Massage can be given from the second day of the baby’s life, and the mother is the ideal massager. The best time to massage your baby is once a day, and the best time to massage is one hour after feeding, otherwise your baby will spit up. Room temperature is best between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius, the room light is not too bright. Massage practitioners should not keep long nails, before touching the baby’s body first to let their hands warm up.
Massage to the baby can make it sleep peacefully, weight gain and can relieve irritability, soothe emotions, relieve pain, enhance parent-child relationship, easy to observe the child’s physical condition can also make the baby familiar with the names of various parts of the body.
Massage baby must be full of love, but also to observe whether the baby enjoys, once the baby does not like the look, it should immediately stop. Generally do a set of massage only takes 20 minutes.
1, baby massage basic methods
Before helping the baby massage, you must first prepare the tools to prepare a complete, maintain a happy body and mind to have a close contact with the baby it!
Environmental arrangements.
(1) indoor warmth.
Experts especially remind parents that when helping babies massage must avoid the child’s cold situation.
General baby is often naked, or bare skin to massage, but under three years old children’s body temperature regulation is not fully developed, in order to avoid getting cold during the massage, parents should pay special attention to the room temperature.
Expert advice: parents can prepare a heater or blanket, when massaging the feet for the baby, the blanket can be covered in the upper body of the child to avoid him getting cold.
Experts also recommend that parents, when helping babies to do massage, indoor temperature control, air circulation or not, winter massage on the baby’s body warmth is sufficient, these are the parents should pay special attention.
(2) soft lighting.
For baby massage, indoor lighting to soft or small light bulbs, especially not recommended in the fluorescent environment for massage.
Lying baby will gaze at the light, but look closely at fluorescent lights, in fact, the light will flicker, parents should avoid shining light directly on the child’s face, over time, the eyes will still be more or less hurt.
(3) Soft music.
Parents can prepare music as needed. If you want to calm the mood or let the baby fall asleep as soon as possible, soft music is more appropriate. If you want to interact with children, you can use lighter music to play games with children, or by parents humming songs, are quite suitable.
2, baby massage necessary objects
(1) massage oil.
Massage oil has a lubricating effect, in the massage process will not be uneven force or because the skin is too dry and hurt the baby. Massage oil should be selected to have “natural” ingredients as the best, such as fruit flavor or natural plant ingredients, the baby may accidentally lick the massage oil into the mouth, so the massage oil must be harmless to the body.
How can I tell if massage oil is suitable for my baby?
Put 1 to 2 drops of massage oil on the child’s wrist, wait 10 to 20 minutes, if the skin does not appear red and swollen or other discomfort, it means that the massage oil should be suitable for babies.
(2) Large bath towels or blankets.
Bath towels and blankets can let the little baby lying down, so as to do massage, so as not to let the child in the process of cold.
Auxiliary tools.
Experts say that parents try to use their hands is best, one of the important purposes of massage is to establish good interaction between parents and children through direct skin contact. In addition, sometimes the use of aids will be too much force because of the massager, in turn, the baby will be injured.
Mom preparation: trim nails; keep a happy mood; hand warmth
3, the following massage modalities are recommended for beginners.
(1) full-body exercise.
The whole body movement is to warm up the baby. The toucher sits on the floor with legs stretched out, lay a towel for safety, and let the baby lie face up on your lap with his head facing the direction of your feet. Open and close his arms in front of his chest, which allows the baby to relax his back and his lungs to breathe better. Then move your baby’s legs up and down to simulate walking, an action that stimulates both sides of the brain.
(2) Chest and torso.
Both hands massage gently from the outer lower side of the chest to the opposite shoulder, then gently stroke the baby’s body repeatedly from top to bottom, and if he shows discomfort, change to the next position. This action makes the baby’s breathing circulation smoother.
(3) Arms and hands.
Hold your baby’s left hand gently with one hand and lift his arm up. Massage your baby’s left arm with the other hand, from shoulder to wrist, and then for each finger, gently rub your baby’s little hand to open his palm and fingers. Do the same with the other side. This can increase the baby’s flexibility.
(4) Abdomen.
Gently massage the entire palm of your hand from your baby’s rib cage to the pelvic position, using the belly of your finger to slide from the upper right abdomen to the lower right abdomen and the upper left abdomen to the lower left abdomen. The abdominal massage helps the baby to exhaust and relieve constipation.
(5) Legs and feet.
Hold your baby’s left ankle with one hand, lift your left leg up, massage your baby’s left leg with your other hand from hip to ankle, then stroke your baby’s little feet with the palm of your hand, massage from heel to toe from the bottom up. Do the same on the other side. Massage legs and feet can enhance the baby’s coordination and make the baby’s limbs more flexible.
(6) Back.
If your baby doesn’t mind having his back facing up, try having him lie prone on your lap and use the palms of your hands to massage from your baby’s neck to his hips from top to bottom. You can also have your baby lie flat on his back and use one hand to support his buttocks while the other hand gently rubs his spine slowly down from the neck. Back massage helps to strengthen the immune system.
(7) Face.
Using your two softest fingers, stroke your baby’s forehead from the center to the sides. Then glide down the bridge of the nose toward the tip of the nose and from the tip to the sides of the nose. Most babies will like this technique, they think they are playing a game, but if your baby feels uncomfortable stop doing this first, and you may want to try again the next day.
When you give your baby a massage, you may want to put on some soft music, while softly talking to him, “mommy pinch your little feet”, “this is your big thumb ……”, in Massage at the same time, stimulate the development of the language center of the baby’s brain.
But be aware that baby massage is not suitable for all babies, high fever, fractures, skin infections in babies can not do massage, suffering from other diseases, whether the baby can do massage should listen to the doctor’s opinion.
In recent years, the research on baby potential development has become a worldwide frontier field, and has achieved world-renowned scientific results. It has broken through the customary vision and traditional concept of how people used to look at babies, so that the concept of early education is constantly updated. It has been discovered that every normal newborn baby has potential that we did not expect. Through targeted training of the baby’s sensory, perceptual and motor functions, it will greatly promote their neurological, mental and intellectual development. As the saying goes, “It takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to nurture a man”, the education of children should start from the “newborn”.