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You might have learned about Mommy and Me Yoga while scrolling through your social media feed and want to know more about it. As a mother, it’s always a good idea to find out more about activities you can do with your child before you actually sign up for them.
In Mommy and Me Yoga, you extend your mat to make room for your babies. Mommy and me yoga includes happy, playful, and gentle yoga exercises, techniques, and poses centered around activities you can do with your baby. It does not cause any harm to the baby. On the contrary, it provides a variety of benefits to both the mommies and the babies.
To enlighten you on the benefits of mommy and me yoga. I have shortlisted the best benefits of mommy and me yoga in this article.
Benefits of Mommy and Me Yoga
1. Elevates Emotional Wellbeing
Parenthood is always a stressful experience, especially for mothers. Postpartum depression is a common thing among new mothers – the overload of hormones just adds to the anxiety of taking care of the baby alone, in addition to postpartum depression.
To better take care of your baby, you need to give yourself the time and nourishment to heal. That is exactly why your emotional wellbeing is very important.
Mommy and me yoga is a great way for mothers to deal with new-parent jitters. The stretches and mindful exercises you perform in this yoga helps you care for your bodies. Plus, the mothers you meet in these classes help you deal with the feelings of loneliness and depression.
2. Strengthen Parent-Child Bond
Mommy and me yoga helps you make the connection between yourself and your baby stronger. The soothing movement of the gentle workout helps you form a deep connection on a whole new level without you worrying about any crying or burping. The more you yoga-play with your baby, the more you’ll find out his likes and dislike about the play, eventually the more you’ll be adding to the parent-child bond.
By the end of each mommy and me yoga session, you will find yourself much more relaxed, your baby laughing and both of you have the time of your life.
3. Improves Sleep
This benefit is perhaps the most important for new mommies, especially the ones dealing with postpartum depression.
Not only does “mommy and me yoga” help improve your sleep, but it also helps your little develop sound sleeping patterns. The movements and physical activity help in releasing endorphins that change the perception of pain and helps improve mood. You will notice that after each session of mommy and me yoga, your baby is more at peace, and it is very easy to get your kid ready for an afternoon nap after a yoga session. In addition, the meditative and breathing exercises you practice in these yoga classes will help you sleep better at night. Both you and your baby can sleep for longer stretches of time.
4. Helps With Baby’s Stomach Issues
In mommy and me yoga, the center of attention in all exercises is your baby. That means none of the movements and poses you do with your baby are random. It is specially designed to help both you and your kid to the maximum. This explains why mommies noted a number of pleasant developmental and physiological changes in their babies. The stretches and movements in the yoga work on the fine-motor skills on your baby and help in situations like digestion, constipation, colic, and gas among many others.
It is a sight to see when exhausted mommies come in with their fussy or irritated little ones, and the movements of the mommy and me yoga helps calm them down.
5. Keeps Baby Happy
Mommy and me yoga is unlike any other yoga you have ever done in your life. You won’t be holding any pose for 30 seconds here. Instead, you will be in a constant moving state. There will be soft music, harmonious singing, and cute, gentle stretches for the baby. The movements and yoga poses have a repetitive and soothing feeling for the baby. In short, each session will have everything that makes a baby happy.
6. Increase Energy Levels
Typically, all new mothers experience decreasing energy levels; this can happen because of any reason at all but the most common ones are:
the added responsibility of tending to the little one’s every need
pressure of feeding
lack of sleep
carrying the baby around all day long .
If you don‘t allow your body to heal and rest, you are most likely to shut down. When you learn relaxing yoga movements, it helps target the areas undergoing the most strain, which can make a world of difference. The more you stretch and take care of your body, you’re likely to experience improved energy levels.
7. Provides Sensory Stimulation
No matter which kind of mommy and me yoga you enroll yourself and your baby in, there will be tons of sensory stimulation for your little one. These yoga classes actively engage all your baby’s senses, especially their auditory, visual, tactile, and physical senses. No matter the age of your baby, you cannot deny the benefits of developing your child’s natural sensory skills.
8. Increase Brain Activity
Remember the strain we mentioned before? Let me add on to that.
By overexerting yourself, without any rest or relaxation, not only are you adding to your physical strain but also on your mental strain as well. It reduces your brain activity and can even cause you to become sleep-deprived and forgetful.
Most new mommies want to avoid medications for that, which is completely understandable. That is why mommy and me yoga is a good solution for you. The mindful and meditative exercises can help enhance your brain activity and improve your short-term memory.
9. Helps Improve Mobility and Motor Development
Mommy and me yoga incorporates exercises that enable and encourage babies and toddlers to move around. It strengthens their muscles to the point that they have better coordination and balance, which evidently makes crawling and walking easier for them. The more mobile your little ones learn to become the more independent they will be, which in itself is a great quality to have in kids.
Plus, if you are actively encouraging physical movements in your baby, such as baby swimming and yoga, you are actively developing large and small muscles and overall motor development.
10. Encourages Long-Term Healthy Lifestyle
Mommy and me yoga has its benefits for mommies, but the effects it has on the babies are everlasting. You help build a strong foundation of a healthy lifestyle for your kids as you practice yoga movement with your little one.
Can you imagine having your child grow up to practice healthy lifestyle choices and habits? You can make that happen with consistent mommy and me yoga throughout their infant, toddler and preschool ages. It will help normalize the concept of exercise for your kids every morning on a daily basis form a very early age.
11. A Safe and Welcoming Environment
The best thing about the mommy and me yoga session is that it is the safest and most welcoming environment for new mommies that you will ever find anywhere. Everyone over there understands that your baby is your number one priority, which is why the sessions foster an extremely inclusive environment. You can tend to kids without anyone’s judgment and with everyone’s support since all of the attendants will be fellow new-moms.
The environment is so inclusive in these yoga sessions that changing diapers, feeding, making noise, laughing, singing, and having fun with your kids is highly encouraged.
The benefits of mommy and me yoga are unlimited. The points mentioned above are the most appreciable ones that most of the new-mothers themselves noted.
The key benefits you should take away from this article, before signing up to mommy and me yoga are:
You can sleep peacefully and undisturbed for longer period of time.
You will experience a positive effect on your emotional wellbeing especially if you are struggling from postpartum depression.
You will also experience a reboots in your energy levels.
A stronger connection between you and your baby.
Your baby will also be able to sleep peacefully, easily and for longer period.
You will keep your baby form a lot of stomach issues like gas, digestions, constipation, and colic.
You will be providing your baby with new experiences and sensory stimulations that helps in their social skills.
You will mold your baby’s brain to be smarter as mommy and me yoga increases brain activity.
All the motion and activity for the baby will improve the large and small motor functions and help develop them more.
This is the perfect vessel for you to develop lifelong healthy habits in your babies.
To sum it short, you will end up with a happy baby that’s smarter, healthy and happy while you get back on your feet to emotional stability. Can you think of a better win-win situation?
