Why I Built My Baby Classes the Way I Did

This Journal entry is available in two ways: you can read it below, or press play to hear me sharing it in my own voice.

Three Babies, Three Different Seasons

Recently, I’ve been doing some journalling outside of this, thinking really carefully about my classes and where they sit alongside everything else that’s out there. There are so many fantastic baby groups, and a lot of them we’ve done and loved. But I’ve found myself coming back to my why, and why I’ve built my classes in such a specific way.

This feels like a piece of The Mama Spring puzzle that I don’t always share, and probably should.

So here’s my story.

I’ve had three babies, and three very different experiences, three different seasons of motherhood.

When my first baby, Paisley, was born, we were out every single day. We went to a different group most mornings, we’d go for coffee, meet friends, and our diary was packed. Looking back, I think that’s exactly what I needed then. I needed somewhere to go, something to anchor the day, a reason to leave the house and feel like a human again.

I’d just come off maternity leave from teaching, and teaching is intense. My days were planned, busy, constant. So going from that to maternity leave felt like a huge shift, and I think doing lots of baby groups helped bridge that gap and helped me feel more like myself again.

When Everything Changed

Fast forward about eighteen months and Morgan came along, and everything was different. She managed two baby classes before the first lockdown hit and suddenly baby groups didn’t exist in the same way. Our favourite group went online, so we joined Zoom calls and watched videos at home, trying to keep some sense of normality, especially for my eighteen-month-old.

But we spent so much time at home. Our world became much smaller. Slower days, fewer people, and a completely different experience of early motherhood, especially with a toddler and a newborn. That season changed everything.

Knowing What I Needed This Time

Then, a couple of years later, I found out I was pregnant with Adaline, and I had so much more perspective. I found myself looking back at the baby groups that had restarted, not because I was panicking or planning ahead, but because motherhood had already shown me how much the right support in those early months can make the world of difference.

When Adaline was born, we were still attending a baby group we’d been going to since Paisley was a baby. We’d grown with it over the years and naturally moved through the classes until we were in the toddler group. That side of things felt settled. The need for a group with all three of us was being met, my older children adored it, and I knew Adaline would slot into that space too.

Because of that, I knew I didn’t need another busy group for all of us.

What I needed, what I really needed, was something calm that was just for me and Adaline. Somewhere I could go when the other two were in childcare. A quieter, slower space that offered support and nurture rather than taking my energy. And I realised that what I wanted this time was calm, connection, and quiet.

Wanting Something That Actually Mattered

I also knew that whatever I chose needed to be worthwhile. I didn’t want to go to a class just to pass an hour. I needed to know there was purpose in it, but not in a way that put pressure on me or my baby.

When I went to baby massage with Paisley, so much of the focus was on the benefits for the baby, and that absolutely mattered, but this time I needed something for me as well. I wanted to be held too.

From the very beginning, I knew my baby classes needed to hold the parents.

Creating Baby Classes That Feel Safe to Walk Into

I wanted them to be a place where you could come along and just be. Everything is baby-led. Babies can feed, cry, need changing, sleep the whole session if that’s what they need, and nothing needs apologising for or explaining.

I’m also really aware of how often parents arrive having already put everyone else first that day. That’s why I welcome every parent with a hot drink, a cold drink, and a snack. It might seem small, but it matters. I want the moment you walk through the door to feel like somebody has thought of you too.

I also don’t start my classes straight away. The first ten minutes are there for grabbing a drink, having a snack, settling in, because babies make us late. I’ve sat outside baby classes before, too late to walk in comfortably, and turned around and gone home. I never wanted that feeling to exist in my spaces.

Still a Teacher, Just in a Different Way

As my work and my business have grown, I’ve realised something else about myself. At the heart of everything I do, I’m still a teacher. Not in a telling-people-what-to-do way, but in a way that builds confidence.

I want parents to leave feeling more capable than when they arrived, with things they can take home, try out, and trust themselves with. I want them to know they are the best thing for their baby. That they matter. That they are supported.

That’s ingrained in me. That’s who I am.

What Parents Share When They Feel Safe

And as parents began to feel safe in my classes, something else started to happen.

When people feel held and unjudged, they talk. And it was in those quiet moments and quiet conversations that I started to notice how much of what parents were holding didn’t actually start in early motherhood at all.

It started in pregnancy. In how supported they felt. Whether they felt heard. How confident they felt stepping into birth and beyond was shaping their experience as a parent.

The more I listened, the clearer it became that confidence doesn’t suddenly appear once a baby arrives. It can begin much earlier, shaped by how supported someone feels during pregnancy. And equally, that support doesn’t need to end once a baby is born.

Support That Doesn’t Exist in Isolation

Baby classes can absolutely exist as a standalone space, and for many parents that’s where they first find me. But they don’t have to exist in isolation.

Support can begin in pregnancy and carry forward into those early months, or it can begin with a baby in your arms and still deeply matter. What matters to me is that parents feel supported at whatever stage they’re in.

Over time, I’ve become more aware of how fragmented support for parents can be. Pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood are often treated as separate experiences, when in reality they’re deeply connected. Parents matter at every stage, and the need to feel heard, supported, and confident doesn’t just switch on and off.

Why I Protect These Spaces So Fiercely

This is the kind of space I’ve created.

And I’m deeply protective of it, because I know from experience how vulnerable this season of life can feel. I remember walking into baby classes with a new baby in my arms, carrying far more than just a changing bag. I was carrying tiredness, self-doubt, and questions I didn’t always know how to say out loud.

I walked in with my guard up, and I see that same guardedness in so many parents now.

And then, slowly, something shifts. Not because anyone is told what to do, but because the space itself allows parents to exhale. They realise they don’t need to perform. They don’t need to have it all together. They can just be.

That matters more to me than anything else.

My classes aren’t about ticking a box or filling an hour. They’re about offering a place where you feel welcomed and valued, and reminded that you’re already doing enough. A place where confidence is quietly built, connection happens naturally, and nobody is rushed through one of the biggest transitions of their life.

That’s why I built my baby classes the way I did.

And if this story feels familiar, if you can see yourself in any part of it, and you’re looking for calm rather than chaos, connection without comparison, and a space that meets you exactly where you are, then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

You are very welcome here.

If this spoke to you, you might also like:

The Class I Needed as a New Mum (So I Created It)
The personal story behind how these spaces came to be.