A baby massage is about more than just wellness. It gives baby a sense of safety and comfort, promotes baby’s development, and ensures a close and intense connection between parents and their little treasure.
A baby’s prenatal experiences and baby massage are closely connected. The baby is pressed in the womb by the mother’s movements. They perceive this pressure as a gentle massage, particularly towards the end of pregnancy and, once born, they may miss this type of contact..
You can start massaging baby regularly very early on, creating a ritual both for the parents and the child. From the age of four to six weeks, once the navel has completely healed, you can start massaging baby for between 2 and 10 minutes. You can then slowly and gradually extend the length of the massage up to 20 minutes..
It is always very important to pick the ideal time for a baby massage. Baby should be awake, attentive and well-fed. But you should be in a good mood as well. Because if you’re feeling edgy, tense or generally out of sorts, this can quickly transfer to baby.
Preparing for the baby massage
Since baby should be completely naked for the massage, it’s important that the room is warm, and there are no draughts. A fan heater or heat lamp can provide some additional warmth and cosiness. A soft underlay is also very important. And if you use a suitable oil for the massage, baby will find it particularly pleasant. 
FRESH baby oil
Baby skin care and massage oil
50 ml
For this, we’d strongly recommend FRESH baby oil, which both grooms and restores lipids. It is made of pharmaceutical-grade sesame oil, jojoba oil, almond oil and oil of evening primrose. Pharmaceutical-grade oils meet the highest quality standards. This means that they comply with the highest statutory requirements and quality control definitions. The unique combination of these four oils grooms and regenerates the skin, and reduces dryness.
Let’s get started!
Before you start the baby massage, put a few drops of FRESH baby oil onto your palms, and rub them together to spread the oil. This rubbing also warms the oil which will have a pleasant effect for baby. It means that the massage will get off to an ultra gentle, soothing start.
Throughout the massage, pay close attention to how baby is reacting. This will allow you to see which manoeuvres and movements baby likes more or less, so that you and your baby can develop the perfect massage routine together. Depending on the aim of the massage, it makes sense to vary the type of massage, or to combine different techniques.
It can also be useful to observe the following rules of thumb:
● massage from top to bottom
● massage from the centre of the body outwards
● repeat movements three to five times
Pure relaxation
If you want baby to relax, calm down, and get ready for sleep, we recommend the following massage moves:
Lay baby on their back
● Stroke evenly from the shoulders to the legs
● first from top left to bottom right
● then from top right to bottom left
● repeat several times
This will have a soothing effect on baby’s central nervous system. Because of the diagonal movements, baby’s brain automatically switches to relaxation mode, and fewer stress hormones are produced.
Bye, bye bellyache
If baby has bellyache, the following moves can help:
Lay baby on their back
1. “Water wheel”: massage the belly with flat hands from top to bottom.
Remember to keep a hand on baby’s body at all times, so that skin contact remains uninterrupted.
2. “Windscreen wiper”: gently stroke from the centre outwards with both of your thumbs in the area between the bottom of the ribcage and the navel.
3. “Sun-moon”: your left hand is the sun hand, while the right hand is the moon hand. The sun hand is rotated clockwise around baby’s navel. The moon hand follows the sun hand, but only for the upper half-circle. For this massage movement too, it is important to maintain constant skin contact.
4. “Going for a stroll”: “walk” your index and middle finger across baby’s belly always going from left to right.
Hand reflexology helps babies with their body perception, while foot reflexology can strengthen baby’s organ system because stimulation of certain points has a balancing effect on stomach, gut and metabolism. Butterfly massage, circulation-boosting massages and relaxing facial massages are some other approaches which are both good for baby and for your connection with each other.
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