While he isn’t quite ready to start doing sun salutations, at 3 months old, Owen Rennie is already in a yoga class, with his mother, Jessica Rocheleau.
Often accompanied by an orchestra of infant coos and cries, every Tuesday afternoon, the baby and mama duo from Leverett go through their yoga practice in a room full of other moms and babies at the Yoga Center Amherst on Kellogg Avenue.
This is a time for mothers to bond with their children, fresh-eyed and new to the world, as they cope with the sleep deprivation and the hormonal chaos of postpartum life.
On her hands and knees, as if about to do a push-up, Rocheleau, 35, drops down to kiss her son, who is lying on the floor. She exhales before planting another kiss on his head.
In child’s pose, she tucks her knees into her belly and slides forward, her arms stretched beyond her head. Her hands rest softly on her son’s feet on the yoga mat. She rocks his body gently forward, before stretching her body into a triangle in downward facing dog.
The class is punctuated by whimpers and grunts. Sometimes, babies start wailing, get hungry and often just want to nap. Every need is accommodated.
There is no baby age limit for the class, but typically moms stop coming when their babies start crawling.
The instructor, Corinne Andrews, 36, is always ready to grab a baby if a mother needs a break. Many yogi moms leave their expectations for exercise at the door.
“If your baby is on you, here is the opportunity to be one with your baby,” Andrews tells the class. “Allow them to move on their own rather than control their movements.”
Some mothers are still healing from giving birth, so they are encouraged to be gentle with themselves.
There is no judgment in this space. Sometimes babies poop, sometimes they drool. “Anything is welcome,” says Rocheleau.
This is an especially crowded class, with about eight moms and babies. Attendance tends to ebb and flow; on slow days there are only about three mothers, and the room is much quieter.
On this Tuesday afternoon, when a few babies begin to cry, all signs of yoga stop for a moment. One squeal leads to another, until all the babies in the room have joined the chorus. Each mom tries to cradle or nurse or burp a sobbing baby.
Rocheleau scoops Owen up and begins nursing him. He is still at the stage when everything is exciting. So far sleeping, eating and yoga are his main activities. “We don’t want to overbook him,” she jokes.
For now, Owen is happy, lying on his back and staring up at his mother. Rocheleau is on her hands and knees, stretching her spine into a half-moon shape in the cow pose. When Owen locks eyes with her, he flaps his arms like a little bird.
Andrews reminds the class that the moments they are sharing here with their infants will never happen again, so be present, she suggests, be mindful and kiss your baby.
During the introductory segment at the start of class, a few mothers share their sadness about having to return soon to their day jobs. Others describe the physical discomforts they had after giving birth.
“My intention for the class is to accept what is,” says Amy Meunier, 33, of Springfield, as she introduces her son, 8-month-old Ronan, the oldest child in the room.
“For me, it’s about having something to do with him and connecting with other moms,” Rocheleau says. She is happy to have five months to spend with her son before she has to return to work as a biology professor at Western New England University. She tries to make it to class once a week.
Meunier started coming to the class six or seven weeks postpartum. Yoga, she says, helps the child-mother bonding process and gives her the tools to mother with mindfulness. “It’s so important that I can approach that from a grounded place,” she says, adding that it is worth the 40-minute drive from her home.
Even though many of these babies have only spent a few weeks on Earth, many of them aren’t new to yoga. Rocheleau practiced throughout her pregnancy, until a week before her son was born. When she started having contractions, she remembers telling a neighbor: “If this isn’t labor, then I’m going to yoga.”
She felt the prenatal yoga was a good spiritual and mental exercise before giving birth, a way to learn to work with the pain of labor and the discomfort of a pregnant belly. She went to a course hosted by the Yoga Center Amherst off-site at Aikido of Amherst.
Andrews, who also teaches that class, says typically, around 15 students attend.
“It’s like a secret world that you only get to enter if you are pregnant,” says Carrie Doggett of Shutesbury, who attended and now goes to the baby yoga classes with her son, 3½-month-old Orijah.
She remembers other pregnant women slowly disappearing from the prenatal class as the weeks went on. When her son was born and she joined the baby yoga sessions at the Yoga Center Amherst, she saw them again — back in yoga class, on the other side of pregnancy.
The baby yoga class was inspired by Andrews’ own experience.
She started teaching yoga in 2002 and, three years later, at age 25, she became pregnant.
Suddenly, she felt ill all of the time. She suffered with vomiting. Growing a pregnant belly was uncomfortable. “I just needed my yoga to keep sane through all of this,” she says.
And so, her son, Arin, became part of her yoga practice from the womb to toddlerhood.
“It was bonding for us and a way for me to take care of myself while being totally with him,” she says.
Arin is now 11 and still practicing yoga. Andrews’ daughter, Irina, is turning 7 in August and also practices.
Many of the babies rest on their mother’s bellies during the final pose, savasana, where the women lay flat on their backs with their palms facing the sky.
Each woman puts one hand on her baby and one hand on her heart, as Andrews leads them in a final “Ommm.”
“I feel like it’s really good for them spiritually being around their mom and other parents who are breathing deeply,” Andrews says later of the babies in class. “Energetically, it boosts their hearts and spirits to be around a high vibration and a love vibration. Babies are sponges and everything that we are doing and feeling, they can feel. I think that that’s the sort of stuff that changes the world.”
Baby yoga classes are held every Tuesday at noon in the Yoga Center Amherst at 17 Kellogg Ave. in Amherst on the second floor. A single class pass costs $16.
For more information about purchasing class passses or for membership information, visit http://bit.ly/29QnP9K.
Lisa Spear can be reached at lspear@gazettenet.com.