Babies are the most delicate, sensitive and tender beings who benefit greatly from newborn's body massages in their early life as it helps them in building strong bones and good blood circulation. We Indians almost have a routine chalked out for newborn baby massaging. Choosing the best massage oil for your little one can be marked as one of the tough tasks you would have to face early in parenthood, like I did.
Especially with the gigantic variety of baby massage products in the market i.e. almond oil, coconut oil etc. There is always a sense of doubt in the minds of new parents as to what is the best for their newborn baby. Some parents like to experiment and trust new age products while others vouch completely on traditional products because of the trust their elders have imbibed in them.
Why Is Coconut Oil Preferred For Infant Massaging?
Being completely natural, hygienic, safe and light on your infant's soft and supple skin, coconut oil offers a great deal of benefits for your baby. One key role of massage oils is to moisturize and hydrate the skin. Coconut oil does exactly that and being light on the skin, it lets the skin breathe easily too. Coconut oil has been proved to have loads of therapeutic and relaxing effects on the skin. It has a tendency to heal, re-hydrate and moisturize the skin while being fast absorbent as well. It is a versatile oil and can be used to cool the skin in summers and warm the skin in winters. This property makes it an all-the-year-round oil for baby massages.Coconut Oil Baby Massage Benefits
Coconut Oil Baby Massage Benefits for Baby Skin
Focusing on more traditional choices, today we bring you some benefits of coconut oil for baby massage.
Treating cradle cap: Common in newborns, coconut oil helps in case they develop cradle cap. Basically a type of dermatitis which affects babies in early weeks of life causing a layer of flaky skin or dandruff like phenomenon on the top of the head, it can be dealt with by lightly massaging coconut oil on the scalp. Retain the oil for 20 minutes and then rinse with lukewarm water
Get long and smooth hair: If the TV ads have not yet convinced you, let me assure that coconut oil can do wonders for baby hair. A small amount of oil on your infant's hair every night will make them grow beautifully and have a great texture
Baby Eczema: When a infant's skin becomes very dry and itchy, the condition is known as eczema. Massaging with coconut oil helps with eczema by improving the areas affected. Helps by moisturizing and making the skin soft, hydrated
Effective to treat diaper rashes: Diapers are the new way of life for new parents now. Babies suffer from diaper rashes pretty often in their early life. Coconut oil can be greatly helpful in such cases as it helps in minimizing redness, pain and intensity of the rashes
Relief for chapped lips: Applying coconut oil slightly on your baby's lips will help with chapped and dry lips, especially in winters
Insect bites: Your newborn cannot fend off the pesky creatures who come in quest for treating themselves. Insect bites can look quite sore and the skin may appear red. You can apply coconut oil on mosquito bites to get relief and the newborn baby will benefit from it's anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties
Treating baby lice: A baby can catch lice if someone else in the house gets it. If this so happens, applying coconut oil will help in this regard and also control the spread and new infestation
Ease teething pains: Applying coconut oil on gums will help in reducing teething pain as it is anti-inflammatory and will soothe inflammation on the gums. Take a little coconut oil and lightly massage in your newborn's baby's gums. Alternatively, you can apply some coconut oil on your newborn baby's teething toys
Body lotion: Coconut oil is light and easily absorbent so it can be used as a body lotion as well. Dab a bit of oil into your hands and massage your infant's body thoroughly
As a cold rub: A infant's immune system is not very strong and he may catch cold often if exposed to temperature changes. Coconut oil can come to the rescue even then. Add a few drops of coconut oil to peppermint oil or eucalyptus oil, mix them up and warm the mixture in your hands. Now rub it on your baby's chest to get rid of co