Certified Infant Massage Instructor

The Transformative Power of Infant Massage Therapy 

As an infant massage therapy instructor, I often tell my students that the work they’re about to embark on is more than just a skillset—it's an invitation to create meaningful connections that can last a lifetime. Infant massage is a deeply rewarding practice that nurtures the bond between caregivers and their babies, improves infant health, and opens a fulfilling career path for massage therapists. If you’ve been considering specializing in this unique and impactful field, let me guide you through why infant massage therapy is such an important and rewarding journey.

Why Specialize in Infant Massage Therapy?

Infant massage therapy is a rapidly growing niche within the massage therapy field. It focuses on teaching parents and caregivers how to use safe, gentle massage techniques to enhance their infant’s physical, emotional, and developmental well-being. By learning this specialization, you’ll not only gain a valuable skill but also help families build connections and create a strong foundation for lifelong health.

A Growing Demand for Holistic Infant Care: Parents today are increasingly seeking natural, non-invasive ways to support their baby’s health and development. Infant massage is recognized by pediatricians, lactation consultants, and child development experts as a powerful tool to aid digestion, improve sleep, reduce colic, and soothe fussiness. By becoming an instructor, you can meet this demand while making a profound difference in families’ lives.

A Rewarding Career Path: Teaching infant massage allows you to work closely with families, providing them with tools that empower them to care for their babies more confidently. Whether you work in clinics, wellness centers, hospitals, or your own private practice, this specialization sets you apart and opens up meaningful opportunities in your career.

The Benefits of Infant Massage for Babies and Parents

One of the most inspiring aspects of this work is seeing the immediate and long-term benefits that infant massage provides. When you teach this practice, you’re giving families more than just a technique—you’re giving them the gift of connection.

For Babies:

• Enhanced Development: Gentle touch stimulates the nervous system, aiding in physical development and improving muscle tone and coordination.
• Improved Digestion and Colic Relief: Infant massage techniques such as circular strokes on the abdomen help relieve gas, constipation, and colic symptoms.
• Better Sleep Patterns: Babies who receive regular massage often sleep more deeply and for longer durations, benefiting both them and their parents.
• Reduced Stress: Massage lowers cortisol levels in babies, promoting calmness and emotional regulation.

For Parents:

• Strengthened Bond: Infant massage fosters secure attachment by allowing parents to connect with their baby through touch, eye contact, and verbal interaction.
• Confidence in Parenting: Learning how to respond to their baby’s cues through massage empowers parents to care for their child more effectively.
• Emotional Support: The act of massaging their baby can be a therapeutic experience for parents, helping them reduce stress and build resilience during the demanding early months of parenting.

What You’ll Learn as an Infant Massage Therapist

Training in infant massage therapy goes far beyond the physical techniques—it’s about understanding the holistic needs of both baby and caregiver. As an instructor, I focus on equipping students with the knowledge and confidence to teach this skill effectively.

• Safe and Effective Techniques: You’ll master a variety of strokes designed specifically for infants, each tailored to promote relaxation, relieve discomfort, and support healthy growth. Techniques include soothing strokes for the back, tummy, arms, and legs, as well as targeted movements for common issues like teething pain or gas.
• Understanding Infant Cues: Babies communicate through subtle cues, and part of your training involves teaching parents how to recognize these signals. Whether it’s a yawn, a cry, or a turning away of the head, you’ll help parents interpret their baby’s needs and respond accordingly.
• Adapting Techniques for Individual Needs: Every baby is unique. You’ll learn how to modify techniques for preemies, babies with special needs, or those born with certain medical conditions. This ensures your skills are inclusive and adaptable for every family you work with.
• Educating Parents: Teaching parents is the central part of your role. You’ll learn how to communicate effectively, demonstrate techniques clearly, and create a supportive environment where caregivers feel confident in their ability to practice massage at home. 
  

Practical Application of Infant Massage Therapy

As a certified infant massage therapist, you’ll find opportunities in a variety of settings, including hospitals, pediatric clinics, private practice, or in conjunction with complementary practitioners such as prenatal massage therapists and lactation consultants. This specialization complements other modalities, enhances your professional credibility, and allows you to make a lasting impact on families.   

Why Become an Infant Massage Instructor?

Becoming an instructor allows you to take your practice to the next level by teaching other therapists and parents how to share this life-changing skill. As an instructor, you become a leader in your field, influencing how infant massage is taught and practiced in your community. You'll create a ripple effect in your business. By training new parents how to massage their babies, you’re amplifying the impact of your work. Each family you teach brings the benefits of infant massage to their baby, and many of them share what they’ve learned with others.

Expanding Your Professional Network
Instructors often collaborate with healthcare providers, pediatricians, and other specialists. This expands your professional network and opens up opportunities for continued growth.

A Career That Nurtures Connection and Growth

Specializing in infant massage therapy isn’t just about mastering a set of techniques—it’s about becoming a trusted guide for families during one of the most meaningful times of their lives. As an infant massage therapist, you’ll have the privilege of fostering connection, promoting health, and empowering parents with skills they’ll cherish forever. If you’re passionate about making a difference in the lives of families, this field offers a fulfilling and impactful career path.

Are you ready to start this transformative journey? Join us and learn how to create lasting change, one gentle stroke at a time.

About the Instructor: Judith Koch Stapleton

Judith Koch Stapleton has been a passionate and accomplished professional in the massage therapy field since 1991. Inspired by a book that emphasized pursuing a career you truly love, Judy transitioned from her role as a successful sales trainer and manager to follow her calling in massage therapy. Her journey began with a simple realization—her knack for offering neck and shoulder massages to her team, combined with her love of receiving massages, pointed to her true vocation. It wasn’t long before she discovered that clients preferred her as their massage therapist rather than their sales manager, and she never looked back.

Early in her career, Judy's path took a transformative turn when three of her regular clients became pregnant within weeks of each other. Determined to meet their needs during this critical time, she overcame traditional misconceptions that pregnancy was a contraindication for massage. She flew across the country to attend an advanced certification course in prenatal, labor, and infant massage. This decision opened the door to a specialized field that would become her professional hallmark. Captivated by the transformative impact of prenatal massage and the little miracles she witnessed, Judy developed a profound passion for supporting expectant mothers. Her commitment to excellence earned her national certification status in 1993, and her business quickly flourished.

Judy’s expertise and dedication have been recognized widely, with her work featured in local newspapers, television health segments, and national publications such as Massage and Bodywork Quarterly and Parenting Magazine. Over the years, she has provided thousands of prenatal massages and attended nearly 100 births. Her clients consistently experienced exceptional outcomes, including average labor durations of about four hours, with most births being drug-free.

Recognizing the importance of continuous learning, Judy expanded her skills early in her prenatal massage career by training as a doula. Inspired by the concept of providing emotional and physical support to laboring mothers, she pursued advanced training with Penny Simkin, a pioneer in the U.S. doula movement. Through this experience, Judy mastered a variety of techniques to ease labor and assist during delivery. While her certification with Doulas of North America (DONA) was delayed because her clients’ labors were too short to meet the minimum requirements, her extensive experience speaks volumes about the effectiveness of her techniques.

Judy has since developed comprehensive courses in massage therapy for all stages of pregnancy, labor, and delivery, as well as foundational techniques for infant massage and movement. These courses empower therapists to provide safe, effective, and transformative care to expectant mothers and their newborns.

Are you ready to start a career where you can witness miracles every day? Join Judy and learn how to bring comfort, empowerment, and joy to mothers during one of the most extraordinary times of their lives.

About the Course

Massage Therapy continuing education CEs earned: 16. This means that the average massage therapist should expect to devote one clock hour for every CE credit earned, based on NCBTMB calculations. (Example: If you work it on 8 hours a day, it should take you two days. If you work on it 1 hour a week, it should take you four months.) These are online, home study CEs. 

Attention Florida Massage Therapists This course is approved by Florida as an approved distance learning course for the 12 required hours of "relevant to massage therapy" category hours through 8/31/2025. You are still allowed to complete the 12 required "relevant to massage therapy" hours via approved online courses through at least 2025. The approval number for this course is 20-795814. 

Course classification: Kinesthetic (course materials teach specific techniques to use on clients during a massage therapy session.) 

Course Format: This course is offered online, available instantly at your convenience. We are not currently offering live seminars.

Approved by: Institute of Somatic Therapy (Judith Koch) is approved by the NCBTMB (Provider #280672-00) as a continuing education Approved Provider. Institute of Somatic Therapy is approved by Florida (#MCE-326), and New York (#0019). New York Massage therapists please note: You are not authorized to teach any persons who are not licensed as massage therapists to give massage to another person. This includes teaching infant massage to new parents.  Our courses are also valid for most individual states, as well as for renewing your AMTA or ABMP membership. Some states limit how many hours can be done online or by home study. Please refer to our State Guidelines section for specific information about your state. Laws can and do change, and your state will hold you responsible for knowing the laws that apply to you. 

To Enroll:

• Tuition:U.S. $159 for online course and test awarding 16 CEs. There will be a one-time $35 fee payable if and when you submit the documentation to earn the title of  Infant Massage Specialist. Package Special Prices: If you wish to take this course in a bundle with our prenatal or any other courses, please select the courses you wish to take, and then use the "Customize Your Own Package" coupon.
• To start now: Simply click the green "buy now" button. You will see the course in your shopping cart, with the option to continue shopping (if you want to enroll in more than one course) or checkout. Once you click checkout, it will take you through the process of creating a new account if you do not have one, or logging into an existing account if we find an account already associated with your email address. You do not need to have an existing account before you add a course to your shopping cart.
• Testing: You complete your test online, and immediately upon passing, print your certificate. To see how our online courses and testing work, we invite you to take our free sample course

Instructor: Judith Koch Stapleton

Course Description: Basic infant massage can soothe an anxious baby, and will provide all of the wonderful benefits that massage holds for adults. This home study continuing education course teaches simple routines for general massage, as well as exercises to stimulate muscle development and coordination. We also cover special situations such as colds, colic, hiccups, constipation, diarrhea, teething irritability and other conditions. This course focuses on teaching the parents to massage their baby, because most new parents cannot afford to pay you to massage their baby, and because they are the ones that need to have the bonding that massage can bring. Plus they need to have the tools to settle a fussy baby in the middle of the night. For this reason, the techniques are simple by design, meant to be used with confidence by non-massage therapists on their most precious asset - their new baby. This course does NOT go into advanced techniques such as cranial shaping, therapy for birth defects, etc. It is designed for parents to learn massage skills to help them with a healthy infant.

You have one year from enrollment to complete the course.

Course Outline:
Conducting an Infant Massage Class for Parents
Massage and Aromatherapy Oils
The Importance of Bonding
Benefits of Infant Massage
Contraindications
Infant Massage Routine
Special Needs Situations:
    Colic, Crying, and Digestive Issues    
    Congestion, Colds, Fever             
    Hiccups                            
    Premature Infants                 
    Teething        
Marketing Infant Massage

This course is open to non-massage therapists in most jurisdictions. Because you teach new parents with a doll, and are not  performing massage on their babies, most states do not require a massage license as you are not actually practicing massage therapy on the babies. It is your responsibility to determine if you are able to teach infant massage in your jurisdiction without a massage license. The Institute of Somatic Therapy does not make any legal determinations on your behalf.

Earning Your Title: There is no expiration date or required renewal for this speciality title once you have earned it. To earn the title, you will be required to perform two practice sessions where you teach new parents how to massage their baby. You then complete an online application. Upon completion of this process along with a one-time $35 processing fee, you will earn the title of "Infant Massage Specialist". Neither the NCBTMB nor any state massage therapy boards make a determination on the awarding of the title of Infant Massage Specialist.

The NCBTMB is no longer allowing approved CE providers to award certification titles without having received third party accreditation, which is not available to CE providers who are not affiliated with a 500 or more hour massage school. As a CE provider, and not an initial massage school, we do not fit in this category, and will have to modify the title awarded upon completion of the optional internship. We had been using the title "Certified Infant Massage Therapist", but to stay in compliance with the board rules, the new title will be "Infant Massage Specialist". We are working with the board and our website development team to implement the changes in a timely fashion. Students who have already enrolled or enroll within the next few weeks will have a short grace period (exact date unknown at this time) to still earn the certification title. All enrollees, regardless of enrollment date, understand and agree that the title they earn will depend on the date that they submit the internship forms.

To find the homework documentation requirements: There is a PDF located in the course materials, in the PDF section to the right. Just log into your account, click “access course” to the far right of the course title, and then access the course materials. From there, look to the right at the PDF file section. You can refer to this documentation as you are performing the homework. When you are ready, you will complete the online submission process. Your homework requires live, in person teaching new parents infant massage. Due to COVID, you may need to wait. We do not accept online or virtual infant massage classes as new parents are not massage therapists and are not as likely to successfully learn without hands-on instruction.

Student Feedback:
I have completed the Infant massage course and enjoyed it tremendously, especially as I await the birth of my first grandchild next week.  I watched each video several times and read through the course work 2 times.  I have been a massage therapist for 14 years so I have had the wonderful opportunity to massage many babies and moms as well as grandmas.  I took the course because I wanted to know everything I could for my own grandchild. Certainly, even after all my years of experience, there were new things to learn. The videos are excellent. Concise, clear and so easy to just watch again and again.  The written materials follow along nicely and tie the whole package together.  I appreciate your marketing advice too.  I found this course informative and fun, and working with the Institute of Somatic Therapy has been very easy and enjoyable. This is not the first technical question I have had and my questions have been answered quickly, professionally and completely and I appreciate that.  I look forward to studying with you in the future. Sincerely,  Marlaine Darfler, LMT. Ithaca NY

Is baby massage the same thing as infant massage?

Essentially, yes, with the possible difference being how someone defines the age of the child. A newborn is considered the child during its first month of life. Some differentiate a baby as being the first two months of life, while others also consider baby an appropriate term through the first year of life.An infant is usually thought of as a child during it’s first period of life, usually before it begins to walk, or through its first year of life.

There are some modifications for massage to very young babies, with movements based on whether or not it has gained head control, whether or not it has started to roll over on its own, and whether or not it has start to sit up on its own.

What is infant massage? How is it different from any other massage?

Infant massage is generally taught to the parent, to give them the bonding experience, as well as giving them tools to help calm a fussy baby at all hours of the day or night. It is a simple routine, often performed in bits and pieces as fits the baby’s needs and level of cooperation. The Institute of Somatic Therapy has a course where you can become an Infant Massage Specialist. This course will focus on teaching you how to teach the new parents how to massage their babies, as well as teach them some simple movement exercises that help the baby develop muscle control and coordination.

Is baby massage important?

Yes, massaging a baby is very important from several standpoints, not just for the baby, but for the parent.

When a parent gives infant massage, it helps to promote good parenting skills, helps them feel more confident about enhancing their baby’s health and development, and gives them methods to relax the baby when it is fussy. It helps promote bonding and increases non-verbal communication between baby and parent. Plus, having a calmer, happier baby makes for a calmer, happier family.

The benefits to the baby are two-fold: physical and emotional. The physical benefits are similar to the physical benefits an adult receives from massage therapy. It stimulates circulation, digestion, lymph flow, and muscle tone. For an infant, it also can help reduce discomfort from colic, gas, constipation, and teething. Emotionally, massage for your baby helps to increase his or her sense of being loved and accepted. Some studies also indicate that parents who massage their baby are far more likely to use positive touch when there is a problem, rather than possibly resort to negative and abusive touch.

How can I become an infant massage therapist? How can I become an infant massage instructor?

To become an infant massage therapist, you can complete our Infant Massage Specialist training program. This course will focus on teaching you to become an infant massage instructor, as the purpose of the course is to teach you how to teach new parents how to massage their babies. Not only can most new parents not afford to pay a massage therapist to massage their baby, but it is also the parent who needs to develop the bonding, and learn to provide relief to their baby at the instant the baby needs positive and remedial touch to deal with a physical need such as colic or gas.

This course is open to non-massage therapists in most jurisdictions. Because you teach new parents with a doll, and are not performing hands-on massage to their babies, most states do not require a massage license as you are not actually practicing massage therapy on another human. It is your responsibility to determine if you are able to teach infant massage in your jurisdiction without a massage license. The Institute of Somatic Therapy does not make any legal determinations on your behalf.

Once I complete this course will I be able to teach infant massage as a trainer to other massage therapists or just to parents? Upon completion of the course and online exam, you will receive a certificate of completion, which is evidence of having completed 16 continuing education credits.

Then, upon completion of the online process, where you document your internship of having completed two teaching sessions to different parents, you will receive a certificate bestowing you the title of "Infant Massage Specialist". In most jurisdictions, this qualifies you to instruct parents how to massage their newborns, in conjunction with any required massage licenses. In other words, if you are not already a licensed massage therapist, our process would not be valid without you holding a massage license, if your jurisdiction requires one, as most jurisdictions do. Teaching infant massage to parents would also have to be within the scope of practice as written in your state laws.

If you wish to pursue becoming a trainer of infant massage to other massage therapists, you would have to complete the teaching qualifications of the national board or your state agency. Qualifications vary, but generally require that you have anywhere from 3 - 5 years of experience in a modality, after which you can then go through their application process to become a certified instructor. This is not something that we have the authority to convey.  

Do you offer installment payments or financing? We accept credit cards, so you can make payments to your credit card company as it fits your budget. We do not offer private financing.

Does this course teach how to massage premature infants in the NICU? Premature babies are discussed in the course, but as you will learn, often due to their condition true massage is not recommended. Gentle human touching, such as a hand resting on the back of their head and on their low back and buttocks, or very simple stroking, may be all that they can handle. The main focus of this course is to teach parents how to massage a healthy, full term newborn. Common conditions such as cold and congestion, colic, teething, and other normal conditions are covered.

I want to have a business where new parents bring their babies to me for me to massage their babies. Will this course help me achieve that? The focus of our course (and virtually all infant massage courses available) is to teach the new parents how to massage their babies. The parents are the ones who need to bond with the baby, and who need resources to calm an upset baby at all hours of the day and night. It is a rare new parent who could afford to pay someone to massage their baby on an ongoing basis. When you take our course, you will learn the technique of infant massage and you will learn how conduct a class to teach it to a parent. It is highly unlikely that you would find enough new parents willing and able to pay you to be a full time infant massage therapist.

Upon completion, can I use "CIMI" on my marketing materials? “CIMI” has been trademarked by one particular school, so unless you take their training, you are not legally allowed to use it. However, in our opinions, that is irrelevant. Here’s why: What percent of earth’s population has any idea what CIMI stands for? (Seriously, before you became a massage therapist, would you have had any inkling of what that meant?) Why put an acronym on your marketing materials that mean nothing to most people? We have long advocated to our students that they proudly use their full and complete titles. Not only does it look and sound more professional, but there are no guessing games as to what it might mean.

What is the study guide that comes with the course? The course study guide is a copy of the questions you will find on the online exam. As you study the course materials, you can fill in the answers on the guide, to refer to when you complete the online exam. We do not provide page numbers where you will find the answers to the questions, because we want you to study the entire course materials, not just flip to a page to find an answer to a test question.  Because the study guide contains the actual test questions, we do not provide an answer key. It is your job to find the answers as you study. You will get your grade when you complete the online exam.

Can I review the course materials after I’ve completed the test? Yes. Even after completing the test, you will have the option to access the online course materials, print another CE certificate, or review your test results. We promise this access for at least one year. We have always exceeded that time period, however, technology updates sometimes make older data inaccessible, so we do not promise more than one year. For this reason, we recommend that you save copies of your certificates and any downloadable PDF files that you may wish to access indefinitely.

If you are interested in this massage therapy CEU course, other courses that might be of interest to you are: Prenatal Fundamentals, Prenatal Massage Techniques, Massage Doula, Fertility Massage.

To contact the Institute of Somatic Therapy about this or any other massage therapy CEU course, please go to the "contact" link above. Thank you.

Photo credits: Course image photo by Unknown Author is licensed under  CC BY-ND