When a baby is born it doesn’t seem like they have much interest in anything besides eating and pooping. In fact, babies are born to play, and the sooner you start interacting with them, the sooner you can help them perfect those natural abilities. They will shine through soon enough! There are a ton of things that you can do to stimulate that little part of their brain to encourage them to play.
For Wyatt, at one month his sight is still pretty fuzzy because his vision is still developing. He can only see at arm’s length, so make sure to keep those objects close to his face so they can see what’s going on. Most of his interest is going to land on Mom and Dad’s faces because that’s what he is going to be looking at most of the time. At this stage he can also make out simple black and white drawings and geometric pictures. Toys that are easy to grasp like a thin rattle or ring that makes noise of course. A fun game you can play is laying him on his back back and encourage him to reach for the rattle or ring. If he actually grabs it that’s great! Another thing you can do is put the ring around his leg and encourage him to move his leg to get it to make noise. Then enjoy the cute little face he makes when she realizes he’s the one who is doing it!
So as I mentioned earlier, the most interesting thing to Wyatt is his Mom and Dad’s face. This is the simplest way to interact with him. Hold him close to your face so he can see you and just talk and sing to him. He will follow you by sight and sound until he can really focus on your face.
Of course the best play time activity is tummy time! Grab some toys, roll them around in front of him and talk to him about anything!. Make sure you use toys that make noise to encourage him to follow the sound. Try to get him to turn his head to the other side to improve those neck muscles. Who knows, you might even get a little smile out of him!
Just don’t overdo it! You can have too much playtime in one day. Thirty minutes in a day is plenty for a newborn baby. Too much stimulation could cause him to get really fussy and he might not want to go to sleep, which causes a lot of unnecessary stress for Mom, Dad and baby. If he does get fussy, have a little bit of quiet time, offer to breastfeed or try to put him down for a nap.
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