- Baby yoga gives parents dedicated time to slow down, relax and bond with their baby through gentle movement, stretches and touch.
- Simple poses inspired by yoga, such as happy baby pose and gentle supported stretches, can help support digestion, flexibility and body awareness in babies.
- Parent-friendly movements like child’s pose encourage relaxation, mindfulness and a moment of calm during your busy days with your baby.
- Baby yoga may help soothe fussy babies, encourage better sleep and provide gentle sensory stimulation through movement and interaction.
- For parents, baby yoga creates meaningful one-to-one time and offers an opportunity to unwind together.
Happiness in early parenthood isn't a constant. It's a series of moments you catch when you least expect them. And baby yoga is surprisingly good at creating them.
Twenty minutes. A mat (or the carpet). You and your baby. That’s all you need to start finding your flow.
Is baby yoga good for babies?
Yes.
Baby yoga uses gentle, guided movement to support your baby’s physical and neurological development.
From easing trapped wind, to building body awareness, there are lots of benefits. And because it involves skin-to-skin touch, eye contact, and your voice, it’s also doing quiet, important work on the bond between you.
The benefits of yoga for baby
- Helps ease colic and wind: Gentle abdominal movements help shift trapped gas.
- Supports digestion: Movement encourages the gut to do its thing, which may mean less uncomfortable fussing.
- Builds body awareness and coordination: Babies are figuring out that they have a body and that it moves. Yoga helps them explore that, safely, gently, with you.
- Helps to stimulate the nervous system: The combination of touch, movement, and your voice engages your baby’s developing senses.
- Supports sleep: A baby who’s moved their body and felt calm and connected is a baby more likely to sleep. Fingers crossed!
The benefits of baby yoga for parents
This is the section most baby-related content skips. Not us.
Baby yoga isn’t just something you do for your baby. It’s something that gives something back to you. And in the early months, that matters more than ever!
- It gives you structure: When the days blur into one long feed-burp-repeat loop, having a 20-minute ritual with a beginning, middle, and end is a quiet anchor.
- It gives you time and permission to breathe: Actual breathing. Slow, intentional, remembered. It’s a workout, but a gentle one, the kind that loosens tight shoulders and quiets a busy mind without requiring you to leave the house.
- It can help ease worries: Mindful movement can reduce racing thoughts.
- It puts you back in your body: Pregnancy and birth change things. Baby yoga is a gentle, pressure-free way to reconnect with your body, on your terms, at your pace.
- It can connect you to other parents: Classes mean community and coming together with other parents to build a support network is one of the best things for your mental health. Looking for a local class? Just pop ‘baby yoga classes near me’ into your search bar!
- It helps deepen bonds: Eye contact, touch, your voice, your smell. All the things your baby is wired to need from you, and you from them. Baby yoga is basically 20 minutes of uninterrupted bonding.
When should you start baby yoga?
Most classes welcome babies from around 6–8 weeks, once you’ve had your postnatal check and your GP or midwife has given you the all-clear.
The key, as with most things in parenting, is reading your baby. If they’re alert, calm, and making that “I’m open to this” face, you’re good to go. If they’re hungry, overstimulated, or tired? Save it for later.
Happy baby pose: A crash course
If you’ve dabbled with yoga in the past, you probably know this one.
Happy baby is the move your baby does naturally when they’re lying on their back, grabbing their feet with both hands.
Happy baby pose (or Ananda Balasana) gently opens the hips, stretches the lower back, and helps release wind and ease digestive discomfort.
Your baby does it instinctively because it feels good.
Gentle postnatal yoga poses to try at home
Baby yoga is for both of you. So, while your baby is busy perfecting their happy baby pose, here are a few gentle postpartum yoga moves to bring into your own practice, no class required, no experience needed, no judgment on what you're wearing.
Start slow, listen to your body, and as always, check with your GP or midwife before starting any postpartum exercise, especially if you've had a C-section or a complicated birth.
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Cat-cow: On your hands and knees, slowly arch your back up (cat) then drop it down (cow), breathing with the movement. It sounds simple because it is. It's also quietly brilliant for releasing tension in a spine that's been doing a lot of heavy lifting lately.
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Child's pose: Kneel, sit back towards your heels, and stretch your arms forward on the floor. Rest your forehead down. Breathe. This one is less yoga and more permission to lie down for a second, and that's exactly why it works.
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Supine twist: Lie on your back, bring one knee to your chest, and gently guide it across your body while keeping both shoulders flat. Swap sides. A gentle reset for a lower back that's carried a baby, a car seat, and (what feels like) seventeen bags.
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Legs up the wall: Lie on your back and rest your legs vertically up a wall. That's it. This pose helps reduce swelling, calms the nervous system, and requires absolutely nothing from you. Our kind of move.
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Diaphragmatic breathing: Lie flat, one hand on your chest, one on your belly. Breathe slowly so only the hand on your belly rises. Sounds too simple to count. But it counts. It's one of the most effective things you can do for postnatal core recovery and stress, and you can do it while your baby naps on your chest.
Postnatal yoga and your pelvic floor
Your pelvic floor has just done one of the most demanding things a human body can do. Whether you gave birth vaginally or by C-section, your pelvic floor has been under significant pressure for nine months.
Postnatal yoga is one of the kindest ways to start rebuilding, because it works with your body, not against it. No impact. No rush. No one timing you. Learn more in our dedicated guide to pelvic floor recovery.
A note on Diastasis Recti
If you've noticed a gap or ridge down the centre of your abdomen when you sit up, you may have diastasis recti, a separation of the abdominal muscles that's common after pregnancy. It's worth flagging to your GP or a women's health physiotherapist before starting any core work as some standard exercises can make it worse rather than better.
You don’t need to be ‘perfect’ to start
There’s no such thing!
It doesn’t have to be a class. It doesn’t have to be a specific time of day or a particular mat or a 45-minute session. It can be you and your baby on the living room floor at 10am, following along with a video, wearing yesterday’s clothes.
