When I was pregnant, I felt the remarkable need to connect to other upcoming mothers. I was a late mom, so I did not have much pregnant couples around me. Therefore I looked for groups to do pregnancy gymnastics, yoga, or something similar. Unfortunately, all pregnancy exercises did not start until the fifth or sixth month of the pregnancy. Besides, they were aimed at giving birth. I was confident that my body knew what to do when giving birth, so I did not find that the most important part. What I did want, was to involve the father of my child in the pregnancy during the complete process, while pregnancy groups only invited the fathers a few time at the end.

That is why I eventually decided to do pregnancy yoga, because the fathers were welcome in every class. Still, this course started during the last period of the pregnancy and the focus of the exercises were on giving birth.

I work with movements, and am specialized in the Feldenkrais Method. During the training for Feldenkrais practitioner, there is much attention for the development of movement of babies. We did all kind of movements that were derived from the movements which are made by babies during their development. Ever since the beginning of my training that received my special interest. I have organized special workshops with this theme. When my daughter was born, I recorded her movements with a video recorder. I felt like there was not much going on for the first five to six months. I thought it was only really movement when she started to roll over. I had to wait really long for that first movement. Of course she had already developed a lot by then comparing to the beginning.

When I did the Child’Space Training six years ago, which is a specialism within the Feldenkrais Method aimed at babies and toddlers, I realized how much had happened that first five months before a child is able to roll over. I became so enthusiastic because of all the details! I still am…
It is a miracle to learn what a baby is doing already from day one! What did I miss? How pitiful that I did not know that!

And apparently a lot of people with me. At the Child’Space training, mothers and their babies were invited to get a lesson from the teacher Chava Shelhav. These babies were often normal, healthy children. Some of them had special needs, like a club foot, congenital hip dysplasia, or brain damage by birth. Most of the parents, however, came because they were curious or because someone invited them, and not while they thought their child needs something. This showed me the effect of ignorance of the parents on the babies. Something happens in the interaction between parents and their babies, which disturbs the child in its development. This made such an impression on me. All these parents wanted the best for their kids, just like me in those days. This made me motivated to work with parents of new-borns and explain and show them what babies need. I want to give them the tools they need to support their children in the development.

This is why I made the plan to hand parents to be the possibility to prepare themselves for what their child needs in the various stages from the moment they are born. I want to achieve this with the help of the developmental movements from Child’Space, so parents can feel what their child is going to experience when it comes into the world of gravity.
Besides, since I learned about Child’Space, I also studied accompanying systems. I want to describe these specific approaches to baby development, so you are able to choose the way you want to raise your child. You can also join the discussion about these approaches by responding to my blog posts.

Now you are expecting a child what are you looking for: to connect to other parents to be, like me, or do you need something else?

And if you already have a child, what can you say now about what you had wanted to know before your child was born?
Or did you learn something on the way which you think is important to parents to be?
Please share below!