A child’s first year of life is full of firsts.

These first experiences shape that child’s sense of self and their relationship to the world around them.

When we support infants’ navigation of their internal and external worlds, we simultaneously support their emotional and intellectual development.

As a baby’s immediate environment, caretakers have the power to shape a world for their baby that promotes a sense of safety and ease — an important element for a budding nervous system.

INFANT DEVELOPMENTAL MOVEMENT EDUCATION (IDME)

IDME is a child-led approach to movement development that offers guidance to caregivers on how best to support their child's easeful movement in the first year+ of life. 

Through observation, curated playtime and hands-on facilitation, Infant Developmental Movement Educators share ways to support your baby’s healthy developmental processes to sit, crawl, stand, walk and run - and everything in between.

IDME’s are skilled in the ways the nervous system develops in early life via primitive reflexes, basic movement patterns, and sensory input. These professionals know that your baby is working incredibly hard to integrate reflexes and find pathways of movement that are ingrained deep in their DNA.

As caregivers, we can either support or inhibit their natural rhythms through the ways we pick up, set down, carry, hold and play with our little ones.

IDME for Children & Caretakers

If you’re reading this, it’s clear your baby is well-loved and tended to.

IDME is a supplemental support to the loving work you do as caregivers and parents. It prioritizes the relationship between baby and caretaker above any other.

IDME is not meant to invoke judgement on parenting preferences nor to invalidate the caretaker’s instincts.

As a tool of support for both the child and caregiver, IDME offers neuroscience-based guidance to common questions parents may have around their child’s movement progression.

Questions like:

• When will my baby crawl?

• Why won’t my baby roll over?

• How do I get my baby to spend time on their belly?

• Should I pick up my baby under the arms?

My Approach

There are four overlapping elements to each individual session or play group:

Observe

We begin each session by ‘being with’ your baby. This is a time for you to relieve yourself of the caretaking role and simply marvel at what your baby has to show you. In this way, we get to accompany your baby at the beginning of their human journey.

Play

Play is an important part of development in that it stimulates curiosity. When a child feels safe, comfortable and connected to their caretakers, their curiosity will shape how they learn, move and orient to the wider world.

Facilitate

IDME’s use non-invasive, hands-on techniques that respect your baby’s capacity for growth and self agency. The goal of this kind of facilitation is to support their internal experiences as well as their external ones.

Educate

An IDME’s work is not only for infants but for the adults who care for them. Our ways of maneuvering through the world will shape our babies’ experiences. By educating caretakers on the basic handling skills that support movement development, caretakers learn how to attune to their babies’ needs and desires.