Breathing Space for New Mothers ― Rest, Stretch, and Smile--One Yoga Minute at a Time

A humorous and gentle approach to becoming a new mom, with space to breathe, do yoga, and be "good enough," even if it's only through a one-minute yoga pose at a time.

In ten humorous, practical, and compassion-filled chapters, yoga instructor Alison Rogers and co-author Erin White forge a new path through contemporary motherhood with their collection of gentle and generous suggestions for beginning and deepening a home yoga practice for new mothers; their treasury of authentic and honest stories of motherhood; and their original tools and metrics to synthesize their key messages. Organized around the first year of a baby's life and focusing on the keystones of a yoga class--but taking only one minute from a busy mom's schedule for a given exercise--readers go from a warm-up through the art of balancing and building core strength to the deep and rejuvenating rest of savasana, chapter by chapter. Through the sometimes awkwardly funny stories and "we've been there too" insights, the authors offer mothers a singular message: Your wellbeing matters as much as your baby's. Each chapter ends with a one-minute yoga pose, which can be done in a sequence (listed at the end of the book), to create a relaxing and balancing support for the incredibly demanding first year with a baby and to help mothers know that they are "good enough."

ALISON ROGERS trained as a Kripalu Yoga instructor at Kripalu Center for Yoga and earned a master's degree in counseling psychology from Harvard and a doctoral degree in Cross-Cultural Child Development from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. After more than thirty years of clinical work as a therapist and educator, she shifted her focus to create the Yoga of Parenting workshops, a practice and philosophy that integrates principles from cutting- edge Western psychology with mindful yoga to help parents as they practice caring for their children with confidence, authenticity, and pleasure.

ERIN WHITE received her MFA in fiction writing from the University of Massachusetts. She is the author of Given Up for You: A Memoir of Love, Belonging, and Belief. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, the Kenyon Review, and elsewhere, including several anthologies: The Bitch is Back, the sequel to The Bitch in the House; Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers; and Oh Baby: True Stories About Conception, Adoption, Surrogacy, Labor and Love.