Baby Massage: Session 1

Thursday, 17 April 2014

Our local Sure Start Centre is brilliant. Last week we finished a 5 week mum and baby class and during it they told us they were starting up a baby massage course.. completely free! Today was mine and Indiana's first session. I know she may be a bit on the older end of the scale for it (they recommend up until 6 months), but she's not mastered rolling yet, so decided to give it a go!

They centre provided the oils, so we just had to bring towels with us. We were warned it could be quite .messy, and obviously the oil gets everywhere so the towels are actually essential haha, They say it's easiest to do completely naked, so it's definitely a risk taking their nappies off haha, luckily we had no accidents today!

Nearly all of us mummies brought along this towel that came free with our bounty packs haha

A change of clothes was recommended just in case there were any accidents

The oil we used was super sensitive sunflower oil - we tested first to make sure it was safe

For our first session we started with the legs, and throughout the weeks we're going to work our way up, so they will become longer. Today's was pretty short but it was only the introduction, and more to see if the babies like it or not!

We begun with the 'velvet cloak' where you check to see if the baby is happy to let you massage them. It seems pretty silly, but I guess it's best to check as you don't want to make a grumpy baby any grumpier haha. Although Indie hadn't napped all morning she was pretty chirpy, squealing away as usual.

We were shown lots of different leg and feet techniques in a little routine. We even sang some nursery rhymes to go with some of the steps. I'm not one for a sing-song and felt pretty silly doing it, but Indie seemed to love it. Every time we sang a song she was beaming away, especially during the 'jelly on a plate' step haha (you wiggle their thighs while singing the song, it's actually rather funny haha).

The only downside of going to these sessions while Indie is a bit older is that she is wriggling all over the shop. She was twisting herself to look at the instructor, and was intently listening to the steps, it was pretty cute really. But when she's pushing to try and roll over it's pretty hard to massage her chunky leggies haha.

Overall I think all the babies loved it! Two were asleep half way through, and the rest were all snuggled into their mummies looking zonked, bless them. I was feeling pretty relaxed myself, the calming music could have probably put me to sleep if I was at home haha.