How to Stimulate Your Baby's Growing Mind

With educational baby videos, books, and developmental toys from Baby Einstein, Fisher-Price, Baby's First Impressions, Bee Smart Baby, Bilingual Baby, So Smart, and Brainy Baby you can provide stimulation for your baby's growing mind. If you're looking for a unique baby shower gift idea, baby videos are a great solution.

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Recommended Books

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Recommended Books


Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, New Edition
by Linda Acredolo, Susan Goodwyn, Douglas Abrams

Synopsis
Based on 10 years of research, this text teaches parents how to communicate using non-verbal gestures before their babies can talk. This can enhance the parent-infant bond, alleviate frustration and sharpen a child's attention to its surroundings.

Book Description
 The best-selling parenting guide featured on "Oprah" and "Dateline" is revised and updated with new signs For every parent or caregiver who has struggled unsuccessfully to decode baby grunts and grabs, resulting in tearful frustration for both adult and child, there is Baby Signs. Based on 20 years of research, this one-of-a-kind classic shows you how to encourage your baby's use of nonverbal gestures to enhance communication. Simple hand movements signify objects, events, and needs, so your infant can enjoy interactions with you that otherwise would have been impossible until they could talk. New features of this revised edition include helpful tips on incorporating Baby Signs into the day care setting and more than 50 additional illustrated Baby Signs.


Dr. Spock's The First Two Years : The Emotional and Physical Needs of Children from Birth to Age 2
by Benjamin Spock

Book Description

America's favorite pediatrician, Dr. Benjamin Spock has helped two generations of parents raise their kids with his timeless bestseller, Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care. Now, today's parents can rejoice: a new compilation of Dr. Spock's timeless advice is here!

This first-time collection of essays brings together Dr. Spock's insightful writings on connecting with your child's inner life during the all-important early years. Dr. Spock's The First Two Years covers such topics as:

* understanding your baby's different cries
* helping your little one cope with separation anxiety
* communicating with your baby
* teaching your child about giving and sharing
* the easiest way ever to toilet-train
* dealing with the impact a newborn can have on siblings
* treating the most common ailments

With Dr. Spock's The First Two Years, new parents everywhere will return again and again to Dr. Spock for all of their child-rearing questions.
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Don't Forget Human Interaction!

Most early childhood professionals consistently support parent involvement with their baby.

Some experts, however, do not like videos, DVDs, and computers. This is an opinion held by Michael Brody, MD chairman of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's committee on TV and media.

He says, "parents, because they're busy, think they could have their kids watch TV, or sit on their laps with their own computers while they're working," and further notes that just because something is labeled "educational" does not mean that it is.

So-called educational media can, realistically, do more harm than good, because they give parents a false sense of security that their children are learning, There has been no good scientific evidence of the value of smart baby products.

Brody's main objection is to electronic media, cautioning that it may provide too much stimulation for kids and may give them a head start in becoming addicted to the television.

Toys and games are fine -- and some toys and games are better than others.

The most important thing is that children need contact with the real world and with human beings, says Brody, noting to baby dolls, blocks, stuffed animals, and toy trucks are all okay for infant/young-children education. "These give children a greater chance to develop their imagination and motor skills," he says. "They need to touch, experience, and listen."

Physical interaction is so valuable for very young children that anything else -- such as structured games, flash cards, books, videotapes, and DVDs -- can hinder full development, claims Stanley Greenspan, MD, author of Building Healthy Minds and a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C.

According to Greenspan, newborns to preschoolers need the following kinds of interaction with a caregiver to enhance their intellectual and emotional growth:

  • Taking part in activities that exercise multiple senses at once. An example would be a newborn baby following mommy's face and finding her voice.
  • Engaging in activities that build intimacy and trust. Infants experience this when they play with their mommies and daddies.
  • Establishing two-way communication. This could happen in the following scenarios: The baby smiles, and daddy smiles back; the baby vocalizes a sound, and mommy vocalizes something back; the baby reaches for something on mommy's head, mommy smiles, takes it back, and puts it back on her head, and then baby reaches again.
  • Acting as a joint problem solver or scientist with a caregiver. For instance, a toddler could take a parent or day care worker by the hand, asking to help search for a new toy. The little one sees a toy up on the shelf, asks to bring it down, and the caregiver picks him up to help him get the object.
  • Creating imaginary worlds, especially at 18 months to 2 years old. This is a chance for kids to develop their creativity. In order to do this, they need to be able to play "pretend," such as going on trips or out to dinner with a parent. Toys such as dolls, trucks, houses, action figures, and houses do well in promoting make-believe environments.
  • Participating in activities that help promote logical and reality-based thinking. A child, for example, asks to go outside. The caregiver asks why, and the child responds with something like, "Because I want to play." top of page

Educational toys and other media should be used to reinforce these core experiences, says Greenspan. Structured games, information-oriented materials, and other "educational" products are OK to use as springboards for interaction, but relying solely on them could hamper broad development.

"The games and toys are advertised as building intelligence, but, in fact, most of them just build narrow types of skills, such as memory -- like memorizing letters or sounds -- or some very narrow types of problem solving -- something mechanical and not the type of broad problem-solving these six experiences [mentioned above] promote," says Greenspan. top of page

Smart Parenting

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than two hours of tv time for children who are older than 2 years old and no screen time at all for younger kids.

Babies are natural learners. Let them be your guide. If they get bored with a certain activity, and TV will often bore them, play with them using safe-for-infant toys and games. top of page

Here are bottom-line tip for stimulating your infant or young child's mind:

  • Talk to your infant. Your words will stimulate the child's brain. A fun game is to hold the child on your lap. Touch the child's nose and say, "this is your nose." Touch your nose and do the same thing. Continue with the eyes, lips, hands, legs. The child will laugh at the attention.
  • Read to your child -- the sooner you start, the better. While it's true that your child will not understand the story when they are a newborn, they will -- nevertheless -- enjoy listening to you. They will be used to your voice and the stimulus will help their brain. Read at any time of the day, but especially at night before putting your baby to sleep. By six months you'll see your child recognizes words and looks forward to the nightly readings.
  • Television is not a good tool for children under three years old. Experts agree that infants and young children's brains do not respond in a positive way to television. Even PBS. They require human one-on-one interaction for the proper stimulus. What are some alternatives to keep your child entertained while you are working? Toys and games or, better yet, use your imagination to spark your child's.
  • A healthy body and mind are important to the development of your child. Jolly Jumper or other variations can be attached to a door frame. The child is securely placed inside and can jump and down, exercising leg muscles. Mother should be nearby and insight.
  • Other tools include busy boxes which the child can explore. The best are the ones which have varying degrees of difficulty so the child continues to learn.
  • Scientists have discovered that music is one of the best tools for increasing brain wave activity in children. Music is a deeply emotional human experience. It increases brain development as well as physical activity as children move their arms and legs in time to the rhythm. What type of music? Experts recommend classical music.
  • Music can help improve memory and awareness. Listening to music helps a child focus and adds to his/her imagination. There are many important books written on music as an essential tool for the health and intelligence of infants and children. There are even CD music programs specifically for infants which feature classical music excerpts.
  • Stimulation is also important in your child's mental growth. This can be accomplished with colorful decorations in the child's room and over the bed or playpen. Taking your child for a walk in the stroller is fine, but this experience can be enhanced. Instead of just wheeling your child around, take him or her to a park. Point out the trees, the grass, the flowers, the people, the sky. Use words to stimulate your child's brain.
  • Telephone play is another tool that works well at encouraging communication. Use play phones and talk to your child. Soon the child will form words, and then sentences much sooner than children who aren't given this attention.
  • All of these ideas can be done even when both parents must work outside the home. Just make everyday to make time not just for the essentials of infant care, but for the extras which will help your infant grow into an intelligent, healthy child.
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SOURCES: WebMd; Lejla Esposito. Lilybell Nakamura. Baby Einstein. Amazon.com. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Survey: "Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers." Vicky Rideout, vice president, Kaiser Family Foundation. John Colombo, PhD, professor of psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence. Michael Brody, MD, chairman, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's committee on TV and media. Stanley Greenspan, MD, author, Building Healthy Minds; clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics. George Washington University Medical School. Washington, D.C. Lois Liebowitz. Stop Commerical Exploitation of Children. The American Academy of Pediatrics. Leslie Cohen, PhD, professor of psychology, University of Texas, Austin. The New York Times, Oct. 29, 2003: "A Growing Number of Video Viewers Watch from the Crib." top of page