Developed by occupational therapists, the Stimulate your Baby series covers x5 developmental areas. The video series can be found on the Clamber Club YouTube channel.
SEEING AND LOOKING
What your baby is learning at this stage
A baby’s vision is now clear and sharp, and they can focus on smaller objects. With better body and head control, they can turn to follow people and objects with their eyes, developing better control of eye movements.
At the end of this stage babies learn object permanence, understanding that an object still exists even when they can’t see it. They also begin to perceive differences and recognize family members and familiar faces, becoming more aware of people they don’t know.
Activities and Ideas
- People and Places expand your baby’s knowledge of the world around them. They are becoming more aware of the differences between things. Encourage recognition of familiar people by naming family members.
- Moving targets encourage babies to exercise their eye muscles. When they follow objects from side to side, towards and away from themselves, they develop coordinated eye movements.
- Hiding games such as peek-a-boo develop social interaction skills. Hiding games with toys are important for the development of object permanence. Seeing objects and people from different angles or positions helps babies develop their visual spatial perceptual skills.
HEARING AND TALKING
What your baby is learning at this stage
Babies at this stage are becoming more skilled at knowing where sounds come from, adjusting their bodies to turn towards the sound. They listen to speech and gather meaning from your facial expressions and tone of voice and they are able to understand the meaning of several words. Towards the end of this stage they respond to simple questions.
During this time babies may start babbling, using repetitive, consonant-vowel sounds such as “baba”, “dada” or mama”. Babies enjoy imitating speech sounds and taking turns.
Activities and Ideas
- Sounds – Use sound toys and shakers and point out familiar sounds in the environment. Babies are getting more skilled at listening, knowing where sounds come from and what they mean.
- Stimulate conversation with the use of puppets, mirrors and everyday objects. Repeat keywords in your sentences.
- Gestures, tone of voice and facial expressions give your baby extra clues to the meaning of words.
- Copying and turn taking, and responding to your baby’s babble encourages communication.
- Body Concept – Name body parts in your conversations as this encourages body awareness.
- Rhymes, songs and books encourage interaction and language skills.
TOUCHING AND HOLDING
What your baby is learning at this stage
Babies are learning the different way things feel. Exploring through touch leads to increased body and hand awareness. With improved sitting balance, arms and hands are able to reach for and bring objects to themselves to explore by mouthing, shaking and banging.
The thumb becomes more involved in holding and as wrist movements develop, babies are able to manipulate toys. By the end of this stage babies may start to use their thumb and index finger in an immature pincer grip. Both hands start working together as a team. Babies are able to hold, rub or bang objects together, and start passing toys from hand to hand.
Activities and Ideas
- Touch – Provide loving touch and introduce a wide variety of touch experiences to increase emotional security, body awareness and exploration.
- Reaching – Encourage babies to practice reaching in different directions so they learn to adjust their body positions.
- Shaking and Banging improves strength and control of the shoulders, which is important as a foundation for fine motor skills.
- Grasping – Encourage your baby to play with a variety of shape and size toys to practice different hand and finger movements to grasp. Smaller objects encourage your baby to start using a pincer grip.
- Letting go – Encourage your baby to practice letting go as this is an important part of hand coordination. Take out the word positions at the end of this sentence
- Bilateral coordination – Encourage your baby to use both hands together to bang, clap and pass from hand to hand.
MOVEMENT
What your baby is learning at this stage
Movement through space gives the brain important sensory food. Body balance and movement is perceived by the vestibular system. This system has many (take out word – is) connections to other parts of the brain, having an influence on orientation in space, balance and emotional behavior. The vestibular system also engages pathways to eye muscles and therefore has an important influence on eye movements.
Activities and Ideas
- Planes of movement – Have fun experimenting with movement. A variety of movements in different planes, stimulates all areas of the vestibular system.
- Different head positions – Moving helps babies get used to different orientations of their head in space in preparation for gross motor skills.
- Balance – Moving through space offers babies the opportunity to adjust their body positions to practice their balance.
- Watch baby’s response and move slowly and carefully when your baby is fearful, but try not to avoid movement experiences.
- Exciting and Calming movements – Stop/start movements in different directions or round and round, excite babies. Rhythmical, repetitive movement in straight lines are generally calming.
MOTOR DEVELOPMENT
What your baby is learning at this stage
On their tummies, babies are able to push up on straighter arms. Improved shoulder girdle control enables them to pivot or push backwards. Babies may progress to creeping forward on their tummies or rock on all fours, and some may succeed in crawling by the end of this stage. When placed on their backs, babies can reach for and play with their feet and may roll from back to tummy lying.
When sitting, babies may need support at first, but soon they will be able to sit alone. As trunk control improves, babies start shifting weight forwards and sideways, leaning on their arms and moving in and out of sitting.
When supported in standing babies are able to bear weight on their legs. By the end of this stage, they begin to pull themselves up into kneeling and then into standing, holding onto a person or object. They may even hold onto furniture and begin to cruise along.
Activities and Ideas
- Tummy Lying, Creeping and Crawling – Encourage babies to spend time on their tummies in preparation for crawling.
- Back lying and rolling – Encourage babies to play with their feet in back lying. Encourage or guide your baby into rolling over.
- Pulling to sit from back lying – Pull babies into sitting with one arm so they can use their other arm to push up, exercising important muscles.
- Sitting – Babies practice their sitting balance by reaching for toys placed out of reach to the front and sides.
- Transition from sitting to crawling – Encourage your baby to move from sitting into the crawling position by rotating sideways.
- Standing – Allow babies to use you or furniture to pull up into kneeling or standing, building trunk and hip stability for standing balance.
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