• Baby Developing Games – 0-3 months
• Baby Developing Games – 3-6 months

You’ve got an adorable newborn?  He is sleeping, eating, pooping… and doing it all over again.  And somewhere in the never ending succession of bottle swapping and diaper changing, your baby is active, while not sleeping, not pooping and not even eating!  This site is full of information on what exercises you can do with your little one for aiding his development.  Nevertheless, sometimes you just want to play with your baby.  And, by all means, you should.  Babies are so much fun and they grow waaaaay too quickly!!!

First of all, with the baby this small, if you use his active time to interact with him – just talking, cooing, kissing – that’s already helping his development in a great way.  If you place him with some interesting objects within his line of vision, it is good for his development too – the baby can move arms, legs (learning how to use them) and exercise his vision by enjoying some interesting to look at.

Most importantly is to attend to babies primary needs: but you already know all of that!  You already know how vital it is to come to every wimp of your adorable bundle of joy – crying out methods are damaging to baby’s brain, so they should be applied only to the so-called specialists who still insist on using them.  Let them cry themselves out and see how it feels.  Our babies should know how much we care about them by learning, that if they ask for help, their parents always (day AND night) are going to be with them…

I am getting distracted again!  Let’s play!!!  I’ve put this list together based on different books that I was reading at different times, based on some things that I came up with… and I will be glad to hear more games, so please don’t hesitate to add your own suggestion in comments!

List of games your 0-3 month old baby would not only enjoy, but also learn from!

• Gently Kissing/blowing at baby body parts and naming them
• Grasp parent’s fingers: place a baby her back, get your fingers right at the baby’s fingertips and give her a chance to grab them (or help her ).  Whenever the baby succeeds and grasps your finger, praise her a lot!  You can also gently pull the baby a little towards you, all the while praising her efforts.  With this fun exercise the baby will learn how to support her weight as you pull her up.
• Black and white scarf (once your baby is older and is able to see detail, you can get a colord scarf instead, but really tiny babies prefer contrasting black and white  imagery – I guess checkerboard would be baby’s first choice at this age): hold it in front of the baby; move away as baby looks at it; encourage the baby to follow the scarf with her eyes to stimulate her sight
• Rattle: same as above, except baby’s attention is attracted with a rattle. Move rattle around and watch baby move his head to keep looking at it.  Once the baby’s vision matures (initially the baby can see at the distance approximately 12 inches – the perfect distance from the breast to mommy’s face), it is a good idea to walk around the room, waiting in every spot sufficient amount of time until the baby finds the source of the sound (you!)
• Hat game: try different hats, or even sunglasses.  Trust me, the baby will be very surprised!
• Sensory: place baby on various materials (fur, fleece, leather, carpet, etc).  I used to use a piece of interesting material (from fuzzy trim on the winter jacket to the plasticy feel of the baby-wipes box).
• Shadows: hang mobile in such a way, that it throws interesting shadows
• Lie on your back to see baby’s point of view and how to improve what baby sees
• Take the baby in your arms and turn her in different directions describing what you see there.
• Bicycle baby’s legs with a son:
Ride-ride-ride the bike
Up and down the street
Happily-happily-happily-happily
Life is such a treat
• Knee bending: baby on her back, pull legs until straight. When straight, lightly tap bottoms of the feet. As baby bends the knees, sing (this is a modified Ringer-around the Rosy)
Bending-bending-bending
Little knees are bending
Bending-bending-bending
Oh, Hooray!

After you play this game with the baby, you can skip last part of the word “Hooray”: “Hoo…”, leaving the baby a chance to sing with you.  The baby might just coo, or sigh, or even do noghing – that’s sufficient, that’s her choice! Eventually the baby will be able to finish your word!  Cation: at first it might take a while for a baby to respond.  But babies are wonderful and so smart: they learn whenever their que comes up and happy to join the song!  Once you did the word “Hoooray” for a little while (a week?), start leaving another word out, or come up with a different “poem” for a baby to participate in.
• Repeat baby’s facial expressions, stick your tongue out
• As you talk, make faces and switch pitches.
• Hang inflatable balloon above changing table, close to the baby, but away from her reach. Make the ball move slowly, while changing baby. When diaper is changed, let baby touch the ball
• Roll over: place baby on her back, take her knee and move across the body, as if to turn. The rest of the body will follow and baby will be lying on her side.
There were two in the bed
And the little one said
Roll-over-roll-over (Cross the legs as it is said)
And they all crossed over
Roll on a ball: place a baby on a inflatable ball, on her tummy and roll back and forth
Roll-roll-roll the ball
Back and forth we go
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Back and forth we go

Enjoy!