Yesterday Evie & I took a stroll down to Stroud Yoga Space for our first ever baby & me yoga session. Before you try to picture a 6 week old baby in the warrior pose I should clarify that the babies do not partake in the actual yoga, sometimes they act as a weight but mostly they lay on your mat while you 'yoga' around them. (Gutting I know.)
The yoga teacher Emma is absolutely lovely & the studio is light, bright, clean & has all the equipment you need for your class. The space is completely unrecognisable from the pet shop that it was a few years ago: They've done an incredibly good job updating the place & now it's hard to imagine it as anything but a studio.
The class starts at 11:30 & Evie has a feed at 10:30 which should make it perfect timing but for some reason she was still a hungry little milk monster & I spent the first 20 minutes of the class with my boob out at the back of the room. This would usually be thoroughly embarrassing but because we're all in the same 'boat' no one batted an eyelid, in fact every baby had a feed at some point during the class.
After feeding Evie I was able to do a few stretches with her on the mat but most of the time I was holding & rocking her because she was grizzly which meant that the moves weren't anywhere near as effective as I would have wanted, but I persevered anyhow .
Evelyn isn't a difficult baby by any stretch of the imagination, she cries when she's hungry or she cries when she's got a tummy ache & she thinks she's hungry- that's it. So I tried feeding her again & she stopped crying, but unfortunately for me this time she was actually crying for the latter reason. Feeding her overfilled her little tummy & during the 'flying baby' I got a face full of baby vomit: Face full, eyes full, mouth full. There was a lot of vomit.
Needless to say, I was pretty mortified. Having your boob out might be ignored when you're around other mums but a face full of puke isn't normal no matter where you go. I needed someone to laugh, but no one did. However, I'm not put off by the idea of doing yoga with Evelyn, I think it could be awesome. The studio & teacher are both fab & the concept is a really great one. I will be going back, I think I just need to wait until we're over the "refluxy" stage of babyhood.
