The massage strokes are based on massage seen in cultures across the world. The founder of IAIM, Vimala McClure saw and experienced massage strokes very similar to those we teach in our class during the time spent in India. They weren’t taught in a class but rather passed from mother to daughter and used routinely as part of a baby’s everyday life. She experienced, first hand, the use of touch as part of a healing process for everyone and wanted to share this with others. The routine is also influenced by Swedish massage, which compliments the relaxing Indian strokes by offering a more stimulating touch experience and principles found in yoga.
We promote the use of touch as a way to communicate
But, nurturing touch covers so much more than a physical massage. We at Cotton Family teach complementary theory that allows you to keep massage alive throughout your baby’s whole childhood, helps you and your baby to communicate and understand each other and routines which can help with your baby’s physical development. We promote the use of touch as a way to communicate in itself by encouraging parents and carers to make space to use nurturing touch to not only give a massage but also to listen and allow babies and children time to respond.
We also love to open up our classes to use the skills and experiences of the parents to benefit the whole group. Every class has a discussion time (accompanied by a drink and biscuit because we understand that parenting and caffeine often go hand in hand 😊) and this time is essential for building friendships and community. It can be the case that friendships made during the early months of parenthood offer invaluable support throughout the following years as children and families grow. Our Baby Massage course promotes this by offering small, friendly groups where it is easy to get to know one another.
That’s a very brief overview of what is baby massage. In the next series of blogs, I will cover what benefits massage strokes have on your baby. So if you have a baby under 12 months, book a course and experience first hand Baby Massage in Ashford.