Itsy Bitsy Yoga: Poses to Help Your Baby Sleep Longer, Digest Better, and Grow Stronger

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Overview

The ancient practice of yoga will help your baby sleep better, digest easier, be happier, and stay healthier. Start today.

If you've been searching for an excellent way to bond with your baby and improve his or her health, Itsy Bitsy Yoga is the solution you've been looking for. Helen Garabedian, a certified instructor in yoga and infant massage, has developed over seventy yoga postures and thirty-five series for moms and dads to enjoy with their growing babies. You don't need ...

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Itsy Bitsy Yoga: Poses to Help Your Baby Sleep Longer, Digest Better, and Grow Stronger

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More About This Book

Overview

The ancient practice of yoga will help your baby sleep better, digest easier, be happier, and stay healthier. Start today.

If you've been searching for an excellent way to bond with your baby and improve his or her health, Itsy Bitsy Yoga is the solution you've been looking for. Helen Garabedian, a certified instructor in yoga and infant massage, has developed over seventy yoga postures and thirty-five series for moms and dads to enjoy with their growing babies. You don't need any previous yoga experience. Learn the many benefits of yoga, posture by posture, in this accessible guide, with seventy beautiful black-and-white photos, at-a-glance reference charts, and memorable Itsy Bitsy Yoga rhymes.

Yoga can help babies up to two years of age:

  • sleep better
  • get relief from gas pains and colic
  • digest food easier
  • stay healthier with a strong immune system
  • receive neuromuscularm stimulation
  • learn to relax

The book also features seven Magic Poses that can soothe fussy, upset babies within minutes! So start enjoying more time with your happy yoga baby right now.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
Dr. Harvey Karp author of The Happiest Baby on the Block Helen Garabedian's Itsy Bitsy Yoga program has provided hundreds of moms and dads with a nurturing, cuddly way to bond with their young children...and it's fun! Parents will love this book.

Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen founder of the School of Body-Mind Centering© and author of Sensing, Feeling, and Action Helen Garabedian's book on baby yoga offers parents a fun and loving way to bond with their babies while guiding them in experiencing and developing their bodies through simple, gentle yogic postures.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780743243551
  • Publisher: Touchstone
  • Publication date: 5/4/2004
  • Edition description: Original
  • Pages: 256
  • Product dimensions: 7.40 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.60 (d)

Meet the Author

Helen Garabedian, a certified Hatha yoga and pregnancy yoga teacher and an IAIM certified infant massage instructor, was one of the first people to be certified as an infant developmental movement educator in the United States. Helen is the founder of Itsy Bitsy Yoga™ through which she conducts classes, workshops, and training nationally. She lives in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

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Read an Excerpt

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 Yoga

As 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 Yoga

It 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 Babies

This 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 Needed

No 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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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

How Yoga Can Help You and Your Baby

Chapter 2

How to Use This Book

Chapter 3

Infant Yoga Fundamentals

Chapter 4

Yoga for Newborns

Chapter 5

Yoga for Head-Holders

Chapter 6

Yoga for the Almost Sitting

Chapter 7

Yoga for Almost Crawlers

Chapter 8

Tots Yoga Fundamentals

Chapter 9

Yoga for Crawlers

Chapter 10

Yoga for the Almost Walking

Chapter 11

Yoga for Walkers

Chapter 12

Yoga Through Childhood

Appendix

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Sort by: Showing 1 – 3 of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Posted September 26, 2009

    A great resource to have, especially for first time parents!

    This book was very informative, interesting, and enlightening. I recommend all parents of infants and toddlers read this book. The pictures and writing were very detailed, making it easy to follow along. I wish I had this book when I had my first child 9 years ago. It would make a great baby shower gift.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted November 8, 2011

    Level -1

    Very basic and less than inspiring. A nice introduction to yoga for parents that have no yoga background. Very disappointing for a yoga mama like me.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted June 1, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

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