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Subject:

Learning and Development of Your Baby

Courtesy of Nurofen for Children

We at Mumschool understand that there is a lot to think about when you become a new mum and we want to give you a helping hand in caring for your baby with our presentation on ‘Your baby’s Learning and Development’, don’t forget you can stay up to date with everything at Mumschool.com

Why is play so important?

• When you play with your baby you stimulate the senses which in turn helps the brain form connections so these are touch, smell, taste, hearing and sight
• Your baby is born with 100 billion brain cells so that’s100 billion brain cells waiting to be stimulated

What’s the best toy for your baby?

• The best toy a baby can have is his or her parents
• The games you play and the interactions you have with your baby will be some of the most stimulating for your baby
• Babies need someone to respond to them, to build them up and aid their development

Stimulating your baby

• We’ve put together some things that are simple to incorporate into your daily routine that will stimulate your baby;
  • Talk frequently to your baby throughout the day, look directly into your baby’s eyes as you speak, talking about anything is fine it’s all teaching baby about the sounds of speech
  • Provide age appropriate and interesting toys in the car seat or crib so that they can learn through self discovery, for example squeak and rattle toys teach concepts such as cause and effect
  • Encourage and praise your baby from an early age
  • Begin reading to your baby from birth and take your time over each page allowing your baby to absorb the information

Playing together

• Interacting with your baby whilst they play is important, however you should not ‘direct’ baby’s play
• Play is all about encouraging the exploration and allowing baby to use their inherent creativity
• Remember there aren’t necessarily ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ways to play with toys

Development of your baby

• All babies are different and develop at different rates
• Your baby may be faster to start doing some things than other babies of the same age and slower at other things, this is completely normal
• However, if your baby is very different from other children or you are worried about their development always seek the advice of a health professional

Baby’s development

0-3 months

• In the first few months, they are attracted by bright light, primary colours, stripes, dots and patterns
• The human face is the first 'object' that your baby will recognise
• Over the first three months, baby will begin to recognise particular faces and other things (like their teddy bear) in their world

Baby’s physical development

0-3 months

• At two months they will start to work out how to lift their heads when lying on their tummy, they’ll be able to kick their legs by about eight weeks
• By seven or eight weeks your baby will begin to discover their voice and make cooing noises and vowel sounds and will listen to what you say, then make noises back as they 'talk' to you
• At three months they begin to watch their hands and feet wave in the air, and also begin to wave their fist towards your face or some other desired object

Suggested activities

0-3 months

• Stroke different parts of their body to see how they like to be touched
• Speak to them gently and use their name
• Play them music and sing to them
• Hold them a lot
• Let them look at your face as you talk to them
• Copy their little gestures and their sounds
• Rock them

Baby’s development

3-6 months

• Many parents see the time when their baby is 3 months old as very enjoyable, your baby will have overcome many of the internal 'settling down' processes that newborns have and most babies will be sociable and delight in being with you
• Babies at this age will enjoy eye contact and having 'conversations', smile a lot, laugh out loud and will be interested in their surroundings and activities

Baby’s physical development

3-6 months

• Your baby will be able to roll over from front to back (from four to six months)
• Able to lift their head and chest when they are on their tummy by four months
• When on tummy, will wave legs and arms about
• Plays with fingers from three to four months
• Is able to hold objects for brief periods
• Brings toys and objects to mouth by hand
• Topples over if put into sitting position
• Coos and gurgles with pleasure
• Babbles and listens and turns head towards sounds
• Follows you with their eyes, looks from one object to another and focuses on small objects.
• Checks their perception by grasping and mouthing the objects

Suggested activities

3-6 months

• Talk to your baby all the time, telling them what you are doing and what different noises are
• Make faces
• Blow raspberries on their belly
• Place them on the floor in a safe place, on their tummy, for short periods to play
• Place them on the floor without a nappy to allow them the freedom to kick
• Provide them with bright objects to look at, and within reaching distance, so they can accidentally touch them, then try to touch them on purpose
• Provide a range of things to do, and either change what they are looking at or move them to a different spot so they have something else to look at
• Place colourful toys nearby so they can look at them, touch them and baby can try to hit them

Baby’s development

6-9 months

• Your baby will start to understand you are separate from them and may worry when they can't see or feel you nearby
• Your baby will develop desires of their own - for example, wanting to be picked up or given a particular toy, they will recognise the important, familiar people in their world (which also makes them sensitive to strangers) and will enjoy being talked to and played with
• At around this age your baby will start eating mashed solid food, babies struggle to work out the eating action because they are used to sucking, so keeping the food inside their mouth can be a challenge, your baby will be learning they can swallow some bits of the world, such as food but not others such as their teddy bear!

Baby’s physical development

6-9 months

• Roll over, from front to back and back to front
• Sit alone for a few moments when you put them into a sitting position, later manage to sit alone without toppling over
• Do push-ups when on their tummy
• Start to move while on their tummy, first 'commando' style (pulling along on the arms) and then crawling on all fours
• Swap a toy from one hand to the other
• Find their feet, play with them and put them in their mouth
• Probably puts a vowel and a consonant together, as in 'mum' or 'bubbub‘ ,they might say 'mama' because they can, rather than because they understand the meaning of the word
• Will work out how to use the different sounds by noticing how you respond to them
• Experiments with and copies different sounds, such as clicks and lip bubbles, as well as their word-like sounds
• Uses lots of different words and sounds to express different emotions
• Listens carefully when you speak, and tries to talk back using babbling sounds

Suggested activites

6-9 months

• Fun activities, such as shaking or banging objects, help them to understand they have an effect on the world
• Your baby is also learning about up and down concepts as well as coming and going, and will love to play games that act these things out
• Babies need interaction with other people much more than play-time with toys
• Talk to them
• Look into their eyes
• Play games like 'Here is your nose - here is mummy's nose'
• Play the game of picking up their dropped toy (over and over - babies love it)
• Play 'ah boo' as you hide your face behind a book or cloth, then say their name when you come out

Improving your baby’s language skills

• As a parent you will naturally want to do everything you can to develop your baby’s progress
• When it comes to language skills there are many things you as parents can do to improve your baby’s language skills

Start early

• New babies need more than feeding and clean nappies
• Parents who read books, play music and talk their newborn are helping them to develop a basic understanding of language it’s rhythms, tones and moods
• Talking does not have to be educational, it should be normal conversations as parents and babies go through their day together
• Try explaining to your baby what is being done as you feed, bathe and play with your baby
• You will find almost immediately that the familiarity of your voice will calm your baby and they will begin responding to the conversation with cooing and babbling

No Baby talk

• Whilst it is hard to resist a bit of baby talk with your baby try to avoid overdoing it
• Your baby will come up with their own terms for familiar objects themselves as they develop
• Don’t start your baby with incorrect terms as these may end up staying with baby for longer than you imagine
• Babies quickly turn into toddlers and whilst it is cute for your 18 month old to refer to water as ‘wa wa’ it becomes less appealing in a 4 year old child!

Talk, talk, talk…

• As baby grows you should try and engage your baby in conversation
• As your baby gets older try to avoid giving them what they want, try and get them to ask for it, it might be obvious that they want the toy they are pointing to but try and get them to verbalise it

Increasing vocabularies

• When talking to your baby it is important to use descriptive language as this will help expand your child’s vocabularies for example, explaining that there are flowers in the vase is less descriptive than saying ‘small, bright yellow flowers’ or when they say ‘bus’ say ‘yes it’s a red bus’ to encourage them to string words together
• Try to intersperse new words into your conversations for example rather than always saying ‘big’ try and use other adjectives such as enormous,huge, gigantic etc

Encourage socialisation

• Babies and children learn a lot from being with other people
• Interaction with others is important not just from a social standpoint but also it helps to enhance your child’s language development
• Varying your baby’s environment is advantageous as it gives your child a well rounded experience for example a reading class at a library increases your child’s attention span and listening skills, whereas playing at the park with peers encourages back and forth conversation