by Natasha L. Kohlhoff Polak

Created on: March 18, 2007   Last Updated: April 25, 2007

Besides bathing your baby, or singing lullabyes and rocking him/her until you're exhausted, one of the best ways to relax a baby to sleep is through massage or a back rub. Since you would need to moisturize your baby's skin after a bath anyway, doing this nightly after baths would make the most sense, and help baby sleep more soundly.

Here are the benefits of a massage:

1. Through known research on the area of touch and babies' development, you will ensure your baby grows at a healthy rate (which is especially true with premature babies).
2. Having a gentle touch through massage conveys your love, which in turn helps baby feel secure and able to relax.
3. Stomach massage for colicky babies can do wonders for moving the painful gas when medicine sometimes can't help.

To give your baby a massage, all you need is some lotion or oil (preferrably baby oil) and a soft towel. Set baby down on the towel and keep baby in a diaper for the most part, to avoid accidents. Make sure to first warm the lotion or oil with your hands by rubbing some into your palms before placing your hands on baby, otherwise it might be an unpleasant experience for both of you!

You can start anywhere on your baby's body, but move from one direction to the other in soft, gentle strokes. For the upper body, stroke downward from collar bone to waist with one hand, and from waist to collar bone with the other simultaneously. For the abdomen, imagine baby's belly like the face of a clock, with the navel region being 12 o'clock, and move your hands clock-wise around the entire abdomen. You can even pump baby's legs in the air like riding on an imaginary bicycle, and then stroke downward from the hips to the toes before leaving the legs at rest. When working with baby's back, circular motions with both hands or downward strokes are most soothing.

When finished, cuddling with your baby, or swaddling might do the trick to get him/her off to sleep in no time.

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