Entertaining Baby! Birth- 3 Months!
At varying times over the past 8 months, I have often wondered how to keep our twin girls entertained. I didn’t want them to get bored, so put a bit of thought into how to keep them engaged.
I have said in the title that this is from birth to 3 months. Regular readers will know that we weren’t able to bring our girls home until they were 4 weeks old, but I am sure that the idea’s I will present to you in this post, will help keep a newborn entertained.
Newborn – 3 Months
Now, quite a few people often wonder if there is much point in trying to play with a newborn. This is because newborn babies spend most of their days asleep. However, for what little time your baby is awake, entertaining them also helps them to learn.
When your baby is born, her vision is blurry, however she can see, for example light. Try turning a light on and off, or opening and closing the curtains. As silly as it sounds, your baby will probably look in the direction of the light.
Newborn babies cannot see further than 30cm away. Try holding a toy, rattle, book, in fact at this age anything will do, in front of your baby. Hold it close to her face and slowly move the object backwards and forwards, side to side. Although, new born babies sight isn’t great, they can detect moving objects.
As well as toys and other objects, your baby will love looking at your face. In fact, why not make the most of it and hold your baby close, allowing her to look at you. Try pulling a silly face, poking your tongue out or widen your eyes. A great time to do this would be during some skin to skin time. Your baby will love the closeness of being next to you and it will help you both bond. This is great for dads to do too!
By two months old your baby should be able to follow a moving object with her eyes. Her vision still isn’t great, but it’s improving and your baby will be able to focus on objects much better now than when she was a newborn.
One thing that my girls loved to look at, at this age was a black and white book. You can buy some pretty good books for babies on-line nowadays. I would either lay both girls on the play mat or put a few cushions on my lap and lay the girls on them and show them the black and white images. I also had a black and white rattle that they loved.
You don’t need to actually go out and buy specific black and white toys for your baby. A clean black and white tea towel, scarf, sock, t-shirt, even a black and white photograph will suffice.
A soft, play gym with bright colourful toys hanging from it, will be great entertainment to your baby. By three months old, your baby will enjoy looking at the toys above, the colours and don’t worry if you think that you’re doing the same thing every day with your baby. As boring as it may seem to you and I, babies love repetition.
Put your baby in a bouncy chair and bring them with you room to room, as you get on with some household chores. Your baby will simply enjoy being in the same room as you, whether your washing up some dishes or hanging some clothes in the wardrobe. The change in environment from your babies normal play room will have them fascinated with their new surroundings.
Do you have a favourite activity for keeping your baby entertained? Please share it with us in the comments below.
