Name: Danielle Eyley (known as Elle)
Lives: Swadlincote, Derbyshire
What do you teach? Baby massage and parent & baby yoga
How long have you been an instructor? 6 months
What made you want to become an instructor?
Participating in baby massage and baby yoga with my son when he was a baby and seeing how much it helped him with his ailments, as well as finding it a lovely fun bonding activity for us to do together.
Have you always been an instructor?
No, but I have worked with children and families in the early years for over 10 years. I have worked as a nursery practitioner and in family support. In this time I also completed my honours degree in Early Years Development.
When my son was born I set up ‘Positive Mama Community’, an online voluntary support group on Facebook. My son was 5 weeks old when we went into the first lockdown and I wanted to create a way to help support other new mums that were in a similar situation as myself. This grew rapidly and we now have over a thousand local mums using the group every day. We were also given a community award from our local council for the support given by our group.
I also run Rainbow Rascals Stay and Play alongside some other great volunteers. We are a voluntary-run community stay and play for children under 5 and their families. Parents and carers can bring their little ones along to play whilst they have a chat with us or the other parents over a cuppa and biscuit.
What’s your favourite part of your job? My favourite part about being an instructor is the same favourite part of my job I had when working in nurseries and family support: that is to getting to know families, supporting them and making their lives happier, and seeing the children develop and grow, knowing that you played a small part in the wonderful little people they become.
How do you keep your skills up to date?
Do you have any favourite websites that you use?
I am newly qualified in baby massage and yoga so my skills are pretty fresh, but I like to watch the videos and additional short courses posted on the To Baby and Beyond website, such as the Christmas special video, which gave me lots of ideas for my Christmas special classes.
I follow lots of different pages on Facebook and Instagram that give me inspiration for my classes, these range from Early years education forums to the Institute of Child Psychology.
What qualities do you think are important in an instructor?
I think it is important to be caring, confident, kind and understanding as an instructor. I believe being a mother myself is a great benefit as I can relate to the parents that come to my classes and offer them reassurance, advice, and support from both a practitioner and a parent point of view.
I think its important to be organised, resilient and creative too. You need to ensure you are organised to be able to run your classes effectively and you need creativity to keep your classes flowing and fun. You need resilience for when things do not go the way you planned and to be determined to not let this get you down. If you can do all these things your classes can be great!
How do you keep your skills up to date? I attend CPD courses with To Baby and Beyond and always learn something new. I do lot of research and enjoy reading relevant books too; at the moment I'm enjoying a book about children's yoga.
What qualities do you think are important in an instructor?
Friendly, honest, willingness to help and support others, good listener.
What benefits do you derive from teaching?
I am absolutely loving being an instructor. I love seeing the parents and babies come along and enjoy the classes that I have created for them. I love to see the babies and the parents smile, knowing that I have helped to make their day special. It's great knowing that I am able to pass on skills to parents, that they can then use to help support their babies development and growth and help relieve them of ailments they suffer with.
Have you learnt anything surprising about baby massage or baby yoga?
That our hands are magic! It amazes me what you are able to do with just your hands. I think what surprises me the most is the fact that massaging babies is not a new thing, it's been happening for thousands of years in other countries. It is just something relatively new here in the UK and because of this many new parents are not aware of what it is or how beneficial it can be for their baby, even now with many studies being done that show these amazing benefits, especially for premature babies. It needs to be spoken about and recommended more by midwives, health visitors and GPs.
What’s your top tip for other instructors?To be yourself and to be calm. You will find your families connect with you more if you are your authentic self; still professional but yourself. The families that join me always tell me they love my sessions as they feel calmness as they walk in the room, so having a nice welcoming and calming environment is also a great benefit.
Have you had an amusing experience in your work as an instructor?
I always find it amusing when we are in the middle of classes and several of the babies all start passing wind and the faces their parents make when this happens. I think it's great as it shows the massage or yoga is working to release trapped wind but the parents’ reactions always make me laugh.
Who would you most like to teach on one of your courses and why?
I would love to teach Stacey Solomon. I love how true to herself and honest she is, as well as how kind she is. I think she is really funny and we would have good laugh during some classes together with her little ones.
What are your plans for the future?
My plan for the future is to complete my toddler yoga course, plus the extension for this. I would then love to set up my own classes delivering this alongside my other classes, but also offer it out to local nurseries/preschools and infant schools. I would also love to qualify in prenatal yoga and be able to deliver these classes to my community too. My hopes are then that families will follow me right from pregnancy, through to preschool/reception age.
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Wow Elle - this is a brilliant insight into your background and journey to being the instructor you are today. Thank you!
You can find Elle online
on Facebook here, and
on Instagram here.
