Playing with sounds

Here we have a baby who has begun to understand the basics of language. Baby is making new sounds every day and you can have a wonderful time having baby conversations, copying each other’s sounds and laughing together. These games are vital to the development of speech so you can indulge with the smug knowledge that the two of you are actually at work. The babble will start to sound more and more like sounds, but as much as you would like to believe that this is a miracle child the ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ sounds are just part of the experimentation.

And playing with toys – lots of them

At this age baby’s attention span is still short so a wide range of toys with varying functions and textures are required to keep baby stimulated. It is vital to let baby be completely in charge of these play sessions. Let baby dictate what to play with and for how long. Later in baby’s life it will be appropriate to focus the attention, but for now baby is in charge. Baby needs to play and learn at the rate which suits him/her, and will quickly tell you when tired or frustrated with an activity. Now that the coordination is improved the baby will explore objects for longer, but will only be able to focus on one object at a time.

No to TV

While visual stimuli are what this baby craves, do not be tempted to let the baby watch TV so that you can get things done. The changing colours and shapes on the screen may fascinate baby, but this is not the stimulus that your baby needs. Your attention and chatting voice are much more suitable, and don’t forget to leave gaps on your chatting and enjoy the reply!

I wish I could get a good night’s sleep!

Did you know that everybody wakes a few times per night but naturally drifts back to sleep? This is the skill that the baby who is still waking through the night has to learn. There are a couple of things you can do to facilitate the process: consider that baby may be sleeping too much in the day, and find a way to put the baby into the cot while still awake so that he/she learns to fall asleep himself. Slowly cutting down on the nighttime feeds will assist the process too. Make sure that the routine before bed is soothing and restful. And then be prepared for your baby to be very cross with you. Returning to the room periodically to remind the baby that you still love him/her but it is sleep time now. Leave longer and longer gaps between your visits. This is a well-practised system that does work as long as you persevere long enough. This is gentler than just leaving baby to cry, which is just too stressful for many parents (but does work too if you can stick it out!) If you really can’t face any of these methods, it’s not a problem. If you can survive the broken nights, the day will come when baby sleeps through on his one. It can just take a while!