Yoga-ing with an Infant

I absolutely love yoga. I found it relatively late in my life- only a few years ago, and its benefits are uncountable! It gives you both physical and mental strength, it teaches you to breathe and the importance of breath, and it grounds you and centres you. Yoga can heal all parts of your body, and I have seen an experienced that first hand!

Yoga is challenging. It's meant to be. So naturally, it's challenging to do with a baby, or an infant. But one of the things I love about yoga is that whatever you do, it's your practice. Zen, yogic calm, the groundedness…. all of that is whatever you make it to be in the moment.

Zen is not perfect calm and silence for me. It just can't be. I have to find my own calm in the shitstorm that is being a mum of a very active infant! Heck, I barely even close my eyes during a practice, because that wouldn't help me relax into it.

On the contrary, as a mum, my yogic calm is having an awareness of where Jaxson is so i'm not stressing that he's getting into something he's not supposed to.

My yogic calm is fitting my practice around him, whether that means stopping to feed him or change him and then coming back to it, or maneuvering my poses around him as he crawls beneath me and behind me, or is sitting in front of me as I try to go through a chataranga! And honestly, I don't always miss him!

I have most definitely kicked Jaxson in the head as I lift my foot and find that he is at that exact moment crawling behind me! And Jaxson has most definitely pushed me out of balancing poses, because he's decided that now is the time that he wants up and starts climbing up my leg!

I admit too that I don't always stop my practice. Sometimes, I need the flow more than I know he needs me, so i've breathed through my poses and his screaming.

This is yoga with an infant: WHATEVER YOU MAKE OF IT!

That's the beauty of yoga! Find your centre, your calm, and breathe into it. Yoga truly is for everyone.

I actually love doing yoga with Jaxson, because it has become a completely different practice for me than it used to be. My yoga practice has evolved, and with it, so have I.

I used to have a hard time finding my centre, my calm in a quiet, focused class. Now I find it with a little one pulling on my pant legs while i'm in tadasana or half moon pose, crawling under me when i'm in downward dog, pulling my hair when i'm in child's pose…. For me, this is quite an accomplishment. After pregnancy, labour and delivery, and these past 10+ months, I am more equipped to breathe through challenges and uncomfortable-ness than I ever was before. And as I yogini mum, I believe that all of that prepared me and turned me into a better yoga practitioner.

The key is to stay focused on your breath, if nothing else. Just breathe! Breathe through everything, every frustration, every muscle ache and pain, every unbalance.

And laugh. Yoga is not meant to be so serious. Have fun with it, laugh at the difficulties and pain, laugh when your kid knocks you over or suddenly wants your attention when you're in a difficult pose, or are just getting into the flow.

Laugh and breathe.

That is my life, and if I want to do yoga, I just need to find it wherever I can, every day. Yoga is in everything we do, and by starting with a practice like this, I can bring it into all aspects of my life.

Jaxson is my son, my sun. I couldn't imagine my life, my practice without him. He is a vital part of it all, and he is my centre.