Baby Yoga… or What Was I Thinking?!?!
So, if you haven’t guessed already from the programs I create, I get bored easily and am always looking for something new to try! Well, since our toddler and preschool yoga storytimes go so well, I decided, what the heck? Let’s try a baby yoga class. Never mind, I know nothing about baby yoga.
So we offered the program for 0 – 24 months and ended up with 15 people registering for it. This morning, nine little friends and their caregivers showed up and for the most part had a lot of fun. I think my biggest problem was that we had a few 5 month olds as well as 2 year olds and they can do drastically different things, so I tried to offer poses that could be adapted in both directions. I relied heavily on Itsy Bitsy Yoga: Poses to Help Your Baby Sleep Longer, Digest Better, and Grow Stronger by Helen Garabedian
For the most part the families were very kind and the kids were fairly interested. Some, of course, had no interest in yoga at all but were not being disruptive, so it all worked out in the end. I think a program like this can last about 30 minutes and end before anyone gets too cranky. It was definitely a learning experience for me, as I had never done anything like this before, but a couple people asked when the next class was, so I took that as a good sign.
If you’re interested in trying something like this at home or in your library, here are the poses I used for my class. I also grabbed a stuffie from our collection to use as my demonstration baby, which helped to explain things to the parents. The poses below also have the page number where you can find them in the Itsy Bitsy Yoga book.
- Apana (pg. 72)
- Divine Drop/Jumping Bean/Lampa (pg. 79/pg. 182/pg. 205)
- Cross Body Hands to Feet/Twistee (p. 57/pg. 179)
- I Love You (pg. 95, 155)
- So Big (pg. 162)
- Whale/Tushie Touches (pg. 102)
- Star (pg. 211)
- Downward Facing Dog (pg. 209)
- Butterfly (pg. 125)
- Tree pose (pg. 207)