Baby
Everyday activities to support your baby's development
Introduction
Parents often feel a lot of pressure about their baby’s development, and we know that comparing your baby’s pace of development to others can be a source of worry.
We want to help you to relax and enjoy being present and playful with your baby, trusting that learning will happen naturally during the flow of everyday life.
Your baby is wired to discover their world through playful exploration. They will learn to talk by being immersed in language, with lots of practice listening and responding. They will learn to move by being given lots of chances to move freely without hindrance. They will learn numbers and counting through exploring collections and comparing quantities of real-life objects, and so much more.
Your baby needs you, and we are here to support you.
This book will inspire you to joyfully and playfully help your baby to learn, from the very first moments you share together. It’s full of simple activities that give your baby time to explore, discover and connect experiences at their own pace. We believe that play is definitely not the opposite of work. Play certainly isn’t always just for fun, play can be a serious thing even for a baby. It can be scientific, mathematical, creative, and involves testing ideas, making connections, adapting approaches and persevering.
Time with a new baby can flow in a different pattern, certainly in the earliest days. It involves a huge shift in your habits and routines as you settle into life together. Whether you are a brand-new or more experienced parent, you can feel comforted by discovering how the small magical daily moments you share together are so important, and how simple adjustments and enhancements can maximise them.
Play is the natural and primary way that babies and young children learn, and is essential to wellbeing, health and development.
Alistair Bryce-Clegg
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The My First Five Years approach
Knowledge is power!
We believe you are, absolutely, the expert when it comes to your baby. But sometimes you might want to know a bit more about the whys behind their development. Our activity ideas are underpinned by knowledge and research, and we give simple pointers to interesting and relevant facts about baby development, so you can feel empowered to make informed choices when journeying with your baby through their first few years of life.
Again, again and again
Relationships are at the heart of all learning
We are sure you know that all the best learning happens in a playful, relaxed way as your baby interacts with you or other people who are important to them. Family life is part of learning, so we have included activity ideas that can become a playful part of your whole family’s regular routine.
Repetition is an important part of learning as it supports deeper thinking through giving the opportunity to revisit, connect and consolidate skills. We love the idea of wallowing in learning! We encourage you and your baby to take it slowly and to revisit activities again and again, in order to learn deeply and well.
It’s important for your baby to enjoy the feeling of mastery involved in doing something they have done before, and perhaps take it a little step further. You can take time to notice and build up skills at the pace that is right for your baby.
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A realistic approach
Our realistic parenting approach means you won’t find Instagram-style ideas (which take hours to set up) in our books. Instead, we offer ideas and activities that you can fit into everyday life which are relevant and meaningful to you and your baby.
Learning happens in lots of incidental ways and we highlight opportunities for you to support your baby’s learning through moments in your daily routine, such as getting dressed, preparing meals or bath times.
When you are depleted, it can be helpful to focus on some of these caregiving activities and give them your full attention, like cuddles, chatting face to face, nappy changing and bathing. Take them slowly and these can bolster your own emotional reserves as well as your baby’s.
It is important to recognise how you are feeling and know that having a hard day or feeling anxious or upset can be part of parenting. If these feelings feel too difficult to cope with alone, or if you feel like this a lot of the time, speak to a health professional or someone you trust. You can also contact charities, such as PANDAS, who support parents. Remember you are not alone.
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How to use this book
At My First Five Years, we use six streams of development to describe children’s learning and development.
• Social and emotional
• Gross motor
• Fine motor
• Sensory
• Language
• Cognitive
Like a stream, your child will carve out a learning journey that will sometimes meander gently, sometimes race ahead like rapids and sometimes be still for a time before moving on. Although your child’s development may look similar to others, it is totally unique as the journey of no two children, or streams, is ever the same.
The six chapters in this book are organised around these six streams of development. Each chapter outlines and explains developmental highlights within a particular stream of development for your baby and offers you ten playful activity ideas to try together.
There is no need to work through a particular section from beginning to end; the streams interweave so you can dip in anywhere and try an activity you think your baby will enjoy.
Thinking about learning in terms of these streams can help you to notice the small steps your baby takes before they reach particular milestones. We think marvelling at all these small moments, as well as the bigger milestones, will help you to find the joy in parenting!
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Build it up to knock it down
Anticipating the tower falling!
What you need:
• Building blocks
The steps:
• Place your baby on their tummy, or sit them up in front of you (make sure they can see your face).
• Use building blocks to build a small tower in front of your baby.
• Count to three and knock the tower down in front of them.
• Show them your reaction to the crash each time; this might be a clap of the hands, or saying loudly, ʼOh!’ whilst holding your palms up, or any reaction that feels natural and playful to you!
Benefits for your baby:
• Giving your baby consistent responses to actions like this helps them to develop predictability and helps them feel safe and secure in this predictability.
• They will enjoy seeing your facial expressions and body language in this faceto-face interaction and learn more about the feelings and emotions associated with the thrill of knocking over a tower.
Building on:
• Take your baby's hand or foot and gently show them how to knock the tower over. Mimic their reaction to the tower falling.
• Do this with other toys that provoke other reactions, such as a noisy drum, or a cuddle from a teddy. Your baby will begin to understand the responses and reactions you give to different toys and how each might make them feel.
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You choose
Giving attention to your baby’s interests
What you need:
• A basket or tray
• A selection of toys or interesting objects
• A room that is quiet and free from distraction
The steps:
• Put the tray in front of your baby with two objects on to begin with, and see which one your baby reaches for and grabs.
• Then celebrate their choice and describe the object that they grab.
• Once they have lost interest in the toy, put two new objects onto the tray and see which one they choose this time.
Benefits for your baby:
• By responding to your baby’s choices, you are demonstrating how interactions are formed in relationships. They will feel a sense of pride in your response to them selecting the toy and will enjoy the back-and-forth interactions of sharing the toy with you.
Building on:
• Be aware of your baby bringing any objects towards themselves to look at more closely or perhaps offering them to you to explore too. This will tell you what sorts of objects interest your baby the most and you can then respond by offering more similar objects.
• Talk to your baby about their choices and respond enthusiastically if they offer you the toys. This will encourage them to seek out interactions with you in the future. You may then notice that your baby brings objects to you, looking for the same level of interaction you gave them before.
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Splash and grab
Watching, reaching for and grasping floating toys
What you need:
• A bath and bath toys
The steps:
• At bath time, encourage your baby to splash the surface of the water by opening their hand and guiding them to pat the water or swish it around.
• As your baby grows, add some floating toys to their bath water. You don’t need to buy specialised bath toys, instead you can use small balls, colourful plastic building blocks or some plastic lids (large enough not to be a choking hazard).
• Swirl the water around your baby to make the items move.
• At first, your baby may use two hands to reach, scoop or grab the items from the water.
• As they grow, demonstrate opening and closing your fingers (like a crocodile) to grasp a toy or item – you could use a hand puppet for this.
• Encourage your baby to reach and grab with their fingers too.
Benefits for your baby:
• Your baby will be exploring how to coordinate their gross and fine motor skills for a purpose.
• When the floating item is moving, your baby is developing the ability to anticipate and plan the movements they will need to grasp the toy.
• They will learn to coordinate their arm movements with the opening and closing of their fingers.
Building on:
• Try using smaller baths toys as your baby’s grip develops. By grabbing smaller floating items carefully, such as flower petals, your baby will practise their pincer grip (see page 43).
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Ribbon play
Holding tight and pulling
What you need:
• A clean and suitable hand whisk
• A variety of ribbons, strips of fabric or string
The steps:
• Push the ribbons, strips of fabric or string inside the hand whisk.
• Leave some ribbon ends or fabric ends hanging out.
• When your baby is lying or sitting down, playfully show them the whisk, perhaps holding and shaking it next to them to gain their attention. Pull on one of the ribbon or fabric ends to show your baby that they move.
• Encourage your baby to grab the ends and pull them. They may need assistance at first until they get the idea of what to do.
Benefits for your baby:
• This simple activity develops visual perception and hand-eye coordination as your baby notices and reaches out for the ribbons.
• It encourages your baby to grasp, hold tight and pull, which develops strength in the arm muscles and fine motor skills in the hands and fingers.
Building on:
• Provide your baby with some toys or objects that have a string or ribbon securely attached – this could be a pull-along toy or a soft toy. Show them how the toy or object can be moved by grasping and pulling the string.
• You could use an upside-down kitchen sieve, or a cardboard box with holes punched in, for a similar activity. Push pieces of ribbon and string a little way through the holes to tempt your baby to grasp and pull them out.
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Experimenting with sounds
Buckets of noise!
What you need:
• A variety of household items. For example:
* Containers, such as buckets or bowls – these could be plastic or metal
* Items to put in the containers, such as large stones, large plastic lids, balls or toy bricks
* Items that won’t make much noise, such as pom-poms or soft toys
The steps:
• Facing your baby, model playing with the different objects and the large containers. You could explore dropping the objects to hear the noise they make when they land, or moving the containers so the contents rattle, or simply putting them in and then tipping them all back out again!
• Watch your baby’s response to the different noises that are created when placing the items in the containers.
• If your baby is able to, encourage them to fill the containers or empty them as they wish.
• Your baby might find different ways to explore making sounds; they might bash the items together, hit an item on a surface or shake the item.
• Copy and comment on the actions that your baby makes.
• Describe the sounds the objects make in the containers: ‘plop plop’, ‘jangle jangle’, and so on.
Benefits for your baby:
• Helps your baby develop awareness of a range of environmental sounds, distinguish where these sounds come from and the sorts of objects that make them.
• Allows your baby to begin to understand that their actions in relation to different objects can create different sounds and pitches (cause and effect).
Building on:
• As you read picture books or stories use some of your instruments to create story sounds, for example, to represent elephant footsteps, or a cat pouncing, or a fairy fluttering.
Ensure that all items are of a large enough size so as not to create a choking risk and that items are robust enough not to break if dropped or shaken.
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Rhyme bag
Choosing props
What you need:
• A few of your baby’s favourite rhymes
• Materials to make props, such as pebbles, wooden spoons or cardboard, or alternatively use toys as props
• A bag or pillowcase
The steps:
• Make props to represent nursery rhymes by drawing or painting on pebbles, wooden spoons or pieces of cardboard. You could use a star for ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, a spider for ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, a bus for ‘Wheels on the Bus’, and so on. You could also use toys to represent nursery rhymes.
• Place the props in a soft bag or pillowcase.
• Encourage your baby to reach in and pull out a prop.
• Name the rhyme and sing or chant it together.
Benefits for your baby:
• As your baby becomes familiar with a range of simple rhymes they will begin to tune into the rhyming words and the rhythm of the language.
• With lots of repetition, your baby will begin to anticipate the repetitive phrases and attempt to join in. For example, in the rhyme ‘Five Little Ducks’, the word quack is repeated twenty times, so even the youngest of babies can attempt to join in.
Building on:
• Song and rhyme choices might change as your baby gets older and they may demonstrate favourites to you by becoming excited when they hear them and by attempting to join in with repeated refrains. Repeating these favourites over and over is great as this allows your baby to anticipate the words and actions and to join in.
• As familiarity with a wider range of rhymes grows, increase the number and range of rhyme props in the bag to reflect your baby’s choices.
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