March is National Sleep Awareness Month,
and many parents could get more sleep
if their babies just fell asleep faster
and stayed asleep through the night.
One thing that could help make
that a reality a baby massage.
So here with tips on how to
massage your baby is Alina Furman,
who is a certified infant massage instructor
and the founder of call Me Baby massager.
Thank you for being here so much.
Everyone has me scared.
Our first baby was so easy to sleep,
they're saying baby #2 is going to be a mess.
Yes, sometimes that happens where,
you know, that's nature's way
of keeping your babies in check.
Yeah.
How does a massage help if I
need these tips down the road?
So baby massage
helps with so many things,
not just sleep, but sleep is
definitely the most important thing.
Baby massage helps with Constipation.
It helps with releasing gas,
brain development, bonding,
which doesn't automatically
happen when your new mom
people don't understand that,
and also, surprisingly,
helps reduce postpartum
depression and anxiety in both.
Parents
well so I've kind of done it with
my first as a routine at night.
We're putting lotion on her.
When do you think we should
be is it all day long is it's
really whenever you can get it in.
So the more massage and the more
consistent you do the more acclimated
your baby will be to the massage
and they will enjoy it more because
if you just start and do randomly
sometimes they're not ready for it
and they can get a little fussy.
Yeah. Which you
don't want that. That's we're trying
to avoid what would be maybe something
very simple that we. Is due to start.
So if your if your baby's
having a hard time settling,
I call this the sleep sweep,
and you just take your finger and just
sweep down from the forehead to the nose.
And then you can do that with the eyebrows.
You just put your thumbs right in the
middle of their head and sweep gently out.
Now if you do that rhythmically and slowly,
baby will eventually.
It's kind of like a hypnosis,
a situation where they will settle
eventually and then there's another
truck because a lot of times gas.
And teething is what keeps up baby.
So with gas you'll always want
to rub baby's belly clockwise,
direction clockwise and then
all always massage their feet
because this really helps a lot of
babies get constipated for days.
And when massaging their feet,
you'll really want to get
into the solar plexus here.
That really helps them go to the bathroom.
And then with their teeth and cheeks
you'll just want to make circles going
down their jaw because they hold a
lot of tension when they're teething.
Always a clockwise.
Circle for everything.
For the for the for the face.
Not necessary but always on the belly
because you wanna follow the digestion,
the intestinal tract in
which the digestion goes
OK anything if they're on like tummy time.
My daughter hated. Yes anything
to keep him calm on so you can
actually get that neck strengthening
in. Absolutely. Tummy time is so important
so why always when it comes to Tommy
time you always want to maybe put them
on a bolster like a little pillow.
And then I also. This is the call me
that I created amazing.
It reminds me of like the massage guns.
Use yes for ourselves. They
call it the theragun for babies
but the levels are so gentle so
it's it's not that soon. So pressure but I
always do and babies love to take
this and so I always hand it to
them and they just put it right
in their mouth and start chewing
on it because the vibrations help
that there's a sensory input there.
And it really helps calm and relax
them whether they're on the go whether
they're having attention when the
car just hand it to them and and you
can obviously also use it to us.
You just
know my life so well. Right.
Now, a tantrum in the car.
When does that not happen?
Exactly. That's part of life.
And you can use it on the back too.
Yes. Yes. So you can do massages on
the back and it's really calming.
OK. I also saw on your Instagram,
you have so many great tips.
There's different points in
the hand that mean different
points for the body, right?
So if you for teething, for instance,
you want to rub right here between this,
the index finger and the thumb, OK.
And then when you're rubbing their palm,
you'll really want to just kind of
get into and massage your fingers.
Because again, these correspond.
Just pinching the fingers corresponds
to their teeth and their sinuses.
So you can cure help with
their immunity and cure colds.
You can help with their phlegm when
you do a chest massage, for instance,
like do the butterfly stroke.
This really helps them with
coughing and mucus because a lot
of times your baby will be.
They'll just be so stuffed
up and they just can't.
They don't know hard for them.
So the vibrations really help
dispel a lot of that mucus and
flem so they can cough it up
and you have. And attachments
there for for different yes yes yes
exactly for bath time or playtime
and of course teething. Wow so
many great tips here.
You really do have an
incredible social media page.
I wanted to share it with everyone.
So many more tips you can
find on her Instagram.
Just go to at call me it's KAHLMI.
Thank you so much for all the tips.
I'll be checking in with you
to see how this one does.