Despite what this slightly freaked out mom might think, the baby massage technique known as Indian milking does not originate in the Kamasutra:
"If it's a boy," she said, "it's even weirder: dim the lights and put on mellow music and get them really comfortable and oil them up and massage them? It was like, come on, I need to be doing this with my husband, not the baby."Yee-ow, I'd hope so. The one kind of weird that baby massage is not is sexy-weird.Perhaps it is just a case of different strokes for different folks.
Whether you enroll in classes, study up via books and dvd's, or just intuit your way through it, though, there are still plenty of happy endings available for baby massage: For preemies, there's accelerated growth and weight gain. For most babies, it's relaxing and can get them through their afternoon fussy stretch. For Californians, it gets them used to wearing sunscreen. Parents get a nice bonding moment. And then there's this:
"Ethan used to cry a lot from 4 to 7," Ms. Teramo said. "I'd bend his knees back and forth and massage him. You would hear gas come out of him! That was a reward. You actually saw it working."That's right, folks: no less authority than The New York Times Style Section has declared baby farts to be the new hotness.
For Baby, All You Knead Is Love [NYT]
Buy the book, Baby Massage for Dummies for $11.55 at Amazon
Or there's Vimala McClure, who you may know from such books as Infant Massage : A Handbook For Loving Parents.
Here's a page from a Certified Infant Massage Instructor (CIMI) in Alexandria, VA [thebabyhammock.com, whaddya know, another Ethan]
Previously: baby massage pajamas
Buy a red neon "MASSAGE" sign for the kid's nursery at signmerchant.com, reg. $180, now on sale for $140+$40 s&h [or as I like to call it, $180]
and it's great for relaxing a micropreemie's notoriously taught muscles! seriously, many (most?) neonatal intensive care unit's encourage a regular massage regime to help counteract the effects of being born before the nervous system has finished developing.
My wife learned infant-massage as part of the physical therapy follow-up our preemie twins received. The kids simply love it and it was also a great way to get them calm just before bed.
We did the baby massage for several weeks, hoping it would help with the baby's colic. I think it did help a little. The baby enjoyed it, it helped my wife and I bond with the baby even more. After the "regimine" was completed, we stopped for a bit, and then the baby got too big (i.e. squirmy) to really do it as effectively as we used to.
I remember part of the massage routine was holding up your hands and asking the baby if she was ready. Maybe it was just me, but you really could tell, even at a month or two, if she wanted to be massaged or not.
This reminds me... Greg, I'm still working (in my head, at least) on that article we discussed long ago.
Baby massage is an abomination unto the Lord!
Wait. We're talking about regular massage here, right? Not baby oriental massage, right?
An early title for this post was, "Baby Massage with a happy ending, [but not what you think]"
to which Dan would add, "Sinner!"
"..and the Lord will smite thee baby masseuses" - Mathew 21-7 [only the uncertified ones. -ed.]
OK....relevant, constructive and value adding......hmmmmmm. Nope, no comment then!
Wait, I don't do baby massage, but I do/did rather exercise my babies joints, knees, elboms, ankles, hips etc. It was something that my mother taught us to do with our children, as she had done it to us. So, you could call this Swedish Massage considering shes swedish.....becuase I hate my nationality's only notoriety being what comes out of a vending machine in mens' washrooms across the USA.
Cologne?
Nothing wrong with baby massage as it does increase the bond iwth a new father as i have found.
try www.bexleybabymassage.co.uk