New Zealand birth and parenting professionals enjoyed my favorite way to review the morning's HUG material - Catching The KOOSH. We all laugh at our uncoordinated efforts to both catch a Koosh ball and respond to my questions: 'What are the 3 Newborn Zones?" "Demonstrate the Rebooting Zone." "And, show us what the 'Spacing Out SOS' looks like!" Incorporating physical activity into the learning process is not only fun; it also primes our brains for an afternoon of more new information.
We spent a lot of time yesterday discussing the value of "Broadcasting a baby's behavior" and using techniques to demonstrate a newborn's amazing capabilities. Extra time was devoted to specific skills required to help a baby orient to a toy and to a parent's face and voice. We also broke into groups and practiced "Broadcasting" the behavior of babies captured on video. Though these HUG concepts are easily understood, professionals often report that GIVING the HUG is more challenging than understanding the concepts!
The grand finale for our NZ HUG Your Baby Workshop was HUG's Jeopardy Game. After dividing into teams, the participants worked together to come up with the right question to the answer that was given: "Body and Behavioral" (Question: What are two types of SOSs?), "Smacking lips, bringing hand to mouth and wiggling" (Question: What are early feeding cues?) Our Dutch colleague, Elly Krijnen, gave us the Jeopardy template, and our USA HUG Trainer, Gale Touger, worked hard to make this final review of the HUG Your Baby concepts and resources both fun and instructive.
Follow us on the newly created Instagram named: HUG Your Baby. It's a quick and easy way to Get a HUG!CLICK HERE to read blogs about our 2013-2014 International Teaching Tour to New Zealand.