Tips to Play with a Newborn Baby

When you bring home your bundle of joy you will be bombarded with advice regarding how to care for your newborn baby. Which diapers to use, how to feed the baby, and how to make your newborn baby smarter? Many parents buy products expected to make their child smarter and more alert. But remember that nothing is more stimulating and better for the baby’s growth and learning than parental interaction. Talking, singing, cuddling and playing have a vital role in your newborn child's growth and development. Play is a way by which a newborn baby learns how to move, communicate, interact, connect, and socialise with his surroundings. But many parents wonder how to play with a newborn baby? Here are some tips to play with a newborn baby.

Play with rattle: The sound of the rattle stimulates your baby. The sudden sound on movement catches the newborn’s attention. Your baby cannot hold the rattle or other toys to play.  So get bigger toys, put the toy in your baby’s hand and hold it along with him. The sound of the rattle will make your baby get interested in it. Playing again and again with it, will help your baby "discover" the rattle and how it works.

Get simple and appropriate toys according to your baby’s age: You can get other simple toys to play like textured toys, musical toys, mobiles with contrasting colours and patterns which appeal to the senses of sight, hearing, and touch of the baby. Varying contrasting colours (such as red, white, and black) and vibrant patterns stimulate your newborn baby’s developing vision. The vision of a newborn baby is poor. As their vision improves they interact more and more with you and their environment.

Read and sing to your baby: Other good ways to play and stimulate your newborn is to sing and read to him. Modulate your voice as you read and show the pictures in the book as well to your newborn. It may seem illogical to read and show pictures to the newborn baby. But these stimulate your baby’s hearing and vision. Recite nursery rhymes and make hand gestures near his faces and tickle him often. These help to stimulate and develop his visual, audio and touch sensation. He is more likely to become aware of his surroundings quickly and when the baby coo’s or laugh’s in approval you will be delighted!

Make faces: Try making faces like sticking out your tongue, pursing your lips, moving your eyebrows up and down to play with him; this stimulates his vision. For a newborn baby his mom’s and dad’s face are fascinating and interesting. As his vision is poor remember to play close to the baby's face.

A newborn baby’s day is mostly spent eating, sleeping and filling the diaper! But when your newborn is awake, it is important to stimulate him by playing. Playing stimulates your baby's senses, promotes his growth and development and helps to develop bonding with you. It will also add a dash of excitement to your newborn's care!

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