“Caring about a baby is intuitive. Caring for a baby is not. Luckily it's a set of skills that can be learned.”
~Amy Matthews, IDME and Co-Founder & Owner of Babies Project NYC
Infant Developmental Movement
Developmental movement is the process baby humans go through from birth to walking. Much support for a baby's developmental movement actually starts in the womb, and is further deeply affected by how a baby is handled. This is where my work as an Infant Developmental Movement Educator (IDME) comes in.
Developmental Theory
Developmental theory presents systematic ways of thinking about how human beings grow from babies to adolescents to adults to elderly people, and the various changes they undergo as they make this passage. Different developmental theories describe different types of changes. From the IDME perspective, the idea that all the integrated parts of developmental movement patterns, the primitive reflexes, righting reactions, equilibrium responses, and sensory integration is a methodical, layered and complex process that needs support. There's numerous ways to support this natural development of a baby, and even more ways to disrupt it!!
Grown-ups are the baby's environment and so how caregivers meet the needs of infants shapes those infants. Minimizing the obstacles to baby's natural progression to standing, supporting the baby to find their own way, in their own time, in the context of every day movements in their ever expanding world isn't the easiest thing to do. The conventional culture around babies and baby care also doesn't seem to align with what we know about infant development.
What is an IDME?
An IDME is a person well studied in developmental movements & developmental theory, including the primitive reflexes, righting reactions, and equilibrium responses of humans. IDMEs work along side caregivers and their babies to support the natural and full progression of their relationship in the context of baby's growth. As an IDME I'm interested in where the ancient wisdom of human evolution and DNA meets the discoveries and innovations of science, to potentiate the learning, self-regulation skills, and growth of babies by supporting the relationship between baby and caregiver. Together we attend to baby's movement, support their development and learning, so they have a better chance at competency, coordination, and integrated presence as they grow. In this, IDME work comes from the basic perspective that as adults, we are a baby's environment. How we are being is as important as what we are (or are not) doing.
IDMEs offer insight and support in a variety of ways:
- access to comfort & "baby ball" as home base
- creative ways to engage with baby going into their world
- nuanced ways to pick up and put down baby supporting the development of their senses
- handling techniques to shift the tone of baby
- handling techniques to support spinal development
- ways to support balance in the limbs, right and left
- support for getting the legs under the body & head for standing
- offering support, encouragement and simply listening to caregivers and illuminating the many ways we can support a baby in finding their most easeful and confident way to walking! Also, that we do not need to teach babies how to walk! We humans have been figuring this out for millennia! And that standing or walking sooner, is definitely not better.
Join me for Community Baby! These classes are time for you to be with your baby. Simply Be With, connected, 100% attentive with zero agenda, supporting their curiosity and therefore their evolution. Taking the seat as an IDME, I'll be available to answer questions about what your baby is up to. We'll discuss developmental processes and ways to support those. I'll offer info & insight into the most supportive ways to handle and hold baby, depending on where they are in their movement development process. I'll model handling skills to support baby’s natural developmental process, and offer intel on how to not ask too much of a baby. These classes are also a time for YOU to check in with how YOU are doing. Much of what goes on with a baby is about what's going on with their caregiver.
Reflexes & Developmental Patterns
These are not just for babies! Of course allowing and including all of the above for a growing baby is ideal! Some of us grown-ups very likely missed out on some of it. We can, as adults go back and relearn, or re-pattern, these ancient pathways. We can find the felt sense of waking up connections that we never honed as babies and/or have taken for granted as adults. Using the spinal patterns, somatics, rolling, dancing, crawling, retracing reflexes, practicing falling, whatever gets us into the felt sense of our self, we can cultivate the somatic intelligence for a more comfortable and integrated body-mind. No matter the age.
...for you, or for your baby and you, or just for your baby (and you)!
The Infant Developmental Movement Education program is a product and curriculum of
The School of Body-Mind Centering (BMC)™
The IDME program is offered by Sonder (a licensed org of BMC™)
