Bumps on the Road to Grandparenthood

A first-time grandmother learns that baby care can be surprisingly physical—and gets expert advice on how grandparents can prepare their bodies for the job.

Grandparenting brings joy, bonding and, sometimes, unexpected back pain. After straining her back while helping care for her newborn grandson, writer Diane Krieger spoke with Torrance Memorial occupational therapist John Resurreccion about how new grandparents can prepare for baby duty with safer body mechanics, flexibility and core strength.

Last November, I became a new grandmother. I felt so ready. I’d been lobbying my son, Adam, for a grandbaby since his wedding day.

He and my daughter-in-law, Sarah Leah, live in New Orleans, so our family flew out from Los Angeles to meet the newborn. Baby Noam was perfect, and I was ecstatic.

What many new grandparents don’t expect is how physical baby care can be. Lifting a baby out of a crib, lowering them into a car seat, carrying an infant carrier, bending over a changing table and pacing with a fussy newborn can strain muscles that may not be used to that kind of repetitive movement.

A couple of months passed. Then, as Sarah Leah was transitioning back to work from maternity leave, they asked me to come help out for a few weeks. I gleefully accepted, little realizing what I had signed up for.

Acute back pain, that’s what. Within a few days, I’d strained my intercostal (rib) muscles so badly, I was seeing stars when I rolled out of bed.

“What the heck is this?” I wondered.

The Unexpected Physical Side of Grandparenting

Noam, then about 10 weeks old, weighed only 14 pounds. I’m no athlete, but I’d describe myself as a 64-year-old woman in good health. In hindsight, my back injury was so predictable.

I threw myself into grandmothering as if 30 years hadn’t passed. Too late, it dawned on me that serious baby care, like running a marathon, requires physical training. Only a fool would go in cold.

Turns out sprains like mine are common among new grandparents, according to Torrance Memorial occupational therapist John Resurreccion. “You don’t go in thinking about your body and your positioning. You just want to get the job done,” he says.

How to Prepare Your Body for Baby Duty

To get ahead of bad outcomes, Resurreccion recommends scheduling a preventive health session with a qualified exercise science professional—it could be an occupational therapist, physical therapist, chiropractor or fitness trainer. They can assess your overall physical condition, pin down your grandparenting goals and educate you in the proper body mechanics needed to move safely with a baby.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all exercise routine for expectant grandparents, Resurreccion advises as a general rule of thumb to focus on overall flexibility in the shoulders, hips, trunk and back, and build up core stability and strength. If you don’t have a gym membership, sign up for senior workouts at your local rec center. Torrance Memorial offers its own fitness and exercise classes at TorranceMemorial.org/classes. And there’s a whole sub-genre of grandma workouts on YouTube.

In my case, the damage was done. Forklifting Noam onto the diaper table and into the bassinet, lowering him into the infant seat, hoisting the clunky carrier onto the stroller and angling it to lock in the car seat safety base—all these actions involved twists, winches and holds I hadn’t trained for. Heck, I didn’t even bother with stretches or warm-up exercises.

Pain aside, I was deeply frustrated by my back injury and disappointed in myself. I’d promised my services for a full month, and here I was, sidelined after a few days. Still, I refused to throw in the towel.

Resurreccion recommends that when new grandparents find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, they should have “an honest talk with your kids.” Negotiate a lighter workload, suggest ergonomic adjustments to the nursery set-up and ask for back-saving tweaks in the baby-care routine.

Small Changes That Can Protect Your Back

I dialed back my cooking and housekeeping ambitions and delegated most of the heavy lifting to my kids. When the baby got fussy, I got creative. Pacing the floor was hard on my aching back. Even dandling Noam on my knee wasn’t pain-free.

I discovered a wonderful alternative in lullabies. My voice is nothing special, but Noam was mesmerized by my impromptu performances. It turns out recorded music doesn’t hold a candle to the multisensory experience of watching grandma’s bizarre facial expressions while rhyming, melodic verse pours from her mouth.

So I brushed up old classics like “Golden Slumbers” with YouTube karaoke videos. I can now sing “Frère Jacques” in three languages. I memorized the lyrics of quirky favorites like “Good Morning, Starshine” and the Italian pop tune “Volare.” In a hat-tip to Noam’s birthplace, I added “House of the Rising Sun” to my vocal repertoire.

Back sprains can take up to 12 weeks to fully heal. Two months in, my intercostal muscles are still achy, but I no longer take pain relievers and rarely need my back brace.

It’s too soon to hit the gym. Resurreccion suggests I start slowly with abdominal bracing. This isometric core stabilization technique involves the contraction of abs, obliques and lower back muscles to create a stiff “corset-like” feeling in the spine and ribcage. I can do this exercise either standing or sitting as I go about my day. In line at the supermarket or watching TV, I’ll just tighten my abdominal muscles as if I’m bracing for a gut punch and hold for a few seconds while maintaining breathing.

The good news is my kids have invited me back to New Orleans in September for three weeks of intensive babysitting duty. This time I’ll be ready.

Key Takeaways for New Grandparents

• Baby care is more physical than many new grandparents expect.
• Repetitive lifting, bending, twisting and carrying can trigger back or rib muscle strain.
• Flexibility, core stability and strength can help prepare the body for caregiving.
• Safer body mechanics matter when lifting a baby, using a car seat or reaching into a crib.
• Grandparents should speak up if the workload is too much and ask for ergonomic adjustments.
• Torrance Memorial offers fitness and exercise classes that may help older adults stay active and strong.

What’s Changed Since You Raised a Baby

From safe sleep to food allergies, today’s parenting guidance may look different from what grandparents remember.

Much of what new grandmothers remember from their own maternities has changed. Take breast pumps. My daughter-in-law, Sarah Leah, pumps while she drives. She pumps as she does housework. She pumps as she makes her hospital rounds (she’s a pediatric resident).

Quiet, cordless, hands-free, fully wearable double-breast pumps emerged in the mid-2010s. Hundreds of ingenious gadgets now flood the maternity market. There’s a phone app that monitors fetal heart rate and a “baby fruit feeder pacifier” that safely microdoses pureed solids while doubling as a frozen teether.

Throughout her pregnancy, Sarah Leah took to the pages of The Bump, an all-encompassing maternity platform that sends daily tips to users’ phones. Nowadays she consults AI to resolve her baby-care quandaries.

“That’s really changed how new parents learn,” she says.

The consensus around best practices has evolved over the last 20 years.

I asked Raquel Fernandez, MD, a pediatrician at Torrance Memorial Physician Network, to spotlight some differences.

Back sleeping for newborns is in, she says. Stomach sleeping is out. Parental co-sleeping is a hard no, and minimalism is now the preferred nursery décor. To protect against SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Dr. Fernandez says, “We want the bare minimum in the crib. No rail bumpers, pillows or blankets.”

To inoculate against pet allergies, parents are now encouraged to introduce even newborns to dogs and cats—provided that furry friend is closely supervised and reliably baby-friendly. Dr. Fernandez recommends exposing babies to “top allergens as early as 4 months, especially if there’s a family history of eczema, asthma or food allergies.”

She instructs parents to mix powdered versions of common allergens into purées and cereals once baby is ready for solids. Traces of shellfish and peanuts can be added at 6 months, and eggs and milk products like yogurt and cheese can be offered at 9 months.

Given how much has changed, Dr. Fernandez counsels new grandparents to listen and learn from their kids, and go easy on volunteering unsolicited advice.

“The internet makes new parents anxious,” she says. “There’s so much information out there, and grandparents can be a really good sounding board. But don’t be overly pushy. Respect the way your kids want to do things with their baby.”

This information is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult your physician or another qualified health care provider with questions about a medical condition, injury or exercise program. If you are experiencing severe, worsening or persistent symptoms, seek medical care promptly.