section 3
Stimulating and calming your baby
4-5 months
meeting
20
Let’s review:
Once the meeting starts, welcome everyone and ask the participants: • Who can help us remember what we talked about in our last meeting? • Who was able to do the activity at home that we asked you to do at the end of the meeting? How did it go? • Does anyone have questions or concerns after doing the activity?
What are we going to learn?
The importance of stimulation for the general development of the baby and how to recognize the different ways babies cry and how to respond to them. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT! We are going to look at some pictures so we can talk about what we know about the topic. What do you do to calm down a crying baby?
What things have you noticed that stimulate babies? Why do you think it’s important to stimulate babies?
section 3 / 4-5 months • meeting 20
78
Activity:
“Happy corner” We are going to learn some stimulating activities that we can play with 4-5 month-olds. We will also share some suggestions on how to handle a crying baby.
What we’ll need: • A ball • Plastic cups and plates • Covers
WHAT WE’LL DO: • A mirror Before the meeting starts, organize different corners of the room for different activities. • A doll • Tell the participants they will be visiting each • Colored paper for making corner of the room to play a different game posters and markers with 4-5 month-olds. In each corner they will find a poster that explains how to carry out the activity. One group member reads the instructions and all the member play the game with one of the babies at the meeting. • When everyone is done the whole group sits in a circle and answers these questions: • Why does a baby cry? • How do you react when a baby starts to cry? • What do you do to calm a baby down when he or she is crying? You can add more ideas the group may not mention, like: • Stay calm and don’t get worked up • Make sure the baby doesn’t have a problem: Is his/her diaper dry? Did he/she hurt himself?he • If the baby is hungry, provide him/her with food as soon as possible. • Soon you will be able to identify reason for the crying, it could be colic, cold, tiredness, hunger, a dirty diaper or some other problem. • To calm the baby down, hold him/her in your arms and massage his/her stomach, bath him/ her in warm water, show him/her toys, show his/her reflection in the mirror, or let him listen to the sound of the TV or radio. • You can lead a group discussion or divide the participants in smaller groups to talk about other ways to calm down a baby.
Facilitator’s Manual
The following sentences should be written one per poster: • Bounce a ball in front of the baby so he/she follows it with her eyes. Roll it toward him/her and encourage him/her to return it. • Put objects like cups, plates, covers and balls in front of the baby so he/she can try to grab them. You can also let him/ her bite them. • Sit baby in front of a mirror and talk to him/her saying his/her name frequently: “Look, there’s Mary!!” • Put an object in his/her hand and encourage him/her to pass it from one hand to the other. • Take off his/her shoes and tickle his/her feet.
79
Summing Up:
What did we learn today? Now, we’ll review what we discussed today. • How do you feel after this meeting? Why? • What are the two most important things you’ve learned today? • What will you do differently based on what you learned during the meeting? • What did you like the most? Are there things you didn’t like? • Do you have any remaining concerns or questions about what we talked about? To finish, what would you recommend to improve today’s meeting when we do it again with another group. (Explain that answering this question will help the meeting be even better in the future for parents with small children.)
To do at home:
The participants should share with their neighbors a few suggestions on how to play with your children and, console them when they are crying.
Basic information for the facilitator: Learning more about stimulating and calming your baby: What babies can do at this age: • Babies have fun with many activities; including feeding and bathing, however stimulation should be just enough to make them notice and not enough to overwhelm them. • During these months babies are very good at reaching out to touch objects but have trouble picking them up. They hold things with two hands and can hold a desired object between their wrists and scoop it up with their palms. • Babies cannot yet choose between several objects nor can they release objects on purpose. If a new object is offered a baby will drop the one that is in her hand. • Everything is explored with the mouth- babies feel and learn about things by placing them in their mouths, so be careful about the objects within their reach. • Swinging objects are of no interest now as the baby is not longer happy with just hitting things. Adults call this play, but for babies it is simply what they do best.
section 3 / 4-5 months • meeting 20
80 How we can stimulate babies: • Provide opportunities for the baby to lie on the floor to roll over and explore his/her environment. This helps muscle development. • Give babies appropriate safe, clean colorful play materials of different weights, shapes and textures to stimulate their senses. • Don’t buy expensive toys. Keys, wooden spoons to hit metal objects, sealed plastic bottles containing buttons or plastic bottles to squeeze are all good play items. • Wild games excite some babies but can make others frightened. Babies differ in how they react to loud noises, their degree of fear and quality of shyness and their level of physical activity. A baby’s development: • According to the theorist, Erickson, the first years of life are critical for the development of a sense of trust and autonomy. Babies learn to trust when their basic needs are being met by nurturing, responsive sensitive caregivers. • Caregivers need to understand that babies do not have any sense of time and cannot wait. Babies who are left to cry when distressed, hungry or bored may not feel confident in those who care for them. They do not develop the confidence to reach out and explore the environment and discover their own capabilities. Toddlers who do not trust find it difficult to assert themselves and to develop independence because they are always seeking reassurance that things are alright. How to calm crying babies: • Rocking, patting, cuddling and swaddling all help calm babies. These techniques all provide constant and rhythmic stimulation or slow down the babies own movements so they don’t get overstimulated. • Swaddling babies involves wrapping babies tightly in a blanket so they cannot move their arms and legs. Swaddling works because the cloth provides an agitated baby with constant touch stimulation and restricting his movement reduces the amount of stimulation he receives from these movements. Of all the techniques that provide continuous stimulation researchers have found that swaddling is by far the most effective way to sooth a baby. • Massage is also an effective method of soothing babies. • Distracting the baby by showing her something interesting such as an animal, bird or tree (things found in nature naturally interest babies) also calms the baby.
Facilitator’s Manual