5 Reasons to Massage Your Baby

Baby massage helps babies to sleep, digest and feel good
It’s becoming more and more well known that skin to skin is the best possible start for babies when they are born. This direct contact with Mum’s body after birth helps to regulates baby’s heartbeat and breathing. It helps babies adjust to the sudden experience of the bright noisy world outside the womb.
These benefits don’t end a few hours after birth though. Skin to skin contact continues to be a reassuring and physically regulating experience for babies and children throughout the early years. Sleeping, feeding and crying are often the main concerns of new parents and baby massage helps them all! When we lovingly and respectfully massage our babies, we lower their stress hormones, stimulate their digestion, and help them to release tension, resulting in happier, calmer babies. If you’ve ever had a massage yourself, remember how great you feel afterwards. How good your body feels, how much better you sleep. Now imagine that you’re in a new unfamiliar environment and your days are filled with endlessly learning multiple new things whilst not speaking the language. And then imagine coming into a quiet calm space and your most loved and special person gives you a loving massage. Bliss.

Baby massage helps you learn to speak your baby’s language
So many of the trickier moments of new parenthood are about staring at your little one thinking- What? What is it? Hungry? Tired? Bored? Cold? Hot? What’s wrong? What do I do? How do I make you feel better?
One of the lovely things about taking the time to spend quality one to one time with your baby, massaging them and interacting with them is that we learn to speak their language. We become attuned to this other tiny person, so that we begin to recognise their facial expressions, their body language and the different tones of crying. We start to feel that we know what to do, without necessarily having to think it all through, but just through following our parenting instincts, our gut feelings. One of the benefits of doing this in a class setting is that you have a teacher to guide you – to point out some of the ways we read baby cues. We also have the opportunity to learn from the others in the class, seeing how other babies react, and especially seeing babies a little older than our own, so that we see what we may expect in the weeks to come.

Baby massage encourages ‘Spirals of Joy’
There is a wonderful event that happens when babies and their carers become well attuned, a magical mutually profound moment of joy. Perhaps it starts with the baby making a coo-ing noise. The parent then leans in close, makes eye contact and coos back with raised eyebrows, starting a conversation. Connecting into the parent’s invitation, the baby smiles, coos and makes happy little leg movements for a moment, before becoming still again, waiting for the response. The parent cannot help but smile back, and so the spiral continues. These moments may be sweet, but they also serve an important function. We are tuning into a deep communication with our babies. We are raising our own and our babies’ oxytocin levels (the wonderful hormone of bonding, love and trust), which both deepens our bond, and helps us to feel good. It’s like nature’s reward for the commitment of parenting. These oxytocin fuelled rushes of pleasure simultaneously help us to feel better, and to be closer to our little ones.

Perhaps the loveliest thing about Birthlight nurturing baby massage classes is that these spirals don’t just affect one parent and baby. They spiral out into the classroom, into the wider families and out into the community. Have you ever smiled and felt a little taste of joy when you see a cute baby and parent interacting? Congratulations – you just got included in the spiral. It is amazing how much joy a close bond between a parent and child can bring to the world.