How to Play with Your Infant Baby
What can parents do to help a newborn develop through play?
Parents can have fun reading to their newborn baby! Infant development through play includes enjoying games and playing with toys that optimize their baby’s academic potential.
Suggested Activities and Ideas for Infant Development Through Play:
- Read picture books aloud.
- Move objects like toys, a rattle, a scarf, or pom-poms up and down, or left and right.
- Sing and talk to your baby from different angles around his/her chair. Watch how the baby’s head will follow the voice.
- Listen to and move to music!
- Show pictures with strong contrast and bright colors.
- Create interesting sounds. Laugh and giggle!
- String toys across a floor mat or bouncy chair. At this stage, the infant will look up at them…checking each one out…or watch the object as you move it, or she kicks the toys.
- Suspend a baby mirror in the bouncy chair, swing, or overhead bar.
- Use rattles, squeaky toys, or sound makers for the infant to track the sound!
Just be you!
Babies love to hear the sound of your voice! They can focus at a distance of about 7-10 inches (18-25 cm), so hold your little ones close to your face, or talk gently or sing to her. Sometimes a lullaby will help to soothe or comfort an infant. Remember to use the baby’s name frequently, and ….don’t forget to praise your little one as he begins to make ‘ahh’ and ‘goo’ sounds! Infant development through play often occurs naturally!
You will have already enhanced the baby’s listening and visual skill development! Love them, hug them,… and try to get some sleep when you can… this magical but exhausting time goes by very quickly! Before you know it, your baby will be 3 months or even 6 months old.
Check out this video about a 0-3-month-old baby’s brain development.
And enjoy this video where a mom talks about how to play with your 0-3-month-old.
Start reading with your newborn and watch them develop through play!
Here are some colorful book suggestions for your infant:
- I Kissed the Baby! by Mary Murphy
- Look at Baby’s House by Peter Linen Thal
- Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
- Sing a Song of Mother Goose by Barbara Reid
- Hush Little Baby by Sylvia Long
