What is Reddit's opinion of Suzanne Bowen's Slim & Toned Prenatal Barre Workout (2012)?

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Sorry that sounds frustrating. I love to do other things, but I do feel like walking and squats are the ultimate pregnancy exercises. This is also a super great DVD https://www.amazon.com/Suzanne-Bowens-Toned-Prenatal-Workout/dp/B008X7JBPM maybe try dvds from the library or I've noticed Amazon prime video has a few things too?

Heavy stuff first:

Don't know how far along your girlfriend is, but just know that early on there is a definite non-zero chance of miscarriage. It happens more often than people talk about. If there is a miscarriage, support your gf and her emotions, and know that overall it's not too bad, because now you know you can conceive. My first pregnancy ended in early miscarriage, and I chose not to tell anyone but my husband because I deal with big emotions privately. My second (successful) pregnancy we announced around 12 weeks.

When pregnancy seems like a go, you should handle legal/financial stuff. Talk with an attorney about wills / contingency plans for both of you (especially because you're not married) and consider whether it makes better legal/financial sense to be legally married, considering healthcare etc. The higher earner of you two (or both) should get life insurance. It costs money, but it is insurance against a true catastrophe, which I have seen happen - someone I know lost their (primary earner) husband when their baby was 4 months, with no life insurance. It is terrible.

Pregnancy: < 8 weeks - totally easy and fine, exciting. I hiked halfway down the Grand Canyon

8 - 13 weeks - absolute misery. Could barely eat anything other than bagels and cliff bars, exhausted and nauseous all day. I would come home from work, get into bed, and sleep for 12 hours. My husband helped a lot to keep the household moving and take care of our dogs.

14-30 weeks - smooth sailing, just kept getting a bigger belly. Ate mostly my normal healthy diet (eggs, fatty meats, whole milk yogurt, veggies, fruits, medium amounts of carbs) and didn't gain too much weight. I exercised a few times a week with a pre-natal barre workout DVD (a lot of squats and bodyweight exercises) which I think helped a lot for pushing during labor, and went to prenatal yoga at least once a week, which helped with back pain and balance. My job requires me to be on my feet and moving around a lot (work in a research lab), and walked dogs every day, so was pretty active.

weeks 31-37: Things started to get more difficult. I was tired more. I wish I had actually slowed down a lot more and rested during this time instead of pushing myself, don't know if it affected me going into labor early. We interviewed and hired a doula, picked the hospital to deliver at, started buying baby gear.

Birth: I went into labor spontaneously at 36weeks+5 days. Labor was about 12 hours total, from noticing I had contractions, to baby out, 2 hours of pushing. Doula was not really helpful, as she was delayed getting to the hospital, and I couldn't deal with the pain around 6 cms and got an epidural. Best decision I made, A+++, would epidural again. No tearing. We chose to deliver in a hospital due to risk of catastrophic things happening, like hemorrhage. If your gf is super gung ho about non-epidural birth, it would be a lot easier to follow through on that in a non-hospital setting - the temptation was too great knowing it was available when the pain got really bad.

After birth: Our baby was super skinny at birth (from being early) and spent a few days in the NICU. It ended up not being a huge deal overall, and we were still able to breastfeed and pump milk, so he got colostrum and was still entirely breastfed after the first day. My biggest regret there was that they gave him a bunch of antibiotics, for no freaking reason (no fever or real signs of infection) except as a CYA move, and I worry about his microbiota and if it will cause problems for him down the line, or if it is related to some food allergies he's developed.

Baby gear:

The only thing you really need is a carseat, diapers, and some clothes. But other useful things were:

A moby wrap / ring sling - newborns love to be carried 24/7 and close to their mothers. We got a lot of use out of these.

Rock'n'play and/or automatic swing - for those times when you don't want to hold the baby. Also good for getting them to take naps not on you.

I also really recommend co-sleeping and side-lying nursing (in bed) as opposed to a crib. I would have gone insane from lack of sleep if we weren't co-sleeping. I barely woke up at all during the night to feed him and still got sleep, albeit in 2-3 hour chunks.