As a mother of 2 and provider of baby massage classes, I fully appreciate the desire to get out of the house with a new baby, meet other new mums and participate in social and meaningful activities with your baby.

But with so many different baby classes now emerging on the market, where do families start looking and what should drive their choices?

Many classes report ‘suitable from birth’ but as a children’s physiotherapist specialising in infant development, I would really think about committing yourselves to some classes before considering some of the below.  Realistically, (particularly for 1^st time mums) most parent start to feel ready to start groups around the 6 week period.  Developmentally this is for many reasons which I discuss below.

A newborn or neonate is defined as a baby in its first 28 days of life and in medical fields neonatal medicine is a speciality in its own right.  This is due to the fragile and unique period after birth, where a newborn adapts to extra uterine life.  Breathing, feeding and temperature control are just some of the things a newborn has to establish in this period and any difficulties with these are likely to manifest within this defined 28 day period.  This is therefore a precious time for mothers/fathers and babies to connect and attune to one another, to establish what is normal for that particular infant so that subtle changes and disharmonies can be recognised.  Skin to skin contact, cue based/responsive feeding and just ‘being’ with your baby are all ways of establishing this connection and understand babies attempts to communicate.

In a must read book called ‘What Mothers do – especially when it looks like nothing’, psychotherapist and mother of 3 Naomi Stadlen describes this focused period of ‘doing nothing’ as the mother studying her baby minutely to get to know who he is.  She describes it as a receptive, open-minded, unprejudiced state the mother adopts to gain that intuitive/instinctive knowledge.  There is so much for baby and mother to learn about each other in those first few weeks, it can be chaotic and even frightening but gradually the chaos reduces and patterns seem to emerge as 2 different people find ways of being at ease together.

From the moment a baby is born, he/she is communicating with what are called engagement and disengagement cues.  How these cues are read by caregivers is an integral part of attachment and infant development.  A baby whose communication is responded to appropriately feels safe and secure knowing they are being taken care of and understood.   These engagement and disengagement cues are a baby’s first language and can be very subtle or very potent.  It is the subtle clustering of these cues that mothers start to notice as patterns to their infants behaviour, allowing them to understand their babies language intuitively.  One of the more commonly reported misinterpretations of an infant’s language are the cluster of subtle disengagement cues that emerge as a result of stimulation.  Babies’ curiosity is strong and they can easily get themselves into a state where they can neither take on new information nor shut it out.  This can lead to the fussing, frantic behaviour and often inconsolable crying that results from over stimulation.  Being able to recognise these cues and prevent this state developing is a big relief for mothers.  Newborns and young babies do not need a lot of stimulation their brains illuminate just with touch, eye contact and speech; ‘things’ are not needed.  Their immature nervous systems mean they cannot self-regulate and calm themselves and need their parents to do this for them.  So my advice would be, in those early days to give yourself permission to ‘do nothing’ in the knowledge that your newborn does not need stimulating, their new world is exciting enough and you are their best play thing.

Around six to eight weeks, things do seem to change for many families. The chaos seems to diminish as patterns emerge and infant behavioural states seem to become less erratic.  Parents are more in tune with their babies and report their babies to be much more predictable, social, and a lot more fun as they become more interested in their surroundings as their senses develop.  Crucially around this time social smiles also start.  Socialising however is hard work for babies and they will still only be able to concentrate for short periods of time and are still easily over stimulated.  Some babies are able to enjoy a range of sensory play experiences, whilst many can only handle a little at one time.  Some babies seem to be quick to calm, while others take more time to relax.

Most baby groups offer a taster class and my advice would be take these and use as an opportunity to see how your baby reacts.  Are they wide eyed with delight or have they actually glazed over due to over stimulation?  Have they fallen to sleep due to relaxation or zoned out to shut out the environment?  Do they seem to kick smoothly with delight or are they really demonstrating jerky disorganised movements (disengagement cue)?  The difference between these 2 types of cues can be subtle but by spending time with your newborn and observing their behaviour during and in the period after new experiences you can make sure that it is the right class for your baby at that given time.  If our babies are relaxed and engaged, we as parents are more likely to be relaxed and we can then both benefit from what should be a pleasurable, shared experience. 

In my baby massage classes I am very clear to explain to my families that just because 11am on a Friday is a good time for us adults, it doesn’t mean it is the right time for our babies and for massage.  Positive touch of which massage is 1 tool is led by the babies with the babies being the teachers and the caregivers the experts, responding to their babies’ cues allowing their babies to lead the exchange.   Baby massage is a two way interaction that should be enjoyable for both the caregiver and baby.  We therefore do not recommend massaging a crying or sleeping baby.   In week 1 I try to emphasise this point so that parents are given permission to relax and not feel pressured into massaging their baby.  They are however still very much part of the group enjoying this precious uninterrupted time with their baby.  Infant massage classes are more than just a series of strokes performed in a class, the course facilitates a life skill that can be adapted and developed as a child grows even into adulthood. 

For this reason I truly believe that infant massage classes can be started from birth if, parents understand that the course is not about performing the hands on physical strokes over the 5 weeks but about gaining the confidence and knowledge to start this journey with their baby in supportive and nurturing environment, where babies are given the time and space to express themselves as we learn and listen.

My final piece of advice:  Do not rush into booking baby classes before your baby is born, but certainly use this antenatal period to research the options and know what is available locally.  Spend those first few weeks getting to know your baby, their likes and dislikes and then explore and trial different classes based on yours and your babies preferences at that time.  And remember every baby is different.