Bonding with Baby Two
ZenMuma Amber teaches friendly and welcoming pregnancy yoga classes, hypnobirthing and baby/postnatal yoga classes in Norwich. In this blog she talks about how baby yoga helped to create a special bond between her and her second child.
When I fell pregnant with my second baby, I was over the moon. However as my pregnancy
progressed the thought did cross my mind...
”How will I love him as much as his sister?”
Of course, as soon as he was born I knew I needn’t have worried. Yet with his big sister I had all
the time in the world to spend with her. We had attended baby groups, read together, and
especially with the end of my pregnancy being in “lockdown” in April 2020, we had spent a
lot of time just us. I did not have this same time to spend with my baby boy. How could I
devote and bond with him in the same way?
Through practising baby yoga with him I have found this special time. Human babies are
premature, more than any other mammal they need holding, rocking and touching.
Through baby yoga we have ample opportunity to provide this need. When we touch our
babies in massage or yoga it stimulates the somatosensory system, so a full body massage is
excellent for bonding. He smiles when I start the warm up rhyme as he has come to
anticipate this special warming touch.
Baby yoga also promotes attachment through eye contact. I look into his eyes and ask him if
it is okay to do some yoga. New-born babies prefer to look at people and can see up to
about a foot. This is the “perfect distance” for the baby to see his mum’s face when sitting
practising yoga, and can lead to an “intense exchange”, which is great for bonding.
From around eight weeks babies can discriminate the features of familiar faces, and they are more
attuned to faces with direct eye contact. During baby yoga mother and baby spend time
looking at each other, such as in the massage and warm up sequences. I am giving my baby
my full attention, especially important with an older sibling who often demands attention.
As he has gotten older, I have introduced more exciting lifts, dips and swings, which produce
lots of giggles. Dr Markham talks about the importance of daily rough and tumble for
children in Calm Parents, Happy Siblings. Although this relates to siblings tumbling, laughing and bonding together the need for giggling to release anxiety can also be met between a parent and baby.
At one point, he was waking half an hour or so before his sister, and this was the perfect
time to do some morning yoga together. As routines have changed I have fitted in to
different parts of the day. Even if his big sister is playing nearby, he knows that yoga time is
time with my undivided attention.
There is no denying that the early days were a whirlwind and a blur, but it has been full of love, fun and laughter too.