Had a baby and looking for some gentle exercise to get back into shape? Here are our tried-and-tested classes for postnatal mamas.
At Your Home
Pascale Bonnet
Pascale offers a private yoga programme, carefully chosen to stretch and strengthen your body safely and help you adapt to the demands of your new role as a mother.
In Multiple Locations
Energie Brigade
Energy Brigade offers personal training and various sports programs during pregnancy and after childbirth. There are also special programmes where you can exercise with your baby or preschooler.
Mama Move
Boot camp/class for women who have just given birth and want to be fit again. Mama Move is part of Haptomotion.
Mom in Balance ♦ AMR 2016 Honourable Mention: Best Fitness Club or Class for Parents ♦
With classes across Amsterdam, MiB offers outdoor workouts for pregnant women, postpartum recovery workouts, and total body workouts for all women who want to be fit and in shape. The workouts aim to improve strength and physical fitness, increase energy levels, and focus on a positive mindset.
Centrum
Akriti
HypnoMothering is a class for mothers-to-be, new mothers, and mothers of young children. This fun, practical class teaches mothers easy and fast self-hypnosis techniques to make the most of limited sleep, stay calm and balanced on challenging days, and find focus and mindfulness amidst the myriad of feelings that mothers face.
Pure Pilates
Postnatal Pilates is a fastest and smart way to get back into shape safely after giving birth. Heal, stabilise and strengthen your pelvic floor, abdominals, hips, and lower back.
Samana Yoga Center
Postnatal yoga focuses on the most important body parts that need restorative yoga: your pelvic floor, lower back, and stomach muscles. Samana trains the muscles carefully, building them up safely. For those with a caesarean, the postures are adjusted to be healthy and safe.
Smartbody
Pilates is a versatile approach to fitness and posture which can benefit everyone. They offer special postnatal pilates classes for mothers.
Studio Anna Mora
Studio Anna Mora provides postnatal pilates classes with tailor-made exercises. They focus on breathing techniques, spinal and lower extremity alignment, anatomical changes during pregnancy and after, correct sitting and standing posture, and spinal stabilisation principles.
Oost
Thrive yoga
Their four-week Postnatal Mommy and Baby Yoga course offers the opportunity to gently move with your baby and other mothers, to relax the body, build new strength, and share personal experiences. They do postnatal yoga exercises – with and without the baby – which aim to strengthen the pelvic floor, abdomen, hips and back, and relax the neck and shoulders. For mothers and babies from six weeks of age until crawling age.
West
Active Health Center
Active Health Center believes that practising your exercises and looking after yourself will help all the postnatal changes in the body take place normally and efficiently. This programme is best started in the first three months after birth. If you have had a caesarean section, it’s best to start after your six-week check up.
The Movement Practice
A postnatal Pilates class designed to help you reconnect with your body and recover from giving birth. You will be guided to rediscover the deep abdominal and pelvic floor muscles as well as learn relaxation techniques. Your baby is welcome in this class. If you have never done pilates before, they recommend that you wait until eight weeks after the birth. All group classes have a maximum of ten students, allowing for more personal attention within a group environment.
Wilson’s Workout
This is a class designed to get you stronger to allow you to move forward with your fitness goals and is tailored to mums who have recently had a baby. You will do safe exercises to help you with your pelvic floor and stabilise your core to help you get your body ready to start working towards your goals. And the loveliest part is that you get to bring your baby with you, in their buggy or pram.
Yoga Yoga
This class is suitable for women from six weeks to one year after giving birth, or even longer if their bodies have not fully recovered. The class is both active and gentle. This course focuses on relaxation, restoring energy, strengthening the pelvic floor, and counterbalancing the additional strain that comes with lifting, carrying, and breastfeeding.
Zuid
Gentle beginnings
Gentle Beginnings offers gentle treatments based on ancient traditional wisdom. Mirjam helps you regain your physical and emotional strength through touch, massage, herbal knowledge, and more for body and mind.
Mangalam
These Postnatal yoga classes will aid in resetting your physical body after giving birth. They will also provide you with a small time-out just for you so you can recharge yourself on many levels and cope better with all the demands in your everyday life. Asana, breathing exercises, relaxation and guided meditations all combine to create balance and harmony, physically and mentally.
Studio 191
The Baby + Me classes are a fantastic way for new mums to stay strong and relaxed without needing to find a babysitter. These sessions are designed to aid post-birth recovery, strengthen your abdomen, back, and pelvic floor, whilst encouraging you to relax, release tension, and give you space to bond with your baby. Being surrounded by other new mums, you need not worry if you need to stop to feed, change, or comfort your baby during the class.
Yoga Yatra
These are recuperative yoga classes for new mums, focusing on the mother after birth.They are suitable for women from six weeks after delivery onwards (ten weeks in case of c-section), covering the postpartum period and the first postnatal year, and can even be beneficial for women who gave birth up to two years ago and still having physical complaints. The focus is on simple – yet effective – yoga movements, breathing techniques, chanting, and relaxation.
This list has been compiled from the recommendations of our members on the Amsterdam Mamas Facebook group.
Anna Csanadi
Anna is a Hungarian who has been living and working in Amsterdam for more than four years with her partner and two children, and has no immediate plans to leave. When Anna is not working, she enjoys baking and crafting.
