We might be slightly more interested in "How To Massage A Mommy," but we love Joanna Goddard's massage routine for her sweet son Toby. Touch is important in the early years and, as Joanna notes, massage is a relaxing activity to work into your baby's pre-bedtime. Not sure how to do it? No worry, Joanna shows you her method.
Visit her at A Cup of Jo for a photo illustration of Toby's massage routine. We also liked one of her reader's methods which she calls "bake a pizza" (find it in the comments for an explanation).
Do you massage your baby?
(Image: Brookelyn Photography)
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Comments (5)
I still do this with my two and four year olds sometimes. I wish I did it more often. They appreciate it so much.
I massage my nearly 8 year old pretty regularly & often my 12 year old too.
Calms things down before sleep.
Am waiting for them to start doing it to calm me down before sleep...
Definitely! It is part of our post-bath routine. The doula program at the hospital where I delivered includes a baby massage class so we'v been doing the massage since my son was about 2 months olds. Some days, he loves it. Others, not so much (he's 6 months old now).
I usually do this while naming what I am massaging and talking to my baby... Both of my daughters would giggle when they started to recognize the words that preceded their ticklish spots. It's a great prebath ritual.
I took a class on baby massage, which was really interesting and fun, but my son didn't care for it when he was an infant/toddler. He'd sort of kick around and look at me like I was nuts. He's like that, though.