Baby and Me Yoga - Massage

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Angela Cerkevich: Hi! My name is Angela Cerkevich and Im a yoga instructor with Yoga Tales in the Bethesda, Maryland, and this is how to do yoga with your baby. So, were going to learn how to give your baby a massage. This helps you begin to connect with your baby through your yoga practice and it also clams them down a little bit or at least amuses them. So, you want your baby to be comfortable in a blanket in front you and then depending on whats comfortable for you, you can set up nice and tall like so, one ankle in front of the other, or if it works for you, you can bring your feet out on either side of your baby. Now, if this causes you to round your back at all, youre going to want a slide another blanket, such as this one underneath your rear, just to keep your spine nice and long.

So, gazing down at your little one, youre going start to with a heart shaped motion. Massaging this heart shaped motion over your babys chest and down to their belly. Lets go and do that. Thats a nice smile. So, this is also really nice to do on changing table. You can put a lotion on them this way; this little motion is really soothing can already see she is kind of a little bit more focused here. She is kicking, thats fine, but her shoulders are kind of a little more still.

So, youre also going to want to notice your breathing, Allying your breath with the movement of your body, so I am gently rocking forward as I inhale and then as I exhale, I am coming back. I am not rocking from here; I am letting my pelvis tilt forward as I rock. So, I am starting to get nice opening back in the hamstrings. So, lets do it again. Inhale long spine, following that heart shape in front of her shoulders, exhale, trace your hands down to your babys belly, sit up tall. Inhale leaning forward. Now, I have got my belly in a little bit. Exhale pulling back. Inhale leaning forward, belly is lifting, exhale coming back. Great.

So, now were going take our babys hands and were going connect the right and left sides of their brain, by rubbing their fingertips together. Just making that nerve connections, getting baby ready to crawl, if your baby is not quite there yet, and if you noticed, did you see her fingers just started to open a little bit, when I was doing that. There we go, yeah. Thats a great stimulation for the nervous system of your baby. So, now were going to do some baby stretches. Now, come back to your seat, make sure youre not crouching down. If your back is starting to hurt, you want to sit up tall and perhaps sit on maybe even a pillow. So, were going to inhale bring the arms, and exhale bring them in. I am inhaling and exhaling, she is breathing on her on. Inhale arms out, exhale bring them in. Now, she has got that tight hugging her arms in, thats okay, thats fine. Were just going to take it out to the limit. Inhale arms out, exhale them in. Great.

Now, were going to do one of my favorites baby roll. So, if your baby is still learning to roll, this is really nice for them. Youre going to try and get, she is not going to do it today. So, what were going to just do is grab her hips and twist her hips over to one side, baby roll, here we go, one side, boom and take her back. Youre going to grab gently her hip and behind the knee. Twist and back -- of course or his if your baby is a boy. Other side; just twist and back. If you notice, when baby start to learn the twist, they do it from deep down in their pelvis, so thats why were focusing on that part. Twist, boom and back.

Lets do one more time to the other side, real gentle just grabbing the hip and the knee. Twist and back. Alright. So, we warmed up your baby. Next, were going to warm you up.

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