TOUCHER BIENVEILLANT
Initiation to Babymassage
Classes to consider with your baby after giving birth.
They are particularly beneficial during a baby’s first three months.
If you take a closer look at the development of babies senses during pregnancy, you ought to know that the first functional sense is touch, very early on, around 7 weeks.
From this moment on your child starts to feel touches, just like everything what they touche themselves.
This is how communication starts between you and your baby.
Your baby moves and instinctively you put a hand on your belly. Or you or your partner will put a hand on your belly and in response, your baby starts to move.
If this happens regulary, your child will remember it
and knows exactly how to get in touch and how to communicate with you. Et voilà, the basics bonding and attachment are created.
"Touching is a human need, condition for a normal development for body and soul. It is the language of love!" Frederic Leboyer
After birth, the sensation of a touch continues on being as important as during the pregnancy.
By touching, holding and caring for your baby, you help them feel safer and protected in this new environment. This process is the moment you're able to build up their basic trust in the strongest way possible.
(cf babyhandling)
The more often and regular you massage your baby, the more the both of you will get used to it and relax easier and efficiently. Giving and getting a massage is relaxing once you know how it works.
Hence you understand that relaxing by the massage will not work from the starting point. The massage and baby require time to become used to it and relax completly. Similar to everything else also a massage has it's strong, but also weak moments and is not always working.
Thereby at the end everybody will be profiting from this intensive and beautiful time of giving massages.
You can massage your baby from the first days on after birth. This will be mostly stroking, holding your baby and sometimes also a real massage.
Whenever you do this in a calm way and with all your love, you cannot do something wrong.
Babymassage can be a good opportunity for the father to strengthen their relationship with the baby, nourish the bond between father and baby .Fathers often don't get to spend as much time with the baby as the mother, so they might not have the same quality of time with the baby. Massage could be the perfect moment to get some one on one bonding time with the baby. By taking their time in doing the massage very regulary, the baby will get a habit of waiting for their father to come home and spend this wonderful time together.
This ritual teaches the baby,how to relax and get prepared for the night.
Thereby he will fall asleep easier and thus sleep much deeper.
During the first session i'd be explaining the basics and how to prepare the babymassage.
When's a good time to do a massage? What are the best conditions?
How long, how often and how much?
What oil should you use and how do you control the quality of the oil?
While you massage your baby, i will do the massage on my doll.
You just do the massage the way you feel it and i will guide you a little bit.
I will show you what they like and what is important to know in doing a massage of a newborn baby. Beside this I'll show you how to do the massage in case of colliques, stress, restlessness or problems to put the baby to sleep. In this case some little techniques of reflexologie can be helpfull.
You will let youself be led by the love you feel for your baby. The most important thing will always be the intensive time, the strong feeling of bonding and attachment!!
Babymassage and Yoga
These are classes to consider from the age of three month.
This is a real technique for the massage of the whole body, very complete and intensive.
Your baby starts to be fitter now and is more adapted to his new environment.
Now the objective is to stimulate them in his motor as well as in their mental development.
Again we try to imagine their little world.
You'll realize that your child is in a laying position most of the time, nearly always in the same position and this during several months.
It's almost impossible for him to move his body.
Imagine yourself in that situation only for some hours. How wonderful a massagewould be.What a pleasure it would be to be moved and stretched.
Therefore the "Ayurveda Massage" and the "Yoga"exercices are that important.
Benefits of Babymassage
Massage helps your baby realize and get to know their body better. Therefore motricity is stimulated. They'll learn to feel their body at their space and that's why their balance will be strengthened. It increases the body consciousness.It sharpens all the senses.
Developpment of the synapses ( links between the nerves, that are mostly developped during the first year) are the most stimulated when touching your baby. Making the two parts of the brain connected, is influenced by massage in an important manner.
Furthermore this massage stimulates vascularisation, lymph flow and digestion. Massage of the chestliberates spannings, therefore your baby can breathe deeper and more relaxed.
In general it liberates a lot of spannings in the whole body, in favour of a much deeper sleep. It teaches your baby very earlyon what moments of relaxing and peace mean.
This is so essential and not to be underestimated in our today's stressed world!
Yet the most important thing will always be the intensive, amazing and wonderful contact you will have with your baby during the massage. You will feel a magical connection with your child that influences your relationship in a high mesure!!
Benefits of Yoga
Yoga is a lot of streching and crossing exercices.
After being in a laying position for months and most of the time not able to really change this state, it is so important to move and stretch your baby's body.
It keeps articulations flexibal and makes muscles work. The movements will show and teach your baby how to change position, because they are done exactly the same way they will move their own body themselves later on .
Crossing exercices stimulate the connection of the two parts of the brain. This is the basic for coordination and doing things in the right It'll be the way they'll learn the basics; reading, writing, left and right...
It stimulates concentration (once your child becomes older and goes to school).
Practical run off
After explaining the basics of massage, I will show steps by steps how to do it. Thereby you both will get used to it and you can learn and remember it slowly.
I will do it on my doll whilst you do it on your baby.
During every class we will repeat from beginning on, so that we'll create a habit of massaging to make you feel more confident to do it alone.
Generally we need 3 classes, but we'll always adapt to you and your baby. Every day is different and we will respect the needs of your child.
In Class number 4 you're going to learn the yoga exercices, each time after having done the massage, because the body needs to warm up first. Those are a little bit more complicated to remember in detail. Therefore we repeat everything, massage and exercices, in class number 5 once more and then you will understand the logic behind.
We will try to do 1-2 classes per week, so that you have time to repeat at home.
The aim is doing the massage and exercices so often, with the intention that you don't need to thinkabout what you're doing. You'll know the technique so well that you can forget it again.
Solely by this you can be with heart and soul with your child and enjoy this magical moment.