About baby yoga

I never thought I'd be the kind of mum who did classes (you know - massage on Monday, music on Tuesday, art & craft on Wednesday and so on) but I have to say that baby yoga has turned out to be my saving grace. That's even more impressive considering I'm a self-confessed yoga-hater (well, ex-yoga-hater now).

The class I go to is actually Yoga for Mums, I just call it baby yoga because you can take your baby with you. It's held at the Active Birth Centre in Archway, and run by a lovely Irish lady called Lynn Murphy.

My secret nickname for Lynn is the Baby Whisperer because she only needs to look at Jazzie, or pretty much any baby, smile and say hello in that beautiful, resonant voice of hers and the bub goes instantly smiley and gooey. It's like watching magic.

Being a yoga expert, Lynn is also very chilled, willowy thin, and looks about 25 though I guess she must be a lot older than that. And she has an Orla Kiely purse like mine so she's obviously very cool ;-) In short, I like her very much.

So we get to the class, have a little chat with the other mums, coo over the babies and then start the class. We normally start by relaxing on our backs and focusing on our breath. Then we start working the core muscles (around the pelvic floor) and take it from there to more floor work or standing stretches. It's excellent for my lower back, which has been quite troublesome ever since a bad car accident about 10 years ago, and I'm sure has helped my body cope much better with the stresses and strains of looking after a little baby all day. I'm one of the least flexible people I know, but the amazing thing is that I (almost) never feel self conscious about how I'm doing compared to the others and I think that's why I like the class so much. On good days (i.e. when Jazzie is quite happy and doesn't need a lot of attention) I tend to leave feeling about 3 inches taller and with a big grin on my face.



Incidentally, the Active Birth Centre is the place where Naomi Stadlen holds the mother's talking groups that formed much of the content of her book What Mother's Do. Tash, my sister's best friend, gave the book to me as a present when Jazzie was only a few months old, and for new mums it's worth a read.

Limbo princess

Grazyna, my cleaner, is back from her 2 week holiday today and I have a shiny clean house again. Hallelujah! Yesterday on Xfm Tomks did a text-in to the question 'what is the secret of a successful relationship' - my suggestion: if you can afford one, get a cleaner without delay.

Yesterday I reminded boyfried that we are equals again once I go back to work, and that the laundry-folding fairies, and dishwasher-loading fairies told me they are going to leave the house.

Jazzie's gone a bit bonkers this afternoon - she's alternately laughing, yelping, playing, smiling, laughing, yelping, playing, smiling and so on. Her normal sleeping/ eating patterns have gone haywire today so I couldn't for the life of me work out what was wrong. Did the usual 'hungry? check. wet nappy? check. too hot? check. sleepy? check.' to no avail until a sneaky eye rub helped me out. Right now she's manically and very loudly chewing herself to sleep on a muslin.

Weird baby.

Really enjoyed baby yoga today - I feel thoroughly stretched and relaxed. I forgot how much of a highlight to my week it is and have stopped worrying about the exorbitant price of parking. To be fair, I am lazy and could park 2 minutes up the road, for free, but no, I like to park right outside the front door. I'm just slightly worried about not being able to do other things (just the Jazzie princess and I) after I go back to work, bc Thursday is my only free day really and yoga is slap bang in the middle of the day. Maybe I will go alternate weeks.

Jazzie couldn't stop showing off her crabfish pose, which she can now do one-handed while the other hand variously grabs for things above her (toys, specs, hair - that kind of thing). She's only one hand away from being the world's youngest limbo princess.

Routines are for robots

"Routines are for robots" - that's what the Baby Whisperer (aka my yoga instructor, Lynn, at the Active Birth Centre) said to us last week in yoga. I found myself nodding enthusiastically in agreement, but that's only because I was feeling smug at the fact that Jazzie was finally sleeping through and was on super good form.

This week I am wishing that Jazzie was (were?), in fact, a robot, so i could instruct her to go directly to sleep, to stay asleep, to not pass 'wake up and yelp' and to not collect a poo-check from a parent.

Over the last few nights she has been waking up and yelping lots. Last night she went down at 7pm yelped herself to sleep for 25 mins, woke up at 10.30pm for about 10 mins, again at 01.45 and yelped for 20 mins, then again at 04.00, only briefly, but enough to wake me up, then again at 04.45 when she yelped for 45 mins before I caved in a fed at her at 05.30 when she fell asleep at the breast (!!!!) which is so naughty. i was feeling too gormless and tired to notice so didn't prevent it.

I'm sure it is because Jazzie is still a snot factory. at nursery too she is sleeping quite a lot, sometimes with only 40 minute breaks between her naps, and she is not gobbling her food down with as much vigour as normal. she did her first 8-5.30pm today and coped fine though my heart breaks when i go pick her up and see that she is one of the last few left, and she is still the smallest baby there.

Jazzie's disrupted sleep pattern has been like this for a 3 or 4 nights now, and seeing in print i realise it's not so bad, but it's getting to me and i'm tired and finding it hard to relax. i really want dp to have the baby monitor on his side of the bed, but keep forgetting to ask, and also deep down wish he would offer because that's the new mum equivalent of being given flowers for no reason whatsoever.

hurty tummy want my mummy

Felt like poo for most of yesterday. Got completely drenched on way to nursery. When I got there another mummy who was dropping off her baby started pointing at Jazzie and going to the carer 'is that her? is that the new baby? is that the one you were telling me about?' I thought she was a bit bloody rude talking about my baby like that when I was there so was like 'what about her?' in a way that clearly meant 'if you've got something to say, say it to me.'

Apparently the other baby is jealous of Jazzie because she gets a lot of attention from the carer. When I was putting the buggy away her mummy 'joked' about locking me in the cupboard, i laughed but really thought stupid bloody cow.

Then another nice mummy gave me a lift home so i didn't get soaked again and my faith in humanity was restored.

I think that was my first exposure to parent politics.

Think I caught some nasty tummy buggy virus thingy cos after big fuss i just wanted to throw up. Spent all morning in bed, then struggled to Monkey Face to catch up with Caroline and Seema and their respective broods (posing here in highchairs for the first time). Had a good time, seeing the babies really made me miss Jazzie , ate some lunch, but still felt really tired and peeky. Went home, went back to bed, dp thankfully was able to pick Jazzie up and got home just 60 seconds after I violently vomited my whole lunch and remnants of breakfast into the toilet bowl.

Horrible memories of pregnancy came flooding back. I just wanted my mummy.

Jazzie slept ok - she woke up twice at and cried for 10-20 mins each time, at about 11pm and 4.30am. And then woke up in the morning at 7.30am. Not so bad really. Absolute heaven for me to get lie in, but dp had severe case of stress-on-the-brain and could not sleep at all - very unlike him - so each time he was just about to drift off, baby crying woke him up.

Today felt much better. Jazzie's been adorable all day. Went to baby yoga where she behaved impeccably. Think the class is too big now, and am getting bored of paying £3 for parking each time so think I will stop after this set of classes.

Dp came home quite knackered. Doorbell rang. Martin had came over for dinner. I completely forgot he was coming. Doh!