6 Easy Ways to Stimulate Your Baby’s Brain

Your baby learns an incredible amount during the first year of their life, simply through observation. As one of the few people they spend most of their time with, you play a vital role in this development. Thanks to day-to-day interaction, it’s easy to stimulate your baby’s brain without the use of expensive or fancy toys. Just look out for your baby becoming grizzly, cranky or sleepy - signs that your baby is overstimulated.

1. Read to Them

Bedtime stories are an important part of a baby’s routine. Your baby may not seem to be taking in the words or the story, but reading to them will help them understand what words mean long before they can actually form them. Increase your baby’s library so you have a variety of storylines and include books with colourful illustrations or sound effects to stimulate them even more.

2. Sing Nursery Rhymes that Include Hand Actions

Improve your baby’s learning of language, as well as rhythm and rhyming, with nursery rhymes. Sing those which also incorporate hand and finger movements to help develop your baby’s motor skills, association of words with actions and even the discovery of their own body, such as touching each of their toes from biggest to smallest during ‘This Little Piggy Went To Market’, and drawing circles and walking your fingers up their belly while singing ‘Round and Round the Garden’.

3. Let Them Explore in a Safe Space

When your baby begins crawling, give them the safe space to practice. It will encourage them to be mobile and learn about their environment. Incorporate an obstacle course with cushions and chairs and they’ll also be able to discover different shapes and sizes as they manoeuvre around them.

4. Include a Variety of Materials in Playtime

Let your baby get messy while learning by introducing them to different materials. Include water, sand, playdough, jelly, foam and paint - watch your baby’s reaction when they play with them. You can fit this nicely into their everyday routine, such as bubble bath foam during bathtime - which makes for a very cute photo!

5. Take Them into New Environments

New sights and sounds can be incredibly stimulating for your baby, but also gets them used to new environments outside of their home, where they are most likely to feel safest. With this in mind, don’t be afraid to take your baby grocery shopping, to a cafe or to the park. Let them experience the world they’re living in!

6. Make Mealtimes Fun

Be positive and excited about the food you’re about to give your baby. Say the name of the food as you spoon it out of the jar or ‘airplane’ it towards them, and show pleasure when they later attempt to handle the spoon and feed themselves, however messy it may be at first! This positive reinforcement will give them a healthy attitude towards food and mealtimes.

Include these special moments of your baby’s development in a BabyCube.