Baby Massage and Reflux.

Tiger in the tree.

I have run baby massage classes for nearly 12 years now. In that time I have come across a number of babies with reflux. Sometimes this is ‘silent’ reflux and while you may not have the projectile vomiting, you do have a very unhappy baby. Very likely mum and dad are tense and tired, and are not enjoying their new bundle of joy at all.

Baby massage can be helpful to babies who suffer reflux.

Reflux, is caused by the muscle between the oesophagus and the stomach being immature and hence working inefficiently. Massage in general, helps to improve muscle coordination and development and will have an overall positive effect on Reflux. Massage also stimulates the main Vagus nerve running through the body and as this controls the respiratory and the digestive system, it helps to improve the condition.

Sometimes, if a baby has reflux a mum or dad may be tired and irritable. Baby massage allows quiet time together to reawaken those loving feelings. Mums and dads share love and fun with their baby, knowing that they are also helping to improve and heal their baby’s condition.

When massaging a baby with Reflux, it is really important to listen in to your baby’s signs. If she is uncomfortable, stop massaging and find a more comfortable position. Generally this will be more upright.

Place your baby over a pillow, your knee or a wedge and this will help. Begin again. Any baby can get irritable, even with massage and not wish to continue. So be prepared to change actions, roll your baby over, carry or just stop for the time being.

Tummy time is really important to babies. It helps to develop their back muscles for sitting up, which in turn can help with reflux.

If your baby is unhappy on their tummy, again place a pillow or wedge under their chest to lift them up, gently bring their arms forward, to help support themselves. They will get stronger and develop good head control with daily practise. Remember, never leave your baby on their tummies if you are not in the room.

Massage your baby, not just once a week, perhaps a little every day, if you can. Help calm and settle them and enjoy this special time together.

By Sue Pitts @ www.gentlehandsbabymassage.co.uk

I have written this article for Danette, who runs the Blog http://sos-research-blog.com/ Dedicated to giving information and help to parents, teachers and other professional. This blog is especially about Baby Massage and Special Needs.

As an Infant Massage Teacher for over 12 years now, I am still just as passionate about baby massage, as I was the first day I began.

Baby massage has many well-known benefits, but perhaps what is less well known is how baby massage may help babies with special needs. It is widely acknowledged that babies without touch have impaired emotional and physical development.

Baby Massage Benefits

Becky Elliott, a midwife and founder of Bababoom recently wrote about baby massage:

Touch is one of our most primitive but sensual forms of communication and one every baby is tuned in with before they are even born. Baby Massage is an amazing way of connecting with your baby, giving you the time and the skills to communicate with your baby using touch, verbal communication, eye contact and listening. In my experience as a midwife both caregiver and baby find the time shared during massage enhances bonding and teaches skills to comfort and relax your baby.”

Research has also established that regular baby massage helps with sleeping issues, anxiety and cognitive development.

During my classes I have sometimes had babies with special needs, ranging from low birth weight to cerebral palsy. In general these babies have shown marked improvement and there has been a positive affect on the relationship between mother and baby.

Research has shown that babies with cerebral palsy and autism who receive regular massage show less spasticity, better muscle tone and appear calmer, with better sleeping patterns. Eye contact, skin-to-skin touch and quality time together all help to provide a secure and loving base.

Baby massage has been proven to help with postnatal depression. When you massage your baby’s skin, the body produces the hormones prolactin and oxytocin. These hormones help to lower the levels of stress hormones in your body and help combat the symptoms of stress. Mum and baby both begin to relax and enjoy time together.

To finish this article go to http://sos-research-blog.com/10/the-benefits-of-baby-massage-and-how-to-get-started/

What age can I massage my baby?

I often have phone calls from mums with very little babies, who would like a Baby Massage Class. Generally I have recommended a Baby Massage Class at about 6-10 weeks. With very little babies, it is enough to put a little organic sunflower oil on their skin and stroke gently. Your room needs to be especially warm, as smaller babies cannot easily regulate their own body temperature. A warm room, is a room that you can sit comfortably in, with just a tee-shirt or less!

Asking a mum to get ready to come out for classes with a baby less that 6 weeks old, is in my opinion asking too much. Mums at this stage are still trying to get dressed and have a shower in the morning, let alone actually go out.

10 weeks is a great time to start classes, though if you have the Gentle Hands Baby Massage Kit, you can start gently after just a few weeks.

My most recent class does actually have very young babies. The babies range from 8 weeks upwards. There are pros and cons for this age.

1) Little babies can be erratic feeders and feed for a long time. If they need to be fed during a class and this is very probable, mum will miss out on the class.

However, the class will teach a set of skills, so providing mum can watch as well, then she can massage at home.

Early massage helps with loving bonds and deepens the relationship between a mum/dad and her/his baby.

2) Younger babies tend to sleep for longer periods of time and it can tricky and sometimes unwise to waken a small baby!

However, with this in mind, mum can again watch and practice at home. I also demonstrate on a doll and a mum with a sleeping baby is more than welcome to work with my doll. Some mums do find this a bit of an odd feeling, but my ‘baby’ is incredibly well behaved.

3) Sometimes a mum may not be ready or confident to begin venturing too far a field. I can remember travelling to our local town and being incredibly embarrassed because I had no idea how to fold up the buggy. I had to put the whole thing in the boot of the car, just as it was!

Some mums are really together and are ready to leave the safety of home.

4) Younger does not necessarily mean less developed. Sometimes heavier babies who have been full term, will be more ready for a class than an older baby, who may have been a little premature.

5) Baby massage is one of the most rewarding activities you can do with your baby. Give it a go, either from home with a Gentle Hands Baby Massage Kit, or a class. Either way , you are giving your baby the best possible start!

One of the first questions ever asked about baby massage is:

‘how old do they have to be to start and when are they too old for classes”

I thought I’d just address the ‘when are they too old” In the past my response would be something along the lines of ‘when you can’t hold them down’, ‘when they are wriggling too much’ or perhaps ‘when they are crawling’.

I have just finished a set of classes, with a lovely group of mums. In the class we had five mums with their babies, ranging from between 3 months and 7 months. In this group, was the beautiful Jasper, 7 months and crawling, 7 months and cruising, 7 months and totally charming!

In the first class, he was quite active and would lie for a few minutes, but to be fair, he was on the move. Mum had to work really hard to entertain him and help him focus.

However, with each class, Jasper became more and more chilled and relaxed. He was happy to lie for 10 minutes or longer at a time and he looked like he had entered into a Zen space. It was amazing to watch, and we all agreed that we wish we could relax just like that!

A great way to massage your baby is to make a circle with your legs and lie your baby inside, possibly using your feet as a pillow, if they are on their back. The enclosed space gives security and safety.

Remember with an older baby, this is not a fight! Stay calm and relaxed and work together, do the bits you know they love and sing, sing, sing. Sing quietly and gently, set the mood so your baby can pick up on the calmness of the experience.

Jasper’s mum reported that she was massaging him at home and that he had become more relaxed during bath time, making that part of the day more fun and less tiring.

So how old is too old, to massage your baby? Looks like the answer to that is never!

It’s never too late to start, even if you can only snatch a few minutes at a time and you can continue massaging your baby for as long as you want to. Perhaps by massaging our babies until they are older we are teaching them the value of relaxation and giving them the opportunity to stop and be quiet. Possibly, we are giving our babies an invaluable lesson in how to be calm and this could be a fantastic gift as they grow older and need to hold onto themselves when things get rocky.

What do you think? Do you have experience of massaging an older baby? Any photo’s you might like to add to the blog, of your older baby being massaged? Send them in and I’ll pop one or two of them up.

Colicky Babies and Baby Massage.

Nobody really knows what causes colic. All we know is that a little baby is in severe distress and pain and their seems little we can do about it. It is thought between 10%-15% of babies have colic. I was therefor unlucky, since two of our babies had it.

Telltale signs of colic are: lots of crying, drawing up of the knees, clenching of the fists and a noisy, gurgly tummy. Crying can be for several hours at a time, at any time of the day, but often in the evenings, when every one is at their most tired.

It is thought that the cause could be trapped wind, food intolerance if mum is breast feeding, allergy to cows milk or slow bowel movements.

What to do?

This can be a tricky one, there are preparations on the market that might help, I seemed to remember copious amounts of Gripe Water, before realising (in those days) that it had alcohol in it – worked though!

We rocked frantically, for hours at a time. We shared the evening bouts. We walked in circles, lots and lots of times. I was breast feeding, so we thought we would cut out possible culprits, coffee, tea, chocolate, spicy food and then…. it stopped! No need to cut out chocolate, hurrah!

It seemed to go on for months, but in reality we realised actually it was 2 weeks. Two weeks of a really hard time, but we did get through it, no side effects for baby, just very tired parents! Colic can last a month or two, or it can be just the occasional bout.

Back then we didn’t know about baby massage, so I would now suggest do all of the above and massage your baby’s tummy.

Gentle tummy massage for a windy tummy.

Sing and hum as you massage. Use a little vegetable oil. Begin to massage first in big circles, CLOCKWISE, follow one hand after the other. be gentle but let your hand be it’s natural weight. After a little while, be guided by your baby, you can move onto little circles, following the intestines. Lots of little circles, with two fingers, working in a spiral around the tummy.

Tiger in the Tree

Hold your baby in the Tiger in the Tree position. Over your forarm. This is great for colic and takes the weight off your baby’s tummy, while keeping it warm. You or your partner may be able to wander round like this for hours! Good luck and remember it will pass. Saying in our family?

“This too will pass” Works for everything!

That old adage, never work with children or animals came home to me! It was time to take a new photo for the front of our Gentle Hands Baby Massage Kit. We have been advised by Mothercare, that the Kit needed to be more ‘self selling’, i.e. it can be seen clearly on the shelf by customers and they  know exactly what it is.

I asked one of my mums from my baby massage class, if she would be happy for her baby to be a model. This mum had come to my baby massage classes with her previous 2 babies and so I felt I knew her well enough to ask. It helped that her baby was beautiful! Johnny is the happiest, smiliest baby in the world. At the time of the photos he was about 6 months. A lovely age.

We worked with Helen Jolliffe  at www.helenjolliffephotography.com to take the photos. Helen had taken the previous photos of the kit on the web site and I felt she thorougly understood the product and the concept we needed for the packaging.

Helen arrived with an amazing array of equipment, including a huge pop up light system. Johnny arrived having slept a little in the car. He was, as ever very smiley and cheerful, until of course Helen wanted to take a photo.

You can see from the photos below that as soon as the camera was pointed at him, Johnny became serious! He laughed, and giggled – until the photo was a millisecond from being taken!

In the end we did get some beautiful photos, (these are just as lovely, but we really want a smile). These will appear on the new packaging for the kit, in the next few weeks.

Some of these photos are up on the Gentle Hands Baby Massage web site already.

You will see from the web site, that my photo is new too. I really like it. But I also have a problem with a photo being taken. I have a slightly lazy eye, (there’s honesty for you!). As soon as the photo was about to be taken, my left eye began to droop. These ones I won’t show you. Eventually after trying a fair few different facial expressions, I managed not to be smiling, with my eyes so wide open that I looked like a startled rabbit, in the hope that my eye wouldn’t be half closed. I found it really hard to smile for the camera, lots and lots of times. My face ached.

The animal bit? Well, that was just our old, nearly deaf Border Colli called Pebbles, who wanted to be in on the action and kept barging into the equipment and lying down in the most awkward of places and proceeding to snore very loudly.

Oh well, we had a lovely time and a big thanks to Johnny’s mum and Helen for all their hard work.

Being in tune with your own emotions and those of your child will help children develop a strong sense of self. Empathy and understanding are central to a child’s growing awareness of who they are. Entering the world of your child, seeing their point of view, helps children to feel respected and worthy. It enriches their own ability to be understanding. Sharing time together, watching a rainbow, a combine harvester, or just playing  helps

to develop self esteem.

It is not always possible to live in your child’s world and it could become intrusive, but it is important to move in and out, through their whole emotional spectrum.

Sometimes our own early experiences can prevent us from entering our child’s world. A knee jerk emotional response to a situation, will give us exactly  the feedback we need to realise that we may not be in the right place! I remember our youngest rushing inside with a handful of worms, absolutely entranced and excited by his finds. My immediate response was no doubt the wrong one, not a worm lover at the best of time, but indoors… nope,couldn’t be done! In hind site I really needed to master myself, enter my child’s world, talk worms and guide him gently outside, I can’t say I did that!

Taking a look at own emotional triggers, helps us to see what may get in the way of giving children our full attention at their time of need, whether happy or sad.

In those early days, weeks and months, baby massage helps us to pick up clues about their emotional world. We can learn to empathise with it and give it meaning and begin to help our babies develop a true sense of self, through love and trust.

Parenting – can we be different to our parents?

The way we parent our children can be a direct response to to the way in which we were parented. How often have we said, ‘I’ll never do /say that to my child!’ I will be different to my mum and then, we say it or we do it, despite our best intentions!

If as you go through your daily life with your children, you notice that certain interactions trigger an emotional response, then it could be that you are caught by your own memories and early experiences.

Take a little time out to reflect on these situations and gather some information about yourself. This may be helpful in understanding your reaction and could help you to act differently next time.

All our experiences shape out brain structure as adults and children and these in turn impact on how we behave and act.

“How we treat our children changes who they are and how they will develop. Their brains need our parental involvement – Nature needs Nurture”

From Parenting from the Inside Out. Daniel J Siegal MD @ Mary Hartzell, M.ED

Baby massage can be a very important tool and can help teach you to do things differently. Massaging your baby gives you the opportunity to be responsive and loving on your babies terms. Touch and love give your baby a secure base from which to grow and flourish. You can be with your baby in a nurturing and shared loving experience.

How to begin Baby Massage

Relax and enjoy baby massage

Some basic hints and tips to help you begin your baby massage.

Begin your baby massage in a lovely warm room. Remember to take off rings, bracelets and sometimes a chunky watch can catch.

Make sure you’re not in a draft. Sometimes a baby may get cold. Their skin will cool down very quickly once the oil is applied. If they get cold then they may not enjoy your special time together.

Place your baby on a towel, possibly with a baby changing mat underneath. Any wetness will travel every where with out a towel. Mums and dads with boys, watch those knees and cover with another towel, just in case.

If you have bought a Gentle Hands Baby Massage Kit, then you could play the CD before you start, just to familurise yourself with the words to the nursery rhymes. it’s not designed to use during a massage though, but to play any time, in the car, teatime etc.

Rub your hands together, to make sure your hands are warm and cover them in oil. Smooth this all over your baby. From top to toe. Work gently into all those little creases, behind the knees, under the arms, behind the ears.

Sing Incy Wincy spider (on the CD) as you go. Have fun and enjoy. Just doing this will give you a real taste of how wonderful Baby Massage is.