Baby playtime – 3 Activity tips to play with a small baby

Our third mini-explorer is not a baby any more, she’s turning into a toddler. So before I forget all about how it is to have a baby in the house I’d like to dedicate some posts on this blog to babies and baby activities.

Play ideas, our favorite baby toys, tips and tricks for handling babies and other stuff we discovered along the way but would have loved to know upfront. I’ll write about all that in the upcoming weeks.

For today I’ll stick to writing about three random play activities that I particularly love(d).

(1) Mingle baby mingle!
One of the things babies loved the most is to be part of the fun. Although they obviously cannot do much, they are very interested in what is going on around them. If you have older kids it can be even more fun. My kids were very enthusiastic to get their little sister involved in what they do. Below you can see Lukas (then 2,5 years) reading a book together with Elena (then 4 months).

(2) Window or mirror watching!
Window watching? Isn’t that boring? Sure it is, but not so for your baby! I found it almost worked therapeutically on my babies.

When they were in a difficult mood, I’d often take them to the window facing a busy street. We’d look together at the stuff happening on the street, point her things, describe them, give them a name, … and feel like I’m having a great conversation time with my little one!

And if you don’t have a good window, try putting the baby in front of a mirror and see what happens :-). Below Victoria (8 months at the time) is talking to herself in the mirror.

(3) Let’s talk … and talk some more
Now that we’re anyway on the subject of having a great conversation with your baby, why not try to make it an interactive talk? You can do this in different ways:

• You have likely heard the advice to imitate your baby and let your baby imitate you. Repeating the sound your baby makes allows her to hear it back and stimulates her to try it again. And like this, at around 3 months you can have a rich conversation with your baby 😉
• Babies also like patterns and predictable actions, and you can delight your baby of 6 months or more with that. The idea is to do something to your baby only after she also did something. For example, I would blow on Elena’s face or tickle her only after she has repeated a sound, or action. This way, your baby takes the lead in telling you when she’d like to be entertained and how.

For now, I hope I got you motivated to do some conversation training with your baby 🙂

Next I will write more about our ideas of turning household supplies in the best discovery toys for a mini-explorer baby!