How to Massage a Baby

Whether your baby is cranky or not you should take the time to massage him or her. Massaging your baby enhances the emotional bond with your child and can calm him down, improve sleep patterns and help digestion. It’s also a fantastic way for dads, brothers, sisters, grandparents and other caregivers to get to know the baby and bond with it.

Additionally, research has shown that gently massaging babies actually helps improve their growth and development. Premature babies especially benefit from being massaged.

According to one study, preemies who were massaged three times daily for ten days gained almost twice as much more weight, were more active and alert and were able to leave the hospital a week earlier than other infants.

One word of warning…you should not attempt to massage your infant if he or she is full or hungry. This could actually make your baby feel sick. Make sure the baby is completely warm, well fed and comfortable before you do anything. You might want to burp a baby first to prevent nausea while you are massaging him or her as well.

It is important that you are relaxed and comfortable as you massage the child and that you will not be interrupted. If you are not relaxed you will transfer all your stress to the baby and upset him or her. You should also make sure the room is warm enough and that there is soothing music playing.

It is best to lay your baby on his or her back and then massage the front of your baby first. Then flip him or her over and do the back. Laying the baby on a soft mat or towel is also a good idea. Be careful not to tickle the baby as he or she could find that quite upsetting as well. The baby will let you know if it is over stimulated by crying or making a big fuss.

You get great results if you massage the baby with oil. You can use any kind of vegetable oil or baby oil and you can even put a drop of essential oil in the mix. Just don't put in more than a drop as babies have sensitive skin. Also never put the oil on the baby's head or face.
It is also important to remember that not every baby likes to be massaged for a long time. A newborn may enjoy only two to five minutes of massage, while a child over two months of age might love being massaged even longer.

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Why Do Babies Cry?

Why do babies cry? For the same reason anyone cries, which is for about a million different possible reasons. But with a newborn, you’re handicapped as a mom: you aren’t yet communicating in spoken language, so for you it becomes a guessing game, hourly and daily and even minute by minute. Since babies often cry non-stop for up to two hours at a shot, it can often feel overwhelming, like you’re losing the guessing game. But there are ways to cut down the possibilities and help get to the ideal position of returning your child to a happy gurgling bundle of joy, all momentary needs addressed.
Just try to put yourself in the situation of your baby. First and foremost a baby will communicate by fussing and crying is she is hungry. Remember that the feeding for a newborn is constant, every few hours. If you are convinced your baby is crying for reasons of hunger, address the situation quickly. If the baby becomes TOO hungry then chances are that she will take the bottle too eagerly and gobble up a lot of air along with everything else. This will lead to spit-ups and probably more fussing and crying. If the baby is attacking the bottle with too much gusto, back away and try to feed her little by little.
If the baby doesn’t seem to be hungry, go directly to plan B: check your baby’s diaper right away. There’s nothing like a full diaper to get those tears flowing. Remember here that an incomplete or absent burping after the bottle can produce an upset tummy, which will lead to crying and eventual full diaper, so don’t forget: ABB! (Always Be Burping).
If the above reasons don’t seem to be the case, don’t forget that the average newborn sleeps just like an old cat – sometimes up to 18 hours a day. The child may be crying for the simple reason that her sleep was disturbed in some way. This is a time to remember that a quiet environment must be created and maintained for the child at all times. So turn down the music, turn up the listener-speaker and pay attention!
Finally, sometimes a baby, just like an adult, will become frustrated with her sleep position, or any waking position she happens to be in. In that case you just need to move her around, rock or carry her here and there, and you’ll see this can work wonders to quiet and soothe your crying child.

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