It's so easy for me to paint a picture of blissfully relaxed babies being, massaged by their chilled out parents, gentle music playing in the background, everyone following the routines in perfect synchronicity,...
Yes, sometimes my classes do look like that, it's certainly what I aim for, but in reality babies are babies, and the IAIM classes I run are baby-led. So when we're following the babies you can generally find...
Someone asleep...
Someone feeding...
Someone wanting to see what's going on...
Someone who is really into their massage...
Someone who has had enough for today...
Someone who is just not in the mood today...
Someone having their nappy changed...
And that's fine!
And it's ok for them to cry! It's just means that right now they need something else.
It doesn't mean your baby hates massage!
The ideal time to massage your baby is when your baby is ready. We tend to look for a quiet but alert state. That means that they are not too sleepy, not too hungry and not too alert and wanting to play. This could be any time of day and as you know your baby best, you'll be able to work out when that time is. It might never be on a Tuesday morning between ten and eleven-thirty, or a Thursday afternoon between one and two-thirty, it might work that way one week and not the next, but you can still come along and learn.
The great thing about this course is that you will learn a skill to take away with you. It is unlike most other baby classes where you turn up once a week, have fun then go back again the next week for more fun. Regardless of whether your baby is ready for massage during the class or not you are still able to learn the skills in bite sized chunks to take away and practise at home between classes at a time that suits you and your baby. This is a skill that you can use for as long as your baby, or child wants you too - I'll show you adaptations that will see you through to their teenage years and give examples of when massage might be used to ease communication as well as relax at any age.
You are investing in so much more than a five week course, the benefits of which will last a lifetime, and start with your baby knowing that our baby-led approach means that they are listened to and respected before they even have words.