weight of the baby is on her arm, she has stress on her elbow, shoulder, and neck in this position. So the correct way to sit when you're feeding your baby, whether you're bottle feeding or breast feeding, would be to scoot back in the chair and lean back against the back of the chair so you have good back support and place a pillow underneath the baby and that way you relief the stress from the elbow, shoulder, and the neck.