Check the gap before you do a single exercise, because what you feel with your fingers decides what you should be doing this week, and most people start with the wrong thing.
Lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat. Put two fingers pointing down into your belly just above the navel. Lift your head and shoulders about an inch off the floor, like you are looking at your knees. Feel for the edges of the two muscle bellies on either side of your fingers. Note how many fingers fit between them, and then, more important, press down. Does your fingertip sink in soft, or is there something firm under it like a trampoline you can push against?
Do the same two inches above the navel and two inches below. Three readings. Write them down with the date. Our tracker holds these if you'd rather not keep a note on your phone: https://postpartumlibrary.com/tools/core-tracker.
A three-finger gap with firm tension under your fingers is in better shape than a two-finger gap that feels like a hole. We care about the tension first and the width second. Width changes slowly. Tension changes within weeks when you train it, and it is the thing that stops the midline from pushing out when you cough, lift the car seat or sit up in bed.
If anything in the gap bulges when you lift your head and you can feel a ridge or a soft knot pushing up through the middle, stop the check and read the last paragraph before the exercises.
Start with the breath
This is the part everyone skips because it doesn't feel like exercise. It is the exercise, for the first two to three weeks.
Same position, on your back. Breathe in through your nose and let the lower ribs widen to the sides and the back. Not the chest up, not the belly puffed out like a balloon. Sideways. Then breathe out slowly through pursed lips, and as the air leaves, let the pelvic floor lift gently, as if you are stopping gas, and let the lower belly draw in toward your spine a little. It should feel like the muscle under your fingers is tightening and the skin is flattening, not like you are sucking in.
Ten breaths. Rest. Ten more. Three times a day, and you can do a set every time you feed the baby.
The common mistake is pulling the navel in so hard that the ribs clamp down and you hold your breath. If you cannot talk during the exhale, you are gripping. Back it off until you can.
Once that feels easy lying down, do it sitting, then standing, then standing while you pick something up off the floor. That last one is the one you'll use fifty times a day.
The exercises
These are in order. Stay on each one until you can do it without the midline doming. Doming looks like a loaf-shaped ridge running from the breastbone to the navel when the belly is under load. Put your fingers on the gap during the first few reps of anything new and feel for it. If it domes, the exercise is too hard for this week, not forever.
Heel slides. On your back, knees bent. Exhale, engage as above, slide one heel along the floor until the leg is straight, inhale and slide it back. Eight each side. If your pelvis rocks or the belly pushes up, shorten the slide.
Bent-knee fallouts. Same position, let one knee drop out to the side as far as you can without the pelvis tipping, bring it back on the exhale. Eight each side. This trains the obliques to hold the midline while something moves, which is exactly what happens when you reach across the crib.
Glute bridge. Exhale, engage, lift the hips until the body is straight from shoulders to knees. Hold two breaths, lower slowly. Ten. Most new mothers have weak glutes from months of a forward-tipped pelvis, and the back pain people blame on the abdomen is often this.
Side-lying leg lifts and clamshells. Ten to twelve each side. Not glamorous. They keep the hip stable so you aren't bracing with the abdomen to stand on one leg.
Bird dog, after the above are clean for at least two weeks. Hands and knees, exhale, extend the opposite arm and leg. Start with just the arm, then just the leg, then both. Six each side. Check the midline the first time, because being on all fours puts the belly's own weight on the gap.
Dead bug, usually somewhere around week eight to twelve for most people, later after a cesarean. On your back, knees over hips, shins parallel to the floor. Exhale and lower one heel to tap the floor, bring it back. Six each side. If the low back arches off the floor or the belly domes, go back to heel slides for another week.
Walking belongs on this list. Start with ten minutes and add a few minutes every couple of days. Upright, breathing, arms swinging. It does more for recovery than any one of the floor exercises above.
The whole set takes under fifteen minutes. Every other day is enough for the strength work. The breathing you do daily.
What to skip for now
No crunches, sit-ups, full planks, bicycle kicks, or leg lowers with both legs. All of them load the midline before it can hold. The research on diastasis has gone back and forth on whether crunches are harmful or useful, but in a clinic the answer is simple: if it domes, it's not useful yet.
No all-day waist trainers. A soft support binder for a couple of weeks after birth, especially after a cesarean, is fine if it makes walking more comfortable. Strapping yourself in for eight hours teaches the muscle to do nothing.
Don't hold your breath when you lift. Exhale on the effort. Car seat, toddler, laundry basket, getting out of bed. For the bed, roll to your side first and push up with your arm. Jackknifing straight up is a crunch with a thirty-pound head on it, and you do it ten times a night.
How long does this take? Most of the visible change happens in the first eight weeks, the tension keeps improving for months, and the width often stops changing somewhere around the end of the first year. Some gaps close to one finger. Some stay at two or three with good tension and work fine for the rest of your life. We wrote about what that actually looks like at the two-month and one-year marks here: what diastasis recti looks like before and after.
Get clearance from your OB-GYN or midwife before you start anything beyond the breathing, especially after a cesarean. ACOG supports a gradual return to exercise after birth, and gradual is the operative word. If you leak urine when you cough or jump, feel heaviness or dragging in the vagina, have pain with sex, or the gap is not firming up after eight to ten weeks of consistent work, see a pelvic floor physical therapist. Our page on diastasis recti physical therapy explains what the first visit involves and how to find one. And the emergencies, once: heavy bleeding that soaks a pad an hour, fever, chest or calf pain, a bulge in the belly that hurts or won't push back in, or thoughts of harming yourself or your baby. Call your provider or 911, not us.
The exercises above are the floor work. The rest, how you stand, carry, feed and sleep, is covered in our longer piece on how to fix diastasis recti.
If you want the whole routine on one page with the cues written out, our guide The 10-Minute Mom Pooch Reset is the version we hand to patients.
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.
