Week 55: What Was I Thinking?

Depending on if you watch yoga class schedules carefully and/or have small children, you may or may not notice that there is an obvious lack of parent and toddler classes out there. I have wonder for quite sometime why they don't exist...and maybe in today's practice, I just found out why.

I've written previously about taking postnatal yoga classes and then a parent and tot yoga class. Some of the classes, particularly the postnatal classes, define what age bracket or physicality of your baby is allowed to attend. For example, it usually states in a class write up that baby should be stationary and once baby starts to move, the class is no longer a good fit. Fair enough both to other participants and to their likely smaller/younger children and to your practice as well.

Fast forward after postnatal yoga, and head into the parent and tot classes. I've had wonderful experiences in this class as the focus shifts a bit more to the tot, and rightly so, with songs and rhymes and play...along with mom doing some yoga.

We haven't attended parent and tot yoga since my son was about 16 months or about four months ago. With my mat in tow (along with monkey backpack and a ball and two trucks), I thought it best to try today. In my brilliance, I really didn't think it would be a big deal. It's in the room my son is in often and he had ample space, snacks, and toys but he hung on tight to my side. In trying to move from our starting seated position to hands and knees position, he outright got mad and tried to push me back up into the seated position. Here we sat for about 10 minutes listening to the teacher's cues. He started to become a bit more comfortable and unglued himself from my side whereby I was able to do a couple forward bends, warrior II poses and triangle pose.

Yet, he wasn't happy to stay put and ran straight out the door. When we tried to close the door and he had a mini fit. Well, that's the end of it as we had been enough of a distraction and disturbance. Out we went and hung out in the building hallways (he watching basketball and I doing poses that we're top of mind, easy to do in a hallway and ones that didn't make me stand out too much!)

Is it unreasonable to run a yoga class for parents and toddlers (approximately 8 months to 2 years)?

Should I just wait until he is old enough for family yoga (as young as 2 years up to 12 years)?

Would the class gone differently if we didn't have a new teacher (who doesn't have children and simply led a class for the moms)?

Do you think a yoga teacher can teach any age group?

Will I try the class again, I'm not quite sure.
LW