Read an Excerpt
Itsy Bitsy Yoga
Poses to Help Your Baby Sleep Longer, Digest Better, and Grow Stronger
By Helen Garabedian Fireside
Copyright © 2004 Helen Garabedian
All right reserved. ISBN: 0743243552
Introduction
A baby's most natural state is bliss. Open, curious, and content, babies are designed to give and receive love. However, sometimes a baby's true state falls a little off kilter and needs help to rebalance. Since babies do not come with instruction manuals, I teach parents and caregivers simple yoga-based movements and techniques to help free babies from suffering from digestion troubles and liberate their restlessness into peaceful sleep and happiness. You, as the caregiver, don't need any yoga experience to calm your baby and help him or her grow strong. All you need to do is breathe, love, and move!
What Is Yoga?The word yoga has acquired many translations over the centuries. According to The Heart of Yoga, by T. K. V. Desikachar, meanings of the word include "to unite," "to come together," "to tie the strands of the mind together," and "acting in such a way that all of our attention is directed toward the activity in which we are currently engaged." Yoga gives us insight. The practice of yoga with a baby can help parents and caregivers bond with the baby more deeply, and understand how best to care for them. When parents come to my yoga studio, they are not distracted by the outside world. Yoga can bring moms and dads closer to understanding and supporting their child's intentions, needs, and desires. Through yoga, babies sense their parents' trust and deep commitment to understanding and responsiveness as they move forward in developing their physical, social, intellectual, and emotional skills in the way that is aligned with each child's highest destiny.
What Is Itsy Bitsy Yoga®?Itsy Bitsy Yoga is a unique blend of yoga postures, infant developmental movement, and parent/child bonding. In this book, you will find nearly seventy easy-to-learn and practical poses and techniques that benefit your child from birth to twenty-four months old. I have intertwined the cross-cultural jewels from the wisdom of an infant's moving body, yoga, and the latest research in the field of infant development to deliver a developmentally nutritious movement program for a parent and baby to enjoy together.
In teaching yoga to facilitators and thousands of babies, toddlers, and parents, I have seen firsthand the benefits of yoga for babies: better sleep, improved digestion, relief from gas pains and mild colic, a stronger immune system, and an increase in body awareness and self-confidence.
The Birth of Itsy Bitsy YogaAs a certified yoga teacher and infant developmental movement educator, I examine Hatha Yoga postures with the intention of adapting them for the nonverbal baby to do with or without a parent's help. The culmination of my professional background, twenty years of yoga and meditation practice, and a lifetime of study and experience in caring for babies and toddlers, is evident in Itsy Bitsy Yoga. Itsy Bitsy Yoga teaches parents how to support their baby's physical development and movement as nature intended. As much as possible I will tell you the role yoga plays in your child's development so that the experience and rewards are richer for you.
Not everything in this book is yoga in a traditional sense. I also translate the movements of an infant's natural developmental progression into playful practices. Many of my students are especially impressed that my poses and techniques are able to calm their babies so well.
I will show you how certain positions play a necessary role in your baby's physical development. I'll help you support your baby's physical development and the natural flow of unfolding gross motor skills. Lack of awareness in positioning, holding, or moving an infant can result in future lower back problems, reading difficulties, and challenges in focus.
The History of Baby YogaIt is my belief that over thousands of years ago when yoga was first developing, yoga masters studied the movements of babies to create postures, or asanas. Through the practice of yoga, adults are returning to the unrestricted innocence and bliss of infancy. In a sense, yoga for babies has always existed. It is part of what babies do naturally. However, the natural movement babies need to experience is being reduced with the overuse of confining baby-holding devices such as infant car seats, walkers, seated activity centers, and strollers.
Yoga Is Natural for BabiesThis photograph illustrates how an infant's development mirrors Classical Hatha Yoga postures developed more than five thousand years ago. For example, a baby coming up to a walking stance reflects the Downward Facing Dog Pose in Yoga.
Babies who are new to walking move into Downward Facing Dog repeatedly to transition from the floor into standing. Down Dog (as I like to call it in Itsy Bitsy Yoga) also occurs earlier in development when a baby is almost crawling. Throughout the book, I will explain what role Down Dog and other traditional Hatha Yoga postures play in your baby's development.
Top Five Reasons Why Babies Are Natural Yogis (yoga students)
1. Like yogis, babies prefer to breathe through the nose.2. Like yogis, babies are only concerned with the present moment.
3. Like yogis, babies love unconditionally.
4. Like yogis, babies practice nonviolence.
5. Like yogis, babies practice yoga postures naturally as part of development.
Is It Too Early or Too Late for My Baby or Toddler to Start Yoga?
No. You're never too young or too old to start the practice of yoga. Parents and caregivers are invited to start practicing the postures in Itsy Bitsy Yoga with babies anytime between birth and twenty-four months. See Chapter 2 to get you started.
Yoga Takes as Little as Twenty Seconds and as Long as Twenty-five Minutes
The time you spend doing Itsy Bitsy Yoga is a vacation from the rest of your day. This developmentally nutritious activity also enhances your bond with your baby. A baby's or toddler's yoga practice can last twenty seconds to twenty-five minutes, depending on the baby's needs and your schedule. One of the book's nine Magic Poses (explained on page 10) can reduce fussiness almost instantaneously. In five to ten minutes you and your baby can engage in any one of the book's thirty-five Itsy Bitsy Yoga Series. Each series playfully combines three to seven postures to help you calm your baby, help your baby sleep longer, and grow stronger. Finally, you may choose to practice a number of the book's seventy yoga postures that are appropriate for your baby's current developmental stage.
No Yoga Experience NeededNo experience is necessary to share yoga and its benefits with a baby. Many people have always wanted to try yoga but thought they were too busy, until they became parents. In fact, more than half of the parents I teach had never done yoga before expecting a child. When a woman becomes pregnant she has more reason to pay attention to and care for her body in ways she might not have previously. Parents come to my classes to bond with and learn about their babies. After all, the word yoga means "to unite." When people learn how beneficial yoga is, they want to share it with their families. Also, my students have found yoga to be useful for enhancing the bond between a new baby and older siblings, grandparents, other family members, and nannies.
Molly and her fourteen-month-old son, Trevor, came to my class on a friend's referral. Molly had never tried yoga, but had known that someday she would like to. She thought it would be a good activity to share with her son, and it was! It turns out that Molly loved the time she spent practicing yoga with Trevor. Now, every time Trevor hears the words "Tree Pose," he assumes the Tree Pose in yoga! Molly has also begun practicing yoga for herself and finds that she has more energy to keep up with her growing toddler.
Copyright © 2004 by Helen Garabedian
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Excerpted from Itsy Bitsy Yoga by Helen Garabedian Copyright © 2004 by Helen Garabedian. Excerpted by permission.
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