Sensory Activities – Infants
When my brother was young he had a strong inclination towards the stones on the mosaic floor. Colourful pieces of stones seemed to interest him a lot more than his toys and rattles. Yes, this is very normal of infants because this is the time when they come in terms with the things around and try and start orienting themselves.
Therefore, when you are choosing activities for your infants, choose ones to help them become absolutely comfortable with their living environment, that guide them to gradually explore new things around them.
The curiosity at his stage is immense hence it is necessary that parents remain close to the infant when he is playing or is involved in any activity for that matter. There are many activities which would be fun as well as a learning session for the infant. Here we will discuss some activities which are simple yet interactive.
At this initial stage, the activities should be aimed at arousing their five senses so that they start using them after a while.
One of the best activities to stimulate your child’s senses is to take your child out for a walk or jog. where they will get to see, hear, smell and experience the world. If you’re a Mom Entrepreneur and short of time, Baby Jogger Strollers are a must.
You can also try these specific activities aimed at arousing one sense at a time.
Noise Activities
This is common activity which most of the parents do without realizing how helpful it is for the infants. Most parents talk to their infants while they are working or playing with their children; this helps the child to understand that the noise that is coming is from the mouth of an individual, mother or father.
You can also keep calling his/her name. They won’t respond initially but over time, they start responding once baby knows that you are calling him/her by name.
An activity you can do so that he/she understands that a particular sound is produced to call him/her is one parent can call him/her while the other turns the infant towards the source of the sound.
Visual Activities
Get the baby many colourful toys and play with them with those toys and you would see that whenever baby looks at one of these toys, if it pleases them they would smile or if not, they would use some other expression.
Give the baby books that have colourful pictures and images and you can also make it more interactive when changing his/her clothes.
Place dresses or shirts of different colours in front of the baby and let him/her choose and dress him/her in the one she/he lays her hands on. This way, you can see how they respond to colours.
Oral Activities
Look out for when your child starts teething. In many little ones you can see a tooth or two when they celebrate their first birthday. When they are going through the teeth eruption phase and the tooth pierces its way through the gums, their gums itch and infants try and chew everything that is around.
At this time, it’s important to get them those toys which are meant to be chewed by the baby and help them to strengthen the muscles of the gums and jaws. Those ones that ice up can be particularly helpful. You can also try out different flavours with the baby to give him/her a taste of everything. Nowadays, to make things easier baby food comes in various flavours.
Touch Activities
These activities would involve baby touching soft and hard things. Provide your little one with soft toys and rubber toys so that they understand that there is a difference when they hold a normal toy and they hold a soft toy or a rubber toy. You also help strengthen other muscles like the neck muscle and leg muscles by practising these activities with him/her playfully.
Olfactory Activities
Infants are too young to understand the difference between different odours but you can still try encouraging their sense of smell by introducing them gentle to the scent of orange peels, vanilla, his/her own baby food and soap.
These activities should be done in such a way that the baby enjoys it and stop as soon as you see that he/she is not paying much attention towards it.
This post was contributed by BabyJogger Australia
Baby Jogger is one of the leading suppliers of baby prams and strollers in Australia. Baby Jogger offers a wide range of products designed to help give parents the ability to enjoy everyday life with their babies and infants, whether they are going for a daily morning jog or they are navigating busy streets on their way to lunch with the family.
