The short version is breathe, then core and pelvic floor, then walk, then add load, in that order, and nothing with a hard crunch in it for the first few months. The longer version is below, because the order matters more than any single exercise and most people skip the first two steps.
We'll say this once and then get on with it. Check with your OB-GYN or midwife before you start anything beyond walking and breathing, especially after a cesarean, a tear that needed repair, or a complicated birth. ACOG is fine with gentle movement within days of an uncomplicated vaginal birth, so you don't have to wait for the six-week visit to start the early stuff. You do have to wait for the harder stuff.
At a glance
Steps 1 to 5, in this order
- 1
Step 1, from day 1: lying down, 10 slow breaths, ribs widen on the inhale, belly softens on the exhale.
- 2
Step 2, once step 1 is easy: add a pelvic floor lift on each exhale, 10 breaths, let go fully each time.
- 3
Step 3, around week 2 to 3: heel slides, exhale and lift the floor as one heel slides out, 8 each side.
- 4
Step 4, week 3 to 6: glute bridges, exhale up, 3 breaths at the top, 8 reps, plus a 10 minute flat walk.
- 5
Step 5, after your 6 week check: bird dogs and squats to a chair, 8 reps each, walks up to 20 minutes.
- 6
After a cesarean: steps 1 and 2 only until your incision check, then start step 3 the same way.
The first two weeks
Mostly you're lying down, feeding, and bleeding. That's the job. Movement here is about not making things worse and starting to reconnect with muscles that have been stretched for months.
Get in and out of bed on your side. Roll, drop your legs off the edge, push up with your arm. Don't sit straight up from your back. You'll feel why if you try it; the midline bulges and the pelvic floor takes a shove.
Breathing is the first exercise, and we mean it as an exercise. Lie on your back or side with your hands on your lower ribs. Breathe in through your nose and feel the ribs widen into your hands, the belly soften, and the pelvic floor drop a little. Breathe out slowly and feel everything come back in. Five breaths, several times a day, while the baby is on you. You're teaching the diaphragm, abdominal wall and pelvic floor to move together again, and the slow exhale is where the deep core starts to work without you forcing it.
Once that feels normal, add a small pelvic floor contraction at the end of the exhale. Close the openings and lift, gently, then let go all the way. The letting go is half the exercise. Women who leak or have pain often grip constantly and don't know it, and more squeezing makes that worse. If you can't feel anything happen, or you feel a bulge or heaviness when you try, stop and note it for later.
Walk to the mailbox. Then the end of the block. Pull back if your bleeding gets heavier or brighter the next day, which it will if you've overdone it. That's the most reliable feedback you'll get in these weeks.
While we're on bleeding: soaking a pad an hour, a fever, chest pain, calf pain or swelling in one leg, a bulge that hurts, or thoughts of harming yourself or the baby mean you call your provider or 911, not Google.
Weeks two to six
Still gentle, but now you're adding positions and small movements. Keep the breathing. Everything below is done on the exhale.
Pelvic tilts on your back with knees bent, 8 to 10, slow. Heel slides, one leg out along the floor and back, 8 to 10 each side, watching that the belly stays flat and doesn't dome up along the middle. Glute bridges, hips up on the exhale, down on the inhale, 8 to 10. Side-lying, knees bent and stacked, top knee opens and closes, 10 each side. Hands and knees, rock back toward your heels and forward, letting the belly hang and breathing into it.
Sit to stand from a chair without using your hands, 5 to 8, exhaling as you stand. That's a squat. You'll be doing a hundred a day with a baby anyway.
Walking gets longer. If you're feeding and walking, feed first. A full chest is heavy on the upper back and you'll hunch.
After a cesarean, don't skip this stage because the incision feels fine. The abdominal wall was cut through and the deep layer needs the same slow reconnection. Once the scar is fully closed and your provider says so, usually around six weeks, start touching it: gentle pressure around and then on it, small circles, a few minutes a day. Scars that stick down pull on the bladder and the lower belly for years if nobody mobilizes them.
Somewhere in here, check your midline. Lie on your back, knees bent, lift your head and shoulders an inch, and press your fingers just above your navel. Count how many fingers fit in the gap, and more usefully, feel whether the tissue underneath is firm or whether your fingers sink in. Check above and below the navel too. Two finger-widths with some tension underneath at six weeks is common and usually closes with the work above. Three or more, or a gap that feels like there's nothing under it, is worth having someone look at.
Which is the second thing we'll say once. If you're leaking with a sneeze or a jump, feel heaviness or dragging by the end of the day, have pain with sex, have a gap that isn't changing, or just can't tell whether anything is working, see a pelvic floor physical therapist. Your six-week visit is a medical check, not a muscle check. Nobody at that appointment is going to assess how your pelvic floor coordinates with a squat.
After the six-week visit
Now you build. The rule for the next several months is simple: if an exercise makes your midline dome, your pelvic floor bulge, or you leak, it's too much for today. Make it smaller or pick another.
Add bird dog, 6 to 8 each side. Dead bug with one leg at a time, then both. Standing rows and presses with a band. Squats with the baby, lunges holding the stroller, step-ups onto the bottom stair. Two or three short sessions a week, 15 to 20 minutes, plus walking most days. More often than that and you'll be too tired to do it well, and tired is already your baseline.
Sleep, protein at every meal, and a water bottle you refill all day are not optional extras here. Tissue doesn't rebuild without them, and we've watched plenty of women do every exercise right and stall because they were eating toast at 3 p.m. and calling it lunch.
Crunches, sit-ups, planks held for a long time, and anything that makes you brace hard and hold your breath stay off the list for the first months. Not forever. When the midline holds firm and flat under load, you can start reintroducing them. Same with running. The Returning to Running Postnatal guideline that most pelvic PTs follow puts the earliest return at about 12 weeks, and only if you can hop on one leg, jog in place for a minute, and do a single-leg squat without leaking, heaviness or pain. Plenty of women aren't there at 12 weeks. That's information, not failure.
What you'll notice, roughly in order: your breathing stops feeling shallow, getting up off the floor stops being an event, the lower belly firms up before it shrinks, your back stops aching by evening, and somewhere in there you realize you haven't thought about your pelvic floor during a sneeze in a while. Nobody can tell you the date. We can tell you the order.
Skip the waist trainer. Wearing one all day keeps the deep core switched off and pushes down on a pelvic floor that's trying to recover. A supportive high-waisted garment for a few hours while you're on your feet is a different thing and fine.
If you want the first stage laid out as a short daily sequence you can do on the floor next to the baby, our guide The 10-Minute Mom Pooch Reset walks through it step by step.
The 10-Minute Mom Pooch Reset
The 12-week, 10-minute-a-day core and belly plan for exhausted moms: the gap check, breath-to-core, three phases, kitchen-counter and naptime routines, food that helps, and 6 printable trackers.
See the plan →Not sure yet? Take the free 2-minute quiz
Educational content from the Mom Pooch Reset team. Not medical advice for your specific situation. Get clearance from your OB-GYN or midwife before exercising after birth, and see a pelvic floor physical therapist for leaking, pain or a bulge.
