Shake, gurgle, rattle and roll at baby-brain training class

James Leonard Bane may not be able to walk just yet, but that doesn’t deter him from tap dancing with his peers.

"None of this swinging in my mum's arms stuff," he seems to be saying, as he gives his best King Louie boogie to the soundtrack of The Jungle Book.

James, all of seven months old, is one of the "seniors" in Lisa Mooney's weekly bubbles-and-balls, puppets-and-parachutes gathering in Galway.

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Lisa Mooney (left) with Rachel Williams and her son Mark (3 months) during a baby sensory class. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy

His mother, Ashley Bane, smiles as she remembers how he used to nod off at his first few baby sensory classes.

“There he was snoozing, and there I was, singing and dancing with all these other mums and babies I barely knew, and wondering what I was doing this for,”she says with a laugh.

“But then, at about the third class, he switched on, and it has just made him so alert and creative and willing to explore,”she says.

Like Bane, Lisa Mooney was a young first-time mother, but living in Edinburgh when she heard about the concept that Dr Lin Day had spearheaded in Britain.

Day, a former paediatric nurse with a doctorate in biomedical sciences, trained in sign language and worked with children with sensory impairment before returning to further education.

“I was nursing small children and had no kids of my own at the time, when I began to take an interest in how babies thrive with stimulation,”says Day.

“This was 30 years ago, when the norm was not to give children too much attention in case you might spoil them,”she says.

“But here were these babies in cots in hospital, with parents limited to scheduled visiting hours,” she says. “I would bring in puppets and rattles and sing songs, and began to form a deep bond with them.”

A pilot project Day ran with three babies back then is now a franchise across Britain and Northern Ireland, with Mooney being the first registered practitioner in the Republic.

"There I was in Scotland with [my daughter] Isabelle, and I knew nobody, and a public health nurse mentioned baby sensory classes,"Mooney says. "Isabelle began when she was 12 weeks and continued till she could walk out the door."

After she returned to Ireland, Mooney signed up for training and now runs a series of weekly classes across seven venues in Galway city and county, aimed at children from birth to 13 months old.

Mooney encourages parents and children to interact with simple songs and nursery rhymes, and she then runs through a series of activities, ranging from puppet shows to exercises with shakers to storytelling during “tummy time”.

The format of the classes is relaxed, to allow babies to be taken out for a feed or a nappy change at any stage.

Suzanne Horgan has been bringing her five-month old son, Conor, to the classes since he was 11 weeks old.

“Every week it is something different, and you wouldn’t necessarily have all these colours and toys at home,” Horgan says, gesturing to the extensive play area Mooney sets up for break time.

At this stage, Conor has been busy watching his mum “sign” and mime to him, and has been using a shaker with her to music to develop his hand-eye co-ordination. AsMooney points out, every time a baby hears a new noise, it transmits a new signal to the brain.

As he observes a series of frogs bouncing on a black net-like cloth, Conor and several of his peers turn and gaze at each other intently, as if to say, “What are they going to ask us to do next?”

A squawky bird, which is part of Mooney’s puppet repertoire, is a big favourite, while there is sheer delight and many dimples when the mothers rock and roll a green terylene cloth fitted with streamers overhead.

“The social contact with other parents is great, and one thing is certain; the babies sleep well afterwards,” says Horgan.

And as testament to the atmosphere Mooney creates, parents and children from an earlier class are out in the lobby, still having a chat and a coffee .

Baby Sensory classes are at the Clybaun Hotel, Knocknacarra; Roscam; Athenry; and Tuam, Co Galway; email: galway @babysensory.ie; babysensory.com/

Ballates Barre at Aorta Fitness in Eastmoreland Lane, Dublin; email: kmkittymaguire @gmail.com; aortafitness.com

United front: mothers and babies move to the music

Kitty Maguire's Dublin-based classes in "Ballates Barre", are a combination of yoga, ballet and pilates.

"Mothers of newborn babies are often very keen to get back into an exercise class of some kind, but reluctant to leave their children when they are so small," says Maguire, a trained dancer and pilates instructor.

“So I began by asking them to bring their baby in a pouch and do some activity at the ballet barre. It then grew into the combination which babies really enjoy, as they love the gentle rocking motion, and it’s great for bonding,”she says.

The activities are tailored to suit the participants: some yoga movements, such as the downward dog, "would not be the most practical", she says. And there is no real age limit, as that's an individual choice.

"Some babies might be getting quite heavy at six months," Maguire says. "But we had one mum with a tiny baby, who is now nine months old and both are still having fun."

Neural development – make the connection A newborn's brain is only a quarter of the size of the adult brain, but grows rapidly. As Dr Lin Day explains, it needs constant stimulation to build and strengthen the trillions of neural connections between brain cells that shape behaviour, memory, emotion, intelligence and other mental skills.

The neurosensory part of the auditory system begins to function at about 25 weeks’ gestation, she says, and hearing continues to develop up to six months after birth. That’s why sound experiences, such as singing, stories and rhymes, build up vital neural connections.

Similarly, babies can see colours, but they may be blurred until they are about two months old, when the eye also begins to track movements. Smell, taste and touch are also senses stimulated with plenty of attention and comfort, close physical contact and responsive care.

Day points out that technology is having its own impact on parenting, which makes it even more important to have such quality time .

“We are all on tablets and touch screens, as are our clever babies, but it is affecting social interaction, and there has to be a balance,”she says.