What Makes a Brilliant Baby Class Teacher

What Makes a Brilliant Baby Class Teacher (It’s Not What You Think)

If you spend any amount of time at all scrolling on Instagram or TikTok, it's easy to get sucked into thinking that brilliant baby class teachers own  an incredible, huge,  stunning collection of props, always has a perfectly designed, different theme each week, and can set up a reel worthy mat layout in twelve minutes flat.

But the truth?
The teachers who make the deepest impact on babies and parents don't always have classes that look like the ones with the prettiest grids.

A brilliant baby class teacher is the person who sees babies and parents.
Not just entertains them. Not just talks at them, giving a flow of instructions. Sees them.

Because this work isn’t a  west end performance. It’s attunement.

It starts with presence, not props

Babies don’t care if the scarves match the themes or whether baskets are carefully colour coded. They care about how safe they feel. How calm you are. Whether your face, voice and energy tell them they’re welcome exactly as they are.

You can have the most gorgeous resources in the world, but if your nervous system is frazzled, the babies in your class will mirror it straight back. Presence comes before presentation every time.

Observation is a superpower

I always say that teaching baby classes is 80 percent watching and 20 percent doing. A brilliant teacher notices the tiny moments, the baby who turns their head towards a sound, the one who needs more space before joining in, the parent who’s quietly anxious and trying to blend into the mat and adjusts content accordingly or has a quiet word.

If you want to understand the science behind why these small moments matter, I wrote a blog about how to plan a class that supports baby brain development which you can read here 

These observations shape the entire experience far more than the theme of the week ever will.

Confidence is contagious

Not loud confidence. Not showy confidence.
The quiet kind, the grounded, steady, I know what I’m doing and why kind.

When you understand infant development and maternal wellbeing and you plan your sessions with purpose, parents feel it instantly. They relax. They trust you. They stop looking around to see whether their baby is keeping up and start noticing how much their baby is learning through the simplest of moments.

That kind of confidence doesn’t come from Pinterest. It comes from knowledge, practice, reflection and genuine care.

Empathy is non negotiable

Parents walk into baby classes carrying so much, tiredness, worry, love, hope, guilt, joy, overwhelm. Sometimes all of it at once.

A brilliant teacher holds space for all of that without making a fuss about it. They know when to give someone a smile, when to move closer, when to offer reassurance, when to let them be.

Inside Module 6 of The Baby Class Blueprint, I teach this side of the work in depth, how to lead with love and professionalism, how to look after your voice and your energy, how to hold space for crying babies, anxious parents and the real emotions that walk through the door with every new family.

The best teachers support adult wellbeing as much as infant development, and they do it so subtly that parents barely realise they’re being held.

And the most important part?

A brilliant baby class teacher cares about the relationship between baby and parent more than the class itself.
Because that’s where the real learning happens.
Not in the props, not in the playlist, not in the theme, but in the connection.

This work is quiet, thoughtful and deeply human. It isn’t linear. It isn’t flashy. It isn’t always visible on Instagram.

But when you see a baby relax into a parent’s arms, or light up at a familiar song, or reach out with curiosity rather than hesitation, that’s the magic you created.

If you’re ready to learn how to teach from this place of purpose, confidence and genuine understanding, that’s exactly what I teach inside The Baby Class Blueprint.