Little Kin

Little Kin explores how babies, young children and their families can belong in museums and heritage spaces — and what their ways of learning can teach us about participation more widely. 

At its heart is a simple idea:

Babies belong in museums.

One of the earliest Little Kin projects was Little Kin Flow, a five-week postnatal movement and connection pilot delivered within a museum setting with eight families and supported through local funding.

The project brought together caregiver wellbeing, early years development and heritage engagement through gentle movement, sensory play and shared experiences.

Each session included restorative movement for caregivers alongside opportunities for babies to move, explore and participate. Baby yoga was used for connection and fun, and sessions responded to the lived realities of postnatal bodies, including fatigue, shoulder and back strain and pelvic floor recovery.

Babies were welcomed as active participants rather than treated as separate from the experience.

The museum was part of the experience

The museum was not simply a backdrop.

Little Kin Flow explored what happens when families are given time to become familiar with a heritage space and begin to see it as somewhere they belong.

Over the five weeks, families stayed after sessions, used the café, socialised together and built their own relationships with the museum.

Important family moments happened there too. During one session, several babies reached new movement milestones. Those moments are now part of their families’ memories of that heritage site.

By the final week, the museum was no longer somewhere the group had simply attended a class.

It had become part of their story.

What happened

Across the programme:

• families increasingly stayed in the museum and socialised after sessions

• strong connections developed between families

• participants described increased confidence in attending groups

• babies actively explored and reached developmental milestones

• caregivers reported reduced physical tension and greater confidence in movement

• 100% of participating families asked for the programme to continue

The final session ended with a babywearing disco, inflatable guitars, dancing, birthday celebrations and a group of families who did not want the programme to finish.

Afterwards, they stayed for lunch together and began making their own plans to continue meeting beyond Little Kin.

What families said

“Honestly my favourite class of the week.”

“Aww look at us, dressed, out of the house with our babies, doing yoga, having a drink and everything — so proud and grateful.”

“I remember how terrified I was thinking of joining baby groups…”

“Thank you so much for creating this space, leading and guiding us.”

“I will forever be grateful I got to be a part of your classes.”

Little Kin Flow showed the potential for museums to become part of everyday family life rather than places reserved for occasional visits.

It also became the starting point for wider Little Kin work exploring sensory learning, participation, belonging and what babies can teach us about how people experience heritage.

This work later informed Beyond the Screen: What Babies Teach Us About Learning in a Digital Museum Age, presented at Bletchley Park.