This is something very new to me, I hadn’t heard of these classes until finding out about them on that well known trusty social media site, one of my friends had posted something on a baby sensory leaders site, so this intrigued me to look into what these classes were all about. I think when Junior was born I made a semi-conscious decision that I wasn’t going to take the little man to any happy clappy mother and baby classes as there were none in the area that interested me, however I wish we had started these classes when he was younger as they are fab!
Baby sensory is all about helping to develop your baby physically, emotionally and socially whilst having fun, sign language is also taught with the help of catchy songs to mime signs to, which are reinforced at every class. ‘The various baby activities aim to build up a vocabulary of sensory experiences (e.g. visual, auditory and tactile), to enhance physical contact (massage, reflexology, touching, cuddling and rocking) between you and your baby and to promote the development of speech through the use of sign language, music, song and puppets’ Extract from baby Sensory UK.
We attended a taster session before signing up for the 10 week course. Junior was just in awe of all the other babies and did not watch me signing to him, he did not want to lie on his back like all the other babies, he wanted to be on his front watching everyone, at this point I knew I should have started classes with him earlier! All the yummy mummy’s sat on mats in a ring around the leader with babies in front of them, whilst we sang, signed, shook maracas, played peek a boo with some coloured voile and watched a puppet show, obviously not all at the same time though! Junior even had some playtime in the carefully constructed play area, his favourite toy was actually the ball pit where he enjoyed sending the balls everywhere! All the babies were dressed up for Halloween and there is also a Christmas party organised where I will not be able to resist dressing Junior up in a little Elf or Christmas pudding outfit!
I would highly recommend taking your little one to these classes and definately start before baby is 11 months, as by this point baby should be able to communicate with you with signing when the nappy needs changing, when milk is needed and when baby is hungry! We don’t just go for the signing, I think is it great for socialising too as Junior has not been around other babies before and actually loves interacting and learning from them, it is great to talk to other mum’s too and share stories.
There is a lot of research online into baby signing and it is proven that babies have better communication skills and actually learn to talk earlier when they have been taught to sign, so we are definitely trying to push on with the signing and try to catch up on the time lost!!
