The Totally Infants Program at Totally Kids Hospital has added a Parent Education component to their program. Parents are encouraged to receive training with our therapists who have been trained in Infant Massage Technique by the Infant Massage USA Organization. Parents can participate in Infant Massage Groups along with their baby and other parents/ babies, on the Acute Rehabilitation Unit, in classes led by our therapists. Infant Massage Therapy goals/ benefits are clearly defined as the technique is demonstrated by our therapists with the parents and their babies in a relaxed group setting in our Infant Sensory Gym. The following benefits of Infant Massage Therapy are as follows:
- Increase parent/baby bonding
- Boost self-esteem and confidence in parenting
- Increase parents understanding of their babies development
- Relax baby and parents
- Encourage restful sleep
- Relieve gas, colic, and constipation
- Develop muscle tone and coordination
- Provide sensory stimulation to increase Sensory Integration
In addition we provide parent education through our Developmental Play Groups specifically designed for infants to assist them in achieving their Early Childhood Developmental Milestones as related to play. These classes led by our Recreation/Play Therapists, teaches parents how to interact with their baby thru play and to assist their baby in interacting with his/her environment/peers/ through the use of specially selected toys that enhance and promote early infants developmental. We offer three types of play experiences for our parents to participate in; Developmental Play, Sensory Integration Play and Gross Motor Developmental Play. Our classes are held in a relaxed group setting in our Infant Sensory Gym.
Our goal is to empower and educate parents to gain parenting skills in these important areas so that their babies development is enhanced and progressing in the areas of Cognition, Social-Emotional Interaction, Communication, Motor Development through the power of play and infant massage in our Totally Infants Program.
We are pleased to announce that our parent education classes have been received with great enthusiasm and accolades from our parents. Our parent surveys are consistently rating our classes with 5 stars-excellent since the introduction of this program. In addition we have received many positive comments written by our parents as well.