How to stimulate the baby in your own home
The first idea that we should have as parents is that children in the 0 to 2 year stage have a very positive predisposition toward learning, since the base with which they count is practically nil.
Everything we provide will provide positive development and stimulation. It confirms with this, once again, that they are like sponges, they have a cerebral plasticity so big that it makes them capable of learning at rhythms that even adults, sometimes, surprise us.
What is little or much in baby stimulation
Nothing is too much nor enough. One of the fears we usually have parents is if we are overwhelming the children when we try to teach them things, if they will be too small to assimilate certain concepts or, on the contrary, if we are doing little to help them grow and develop. It is clear that we are not educators and, therefore, we do not know or need to know the cognitive and evolutionary development of children. But it is good to bear in mind the message that everything we can provide will be good and that at this stage they need great stimulation and development.
Specific early stimulation programs are carried out from the early childhood education centers. These programs have activities designed to achieve specific and fundamental objectives for the integral development of the child and are also temporalized and planned with a frequency and logical sequence.
To be good parents it is not necessary to be prepared or know these programs in a specific way. But we can contribute with our actions to the development of children. The fundamental thing is to try to carry out a sensory stimulation especially in the first months of life of the babies. This means taking into account everything that can help your five senses are more empowered. For this we can carry out activities of this type:
Visual stimulation
Show your baby magazines, photos, books, etc., and also any object that we have in everyday life and that surround us: your comb, diaper, pacifier ... You will soon learn to recognize them and even to name them but with this previous exercise what we facilitate is the interest towards what surrounds them as well as begin to develop the ability to observe, to notice and the curiosity to think what that is.
Auditory stimulation
The type of language that we must use with them always has to be correct and as normalized as possible, that is, without repeating the incorrect words they usually use, such as 'guauguau ...' instead of a dog. They are small but talking to them in that way we limit them to a way of learning. The more vocabulary they have, the more stimulated they will be in this field.
The most important thing since they are born is to talk to them constantly and to receive our auditory stimulation with different intensities, tones and it is even very positive that they have the opportunity to get in contact with different languages so that they develop linguistic structures prior to a speech development.
Touch stimulation for babies
To develop the tact the simplest thing that we can carry out is the constant contact with them. Generally, we do it naturally, but it is also good to pay special attention to moments such as bathing, creaming, trying to do certain massages on all parts of the body, especially those that we touch less often throughout of the day: the toes, the back ...
Olfactory stimulation
The samples do not have to be just pleasant. They can be stronger smells, harder, softer, sweeter, so that they learn, above all, to understand the existing differences. It is true that babies do not know how to smell for themselves, but simply bringing an object with a strong smell to your nose or mouth can help you. When they are somewhat older they will be able to smell alone and associate it with an object.
Gustatory stimulation
We can use lemon, sugar, salt, cocoa, different textures and different flavors. At first, they should recognize the taste by sucking the food. It is especially fun to see the face they put on when they change from a sweet to an acid or bitter flavor and the grace that makes them when salty. Actually, both you and your baby have a whole world of experiences to discover together.
Psychomotor development
Another area of great importance in these ages is psychomotor development. In this sense, it is essential to give children the opportunity to move. It seems obvious but not always the parents comply with it mainly for two reasons, the fact that they can be harmed or for comfort of having them more controlled in smaller spaces and bounded.
There are numerous activities planned for psychomotor development, but from home there is something very simple that we can do that is to leave them on the ground.If they are babies, face down, so they have the need to sit up, maintain crawling positions and achieve these first movements, and when they are older and have learned to take their first steps, you have to make them strong and prevent them from adjusting. For this it is better to use less the stroller, avoid carrying them in their arms and make it easier for them to walk by themselves and to climb stairs. Thus we will achieve a better development although we must be aware that this means coupling with their times and giving us a good dose of patience.
As a fundamental conclusion, from home we have to give them the opportunity to do things for themselves, strengthening their autonomy, but always with us as support and reference. This will give them security in their growth.
María Campo Director of NClic Schools
