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Baby Yoga
Benefits of baby yoga:
Yoga offers all of the same benefits as baby massage but also some very positive additional benefits:
1) Using the moro reflex - we can work with our babies moro or startle reflex (in a very controlled way) to teach our babies about trust building, dealing with change and emotional self-reliance. All important factors in the development of our babies emotional bedrock capabilities.
2) Instinctive self protection - some babies are born with a instinctive response to put their hands out in front of them if they feel themselves falling, a very important skill particular when learning how to toddle/walk. Other, for all sorts of reasons (dyspraxia, eye-sight problems and behavioural issues for example) very often do not have this instinctive capability. Part of our yoga training focuses on how we can teach our babies that if they feel their centre of gravity changing or falling that we should try to control the fall and put our hands out to protect ourselves.
3) Building core strength - our core focused moves (particularly our advanced baby yoga moves) work to build our babies core strength and improve head control. Without core strength and upper body strength our babies may experience delay in reaching many of the development milestones used to monitor our children's development curve. By encouraging our babies to use core muscles and improve their head control we can begin to redress the balance of reduced tummy time (babies now spend very little time lying on their tummies) and the implications that this can have on babies development.
4) Diagonal co-ordination - our yoga moves teach our babies the important fundamental of diagonal co-ordination - how to move arms and legs in opposing directions. This skill can be very challenging for some babies to master particularly if they have any behavioural or development issues, but without this skill the basics of crawling and walking will be difficult to achieve.
5) Teaching our mums and dads to breath - part of the yoga training focuses on helping our mums and dads to remain in control by using simple but very effective breathing techniques. Very often simply by focusing on our breathing and breath control we can maintain greater emotional balance and deal with the day to day challenges of parenthood in a calmer and more in control way. As part of the yoga training we also look at quick and simple techniques for dealing with stress at home and for remaining calm even in those difficult periods when stress and lack of sleep can impact on our parenting skills.
Our Happy duckling baby yoga sessions work with babies a minimum of 8 weeks all the way up to 2 years. Unlike massage where the same routine is suitable for all ages, yoga is more age specific. Some of our poses are suitable for babies 8-20 weeks (our beginner moves), others are suitable for babies 20+ weeks onwards (our advanced moves).