Parenting really did a number on us. Before our baby came along, my wife and I were a pair of relatively healthy, relatively normal-shaped human beings. But raising a child made us doughy and exhausted. Exercise became a distant memory and, coupled with the fact that mealtimes became an opportunity to one-handedly cram as much sugar into our mouths as possible in a demented bid to stay awake, we ended up bloated, listless and riddled with acid reflux.

We needed an intervention, and that’s precisely what we found in Manoir La Croix de La Jugie’s week-long postnatal retreat. In a sprawling house, deep in the French countryside near Limoges, the retreat promised a tempting combination of exercise, healthy eating and total relaxation. It would be a kick up the bum for us, a fresh start, a hacked-clear pathway back to a semblance of normality.

We didn’t go without some small measure of trepidation, though. For a whole week, we’d be sharing the house with three other families – four if you counted owners Clio and Bryn, who run the retreat, and their 13-month-old daughter. If you’ve ever spent any time around new parents, you’ll know how terrifying that sounds.

New parents are awful. They’re self-absorbed and judgmental. They all think the way they bring up their baby is correct and should be applied to every baby in the world. Plus they only ever talk about their babies. Who cry constantly. On the train to Limoges from Paris, the prospect of spending seven days being sneered at by swishy-ponytailed yummy mummies and and daddies in a roomful of bawling kids sounded quite a lot like actual hell.

Luckily, my fears were unfounded. Clio and Bryn couldn’t have been more welcoming and the atmosphere couldn’t have been more relaxed. All the parents shared the same community spirit and were ready to pitch in at the drop of a hat. What amazed me most was that our son – seven months old at the time – was the oldest baby there. The other kids were four, three and two months respectively. Considering that we barely managed to get dressed for the first six months of our son’s life, being organised enough to get to rural France seemed like an almost superhuman feat on the part of everyone else.

The week had a structure, but guests were free to stick to it as much or as little as they wanted. Each day there’d be breakfast, then a workout for the mums, then lunch, then a free afternoon, another workout for the mums, and finally dinner, served from steaming communal pots at the kitchen table.

If that all sounds a little dad-light, it’s meant to. While the mothers were out working up a sweat, the fathers got to be primary caregiver. This worked out great for me – I enjoy hanging out with my son much more than I enjoy exercise – but it went down even better with the other dads, who all had very important-sounding jobs and didn’t get to see as much of their offspring as they’d like.

The fitness sessions, overseen by personal trainer Caroline Bragg, also seemed expertly judged. After the first class, my wife came bounding into our bedroom babbling about how energised she felt. It was a sentiment shared by all the mums – giving birth is so monumentally gruelling that even something as simple as a 45-minute workout helped them feel as if they were back in control of their bodies.

Then came Wednesday, where the roles were reversed and the dads got to exercise. This was less successful, although I attribute that solely to the fact that, at this point, I’m essentially just a quivering mass of cholesterol and furred arteries. But, again, Caroline was there at all stages, walking the line between flattery and discipline.

But by far the best thing to happen during the retreat was seeing the camaraderie slowly build up between all the parents. Every one of us had been through something huge this year – in all honesty, we were all probably still quite shellshocked by it – and I took quite a lot of solace in finding the common ground from all our experiences. Strangers form strong bonds when they’re flung together in a new situation, and that’s precisely what happened here.

I very rarely get sad as holidays end – I’m always eager to get back home, mainly to see whether we’ve been burgled or not – but this was an exception. The whole break was perfectly judged from beginning to end. If we wanted to explore the region, Bryn was quick to offer trips to the closest village or a nearby zoo. If we wanted time to ourselves, we could walk in the grounds or go for a swim or play pool or just hang out in one of the house’s many cosy nooks. We ate well, we exercised well and we relaxed. Plus, on top of that, I got to spend so much uninterrupted time with my son that my wife started complaining that I’d become his favourite parent. Frankly, I’d love the place just for that.

I could have happily stayed at Manoir La Croix de La Jugie for much longer than I did, soaking up the serenity and eating apples from the orchard with my son. But as the week came to a close, we bade our sad farewells, made plans to visit again as soon as possible and prepared to start our new lives afresh as healthy, clean-eating citizens.

Admittedly we did this last bit over a massive burger at Gare du Nord on the way home but, look, one step at a time.

Way to go

The trip was provided by Manoir La Croix de La Jugie (andbreathepostnatal.com) whose seven-night fitness retreat costs £1,500 for two adults and baby (siblings under five £200 each), including meals with wine, daily fitness classes for mum, one personal training session per adult, a dads’ fitness session, a massage for each adult, and four hours’ babysitting. The next courses are from 25 March, 25 June and 3 September. Weekly rental of the Manoir (lajugie.co.uk) which sleeps 19, costs from £3,000. Train travel from London to Limoges via Paris (around six hours) was provided by Voyages SNCF, which has returns from £110pp.