Made another, different train journey yesterday, only 4 minutes this time, over to Merstham. My health visitor had signed me up for a baby massage course, arranged by the NHS. There are five sessions, all on a Thursday morning (of which Jessica and I will miss two, but never mind – I’m sure we’ll get plenty out of the ones we do attend). I was a bit worried about getting there in time – Jessica was snoozing away in her cot still at 8am (after having been up for a 5am feed, I must add), so I had to wake her up but she didn’t seem to mind. Managed changing her and giving her breakfast in good time and we were out the door with enough margin to catch the train I’d intended. It’s nice when things work according to plan. (But then I’ve found that if I just stick with trying to make an appointment, even if I start to think we won’t make it, Jessica will usually help me along and more often than not things fall into place.)
It turned out to be quite a small group, just me and two other mums with our babies. The other two babies were 17 weeks old, but one was 8 weeks premature (so should probably be regarded as more like 9-10 weeks old in development terms). I couldn’t help noticing that the other two babies were very quiet and not very animated – mainly just sat and stared – whereas Jessica (once she’d decided to wake up and I’d sat her on my lap) kept looking around herself and at everyone else with keen interest, ‘talking’ to the others and instantly smiling in response to anyone that talked to her. The two tutors seemed a little bit surprised by Jessica’s high level of communication and interaction. I guess I don’t know what babies normally act like – I’m so very used to Jessica being so communicative and had assumed all babies were pretty much like her in that respect.
We had a mug of tea and a biccie each (this is England, after all…) while the tutors talked a bit about baby massage, what one should and could think about and how it worked in general. Then us mums got our babies down on nappy changing mats and towels on the floor, a bit of organic sunflower oil on our hands and were shown how to massage feet and legs. It seemed fairly straightforward, but I couldn’t say whether Jessica enjoyed it or even noticed what I did – she was very busy ‘gumming’ one of her own hands and watching the tutor who was demonstrating the massage on a doll, probably drawn to her voice. I think I got the hang of what they were showing us, though, and will practise a bit at home, if Jessica’s agreeable to that. Next time they’ll go through the feet and legs again, and then add to it, so that we gradually go through the whole body.
Jessica’s getting stronger and can keep her head higher for longer when lying on her tummy. It’s still only a matter of minutes before her head starts to droop as she’s getting tired, so it’s not like I can leave her to play on her front, really. But we’ll get there, I’m sure.
Gabriella