Baby yoga is a set of practices to enhance playful interaction and communication between parent and baby and to promote their healthy development.  It focuses on Hatha yoga, ‘Ha’ meaning sun and ‘tha’ meaning moon.  This type of yoga consists of moving and held poses each one a form of stretching and or balancing also involving the counter stretching.  In yoga much focus is given on posture or ‘Asanas’ and the alignment of the muscular and skeletal structures, but in baby and children’s yoga it is given less focus.  It helps maintain a baby’s natural suppleness whilst relaxing both baby and parent.  Exercises for babies are based on these yoga techniques and designed to help strengthen their muscles and maintain the natural suppleness with which a baby is born.

Much of the yoga stretches in a class are made by the parent or carer, with older children they may be able to assist themselves in these movements and this should be encouraged to promote self-esteem.  In baby yoga class’s exercises are kept age specific and never forced, working with the baby’s body as it develops naturally, never over stretching or over-working the baby.  Babies are naturally quite flexible but much younger ones aren’t so much as a 5-6 month baby, when limbs become much more flexible.  To keep with the principles of yoga, each exercise is balanced for both sides of a baby’s body and followed by a period of relaxation.  Baby yoga also helps bonding between parent and baby, so they can learn to recognise each other’s cues and helps parents learn how to handle their baby confidently.  Simple breathing techniques can also be used later for baby to copy, since they already breathe through the nose this is the practice that is followed in adult yoga also.

Baby Yoga perfectly complements baby massage and expands the benefits of touch with those of movement and relaxation.  Baby yoga helps to attune to a baby’s needs and to calm or stimulate them as appropriate with a sense of security and wellbeing. It is beneficial for all babies, people don’t need to practice yoga or even know anything about yoga to get started with their baby. From Birth babies respond positively to the stimulation of movement and touch together. Baby Yoga includes a wide range of different practices that can be combined to suit the needs of each baby or toddler through their individual development:

• Gentle body strokes
• Yoga moves adapted to babies (mini twists, mini stretches, upper and lower body movements, diagonal movements) These moves have been transmitted through generations in India for at least 2000 years
• A blend of postnatal yoga and baby yoga for new mothers
• Playful moves with rhymes
• Joint parent/baby relaxation (walking relaxation, instant relaxation, relaxation to sleep, feeding relaxation)
• Transitional practices (head control, sitting, crawling, standing, early steps, first jumps and balances)