What Parents Learn

I am an experienced Paed. physiotherapist, I attended Anne’s Pekip classes and “What and amazing surprising and creative environment she offers to her clients! I am very impressed with Anne’ program, about her experience, attitude and how she handles babies and parents. Seeing many babies and children in my career, I can see what difference it makes and see how they develop being in PEKIP. Anne is capable to diagnose and detect babies who need physiotherapy. This early prevention is the  key of a better life for those babies and parents!

Paed. Physiotherapist (Ger)
Bobath/NDT
Sensory Integrative Therapy
Craniosacral Therapist

PEKiP PROGRAM GOALS

First Goal: Stimulate development of the baby’s motor skills through exercises, movements and social plays specially designed by Jaroslav Koch. Collectively, these activities support physical, social and emotional development of the infants on one hand and build relations between the child and the educator on the other.

Second Goal: Support and intensify interactions between parent and child. In Koch’s educated opinion, the necessity of feedback is given emphasis: In this process, the parent must find out what the child’s momentary needs are and the ways by which parent can support the child’s own activity. 

Third Goal: Support communication among parents within a group context. Such communication often sheds light on different possibilities to an issue but does not prescribe any mandatory solution in any direct way. The group emphasizes on the possibility of choice in light of other people’s experience.

Fourth Goal: Support contact between infants of the same age: During their participation in PEKiPs year-long programs, the babies often begin to develop an interest in other children, expressing joy and excitement when they come into contact and relish the company of each other.

PEKiP Activities and Games

Over 100 progressive activities designed for each development phase
As babies grow, the activities for them also get increasingly challenging. These exercises are so simple that they could be done lying on the towels before they even sit up or crawl.

Subsequently, they get to belly crawl on mirrors smeared with baby lotion. Around the time they reach the tenth month, they will get around a fun obstacles course, where they are led up an incline, come down over a mini slide and craw over and under various baby-safe props. Parents will be amazed to discover how much mobility, psychomotor skills and improvements their babies have gained, with each passing week, throughout the PEKiP course.

  
Below are just a few of the many activities, exercises and games designed by PEKiP for parents to “practise” with their children at home.

Naked Time for Babies

Being bundled inside a warm wet diaper with restrictive clothing for 24 hours a day isn’t great for the skin or for comfort. In a Pekip class, babies will go naked with the room temperature set at a comfortable level from 25 to 27 degrees Celsius.

Diapers pull your baby’s legs and hips into a spread-out, bow-legged position. Getting these restrictions off for the PEKiP class gives your child the precious opportunity to explore the complete range of motion that their limbs are capable of. They need to use those little muscles in every direction so they can develop properly. Naked time for your baby in the PEKiP playground will give him or her a chance to exercise their legs and hips fully.

Fun with Feathers

One activity is to caress you baby’s skin with pieces of fur while you sing to provide him or her with a combination of auditory and tactile stimuli.

A similar trick is to use a large feather - the softer and more colourful, the better. By using a feather to stroke your baby from top to toe, you will help to give him or her an idea where the body starts (at the crown of the head) and finishes (at the tips of the feet). Then if place the feather between their toes, it will encourage the baby to explore his or her feet with both hands. This stimulates your baby’s awareness of the midline, that is, where the centre of the body lies.

Sensory Integration
An excellent visual-motor coordination activity for your baby is to first lay him on his back, show him a feather or piece of fur and then use it to stroke his body from head to toe. Now place the feather between his toes. If he doesn’t seem to notice it there, lift his leg up to show it to him. This helps promote visual stimulation and hand-eye coordination. Encourage him to reach for the feather. Once he has grabbed it, let him play with the feather for as long as he is interested.

Next, ask him to hand the feather back to you. At this stage, you will be probably pulling it out of his grip, but thank him anyway, as though he has handed it to you. Repeat this exercise by placing the feather between the toes of his other foot, but be alert though: some infants are quick to put the feathers into their mouths.

Overall, this game helps promote sensory integration in infants. With the caress of a soft feather, the baby’s sense of touch sends messages to his brains to orient his sight with the source of stimulation and integrate the touch sensations felt at the muscles and joints.

Baby Massage
Anne and her instructors will teach you baby massage skills you can apply back home. When you massage your infant in a quiet moment of the day, it becomes a medium of communication and physical contact. You communicate your love, acceptance and respect to your baby when you softly massage him with almond or essential oils. In this course, you learn how to give your baby a whole body massage which can alleviate his or her flatulence and colic attacks and enhance maternal bonding. At the same time, you can exchange your views with other participants about the challenges and joys of parenthood.

Baby Hammock Swing
Pick up one end of the towel placed beneath your baby while another person grabs the other. Gently both of you rock the infant in the impromptu swings to give him or her a sense of swaying motion.

 
What Mothers Learn in a PEKiP Class
First-time mothers are naturally apprehensive about how they should care for their newborns. They tend to be nervous and over-protective with little knowledge or confidence to stimulate their babies as much as they should. 

 
PEKiP teaches mothers that babies are active and thinking right from birth and that they are captivated by your face whenever you smile and make eye contact with them and they love to play in ways that their mums would not even imagine.

At our playgroups, mothers have lots of opportunities to learn about the development of their babies’ fine and gross motor skills. They would also observe how their children behave and respond to various activities carried out under careful supervision.

Mothers would also realize that their babies are not as fragile as they thought. They would also learn to recognize signs of stimulation in their infants, by the way they wiggle their fingers and toes.

   
New parents can also raise their child-rearing concerns during any PEKiP session and Anne will be on hand to share her expertise in addressing them.

To join a PEKIP class, call Anne at (852) 2573-6623 or