Baby at the Core

(ocean waves crashing) Hi, welcome back. We are here, together with Kristen and Johanna, and their adorable babies. This is Rudd and this is Charlie, and we're gonna do a little sequence just demonstrating some of the yoga Asanas that we can do including our babies, and having a little fun with them and just going with the flow. Sometimes they'll be talking more than I will be, (laughs) and so let's just start in a nice, comfortable cross-legged position. And we'll just remind ourselves as we start our practice to breathe and to really just relish in the breath, so inhaling deeply through the nose.

(inhaling) Nice, long exhale through the nose. (exhaling) Anytime you want to exhale through the mouth throughout the practice that's fine too. Let's just do that again, inhaling. (inhaling) And exhaling. (baby whimpering) Good, so keeping our sits bones nice and grounded we'll just reach over to one side, and you can hold baby right here and reach one arm if you want to, if you have the freedom, over, just pausing with the breath, and then you'll just switch it around to the other side.

(Rudd cries) (women chuckling) This isn't Rudd's favorite. Good. But he has others that he likes better. Go ahead and open it up. Hi, Rudd. (Rudd cries)

Good, and we'll just tilt forward, and back, yeah, doing what you need to do to include baby. It's all good. Just staying with the breath, feeling an opening through the pelvis. We're gonna eventually work our way onto our backs, so lets go in the other direction with the circles, knowing where we're going, but staying present with the body. Oh, he likes this one. (laughs) Good.

And good. Breathing, good. So we're gonna come back into a nice, neutral spine now, and if you have baby here, you can just do it in the safest, most comfortable way for you, help your baby transition so that you can go onto your backs. Sometimes we like to, I like to hold Ruby, my daughter right here while I just kind of scooch back and bring her onto my stomach, just letting her know where we're going. (Rudd fusses) You might want to, try it, try playing around with facing him or her towards you or away depending on what they like.

(chuckles) Good, might set them right here in the pelvis. Draw the knees up above the hips. Good, make contact with your sits bones, your hips on the earth, holding baby, you're gonna inhale, exhale. Keep baby where he or she is or let 'em lower down, so you're engaging your abs right here, and then drawing 'em up, good. Beautiful, yeah, and drawing up, so just activating your lower abs.

(laughing) Hi, Rudd. Do you need little fingers? Hi. Beautiful, staying with the breath. Hi.

Eventually when you come back, bring your knees on top of your hips, and then you're just gonna sway them side to side. You can let a little twist happen in the pelvis. (Rudd fussing) Staying with the breath. Tiki, tiki, tiki! (chuckles) Beautiful. Float the soles of your feet down.

So coming back in, we'll just go back into bridge pose, so we'll just peel our pelvis up, giving baby a nice little ride to the top. (laughs) Rolling it down. Good. Good, flowing back up with the breath. Now you can, if you want to, hold at the top and play around with the legs, so just giving your feet a break, extending one leg up. It's a lot harder if you have baby resting on your pelvis.

(laughing) It might look easy 'cause they're so cute, but it's harder, so just, you know, take it easy. Good. Do that a couple more times if you want to, otherwise just roll it down. (Rudd murmuring) Yeah, that's right. (laughs) They're doing some exhales through their mouths. Good.

We're gonna rest here on pause for a little bit with the babies here. Let's just lift our head, neck and shoulders up towards them, so it's like we're gonna give them a little kiss. Maybe even draw them close to us. I play around with Ruby like that sometime. Good.

So you can play around with that, just rolling, head, neck and shoulders, kind of lifting them, extending as you arch up to kiss them. Good. (Rudd cries) Yeah. What do you think, Rudd? What do you think?

Hi. Couple more, staying with the breath. Staying with the breath. Good, gentle with your abs, but feeling them engaging. Hi. (laughs) Good.

Very nice. Now, just take a breath. Let your knees splay open a little bit. Bring your feet together. It's like a reclined, there you go, yeah, and just maybe rock side-to-side if it feels good to you, just softening out your sacrum.

Good, softening out your abs. You like this one. (laughs) Are you helping Mama? Good, nice, Charlie. Breathing. Beautiful.

Good. Now as you're ready, we can just roll over onto our sides and just come onto our tummies if baby's ready for that. So you might just prop them over here. Come over onto your side. (laughs) Good.

And if they're open to it, you're just gonna roll over onto our tummies, and see how they're feeling about it. Good. Are you open to tummy time, Rudd? How are you feeling about it? So sometimes tummy time is good for babies and mamas to do together. (laughs) Other times you might want to do it and just play with baby.

So it'd look like this just lengthening out, bringing your feet together, and healing, lengthening, lifting the shoulder blades off the earth, engaging the muscles around the, the trapezius muscles around the shoulder blades, pausing, you can play around with your hands. (laughs) Rudd likes it when I wiggle my fingers. And you can lift your legs up, even if you want, if you want a little extra challenge. This is what they do. You get a sense of what they're going through all the time. (laughs) (Johanna mumbles) She likes to give foot massages while you do yoga.

It's very nice. Good, relax it down to soften it back out. (Rudd cries) Ohh, good. Yeah, let's just do that one more time, if they're open to it. (inhales) Good, lifting the legs, bringing the feet together, feeling the breath move through your body.

Hi. (chuckles) Wiggling the fingers, engaging, everything lengthening, the crown of the head from the heels. Good, relax it down. (exhales) Good. (Rudd laughs) (laughs) Now you're wanting to spread your knees. Good, and this time, just lift your knees up off the ground a little bit. Lift your head, neck and shoulders up, and you can do a little rock and roll with the babies, breathing.

Good. Good, beautiful. And soften it down. Good, now you can just relax in a little Shavasana on your belly or your back. (laughs) Just soften up. Relax with baby, however they feel like, whatever they're doing, we'll just respect that. (laughs) Allow yourself to get nice and soft and connected.

Good, beautiful. So that was just a little demonstration of what you can do. There's a lot more you can do when you're lying on your tummies and babies are practicing crawling, or maybe they're already crawling and they're on all fours and you can kind of play and mirror them. And get a lot of yoga in there (laughs) throughout the day. So we'll just finish in that Shavasana, relaxing there, playing.

Thank you very much, Namaste.