Do you have a tiny newborn at home who just joined the family? A baby taking its first steps? A strong-willed toddler with inexhaustible energy for more and more fun? This article is just for you.
Bat El Glazer, a baby development instructor, shares activities that are fun and help babies develop skills.
When your baby is an infant, and you feel recovered after birth, read books every day. When kids start to eat complex solids, serve foods mentioned in the stories. Carrots for the classic Eliezer and the Carrot, strawberries for The Lion who Loved Strawberries. Of course, make sure these foods are cut into small pieces.Have gibberish conversations: Funny facial expressions, exaggerated faces and low and high voices will encourage communication between you.
Play music you like and dance together. Movement helps babies learn to balance and warms up the body.
Encourage babies to interact with the space around them. (credit: PEXELS)Massage time: Make sure that the room is warm, lay the baby on a towel and give a gentle massage. This is a great opportunity to touch, communicate, feel and connect.
Look at home for accessories with different textures (soft, hard, rough, pleasant, etc.) and let the baby play with them. This encourages babies to interact with the space around them.
Encourage tummy time: Put babies on their stomachs, sit opposite and roll a ball along the ground. Notice how they make eye contact with the ball and they’ll learn to enjoy tummy time.
Take a warm, pleasant and relaxing bath.
Play hide and seek or peek-a-boo games. As the baby matures, of course, you can make the game more challenging.
Also allow time alone. A baby of any age shouldn’t be engaged with you every moment, all the time. Allow babies to be with themselves, explore their bodies, move independently and interact with their environment.
Activities that utilize crawling
Build an obstacle course from pillows, blankets and chairs and encourage the baby to go through the obstacles. Challenge babies to reach out and experience a sense of victory, which will increase their motivation to crawl, which is one of the most important elements for development. Also, have babies crawl on different surfaces.
Drag the baby on a blanket, lying on the stomach. The sense of movement and deep touch develops sensory systems and encourages crawling. Also do this when the baby has learned to sit up independently.Play cat and mouse - let babies crawl under the blanket and try to catch them, which helps them see the difference between above and below and perfects crawling.
At walking stage
Cook and bake together. Share prep and let them touch, mash together and taste ingredients.
Remember to serve foods mentioned in books.
