Many of you have asked me to share a list of my favorite ways to stimulate my baby girl after watching my posts on her Instagram account (@marathewondergirl). Your wish is my command!

As you know, early childhood development has been a big passion of mine since I became a mom, and I am so excited to get to share the things that I am learning along the way. I believe that sensory stimulation in early childhood is often overlooked, so let me share first why I think you want to start stimulating your babe as soon as they are born.

From www.educationalplaycare.com:

Here are the top reasons why sensory play is beneficial:

• Research shows that sensory play builds nerve connections in the brain’s pathways, which lead to the child’s ability to complete more complex learning tasks.
• Sensory play supports language development, cognitive growth, fine and gross motor skills, problem solving skills, and social interaction.
• This type of play aids in developing and enhancing memory
• Sensory play is great for calming an anxious or frustrated child.
• This helps children learn sensory attributes (hot, cold, sticky, dry)
• So, here are five sensory activities I do with Mara:

(1) Feet sensory stimulation – I used a cloth that I dip in hot water and press it on her ankles, the middle part of her foot and her toes. I actually did this all over her body and used it as an opportunity to teach her body parts. (“Hot on your feet. Hot on your toes. Hot on your leg.”) But I focused a lot on the feet, as I saw no reaction to temperature when Mara was born. After working on it daily, her little feet began to quickly react to temperature exposure. I repeated the same activity with a frozen water bottle. You can see a demonstration on this post on Mara’s account.

(2) Visual stimulation – I wrote a very detailed post about visual stimulation here and you will be shocked as to how important it is to start it as early as possible. Ideas for visual stimulation are: have the baby look through see-through colorful objects, moving objects like fans, looking at their own shadow, and using flash cards with contrasting colors.

(3) Touch stimulation – Have the baby play with different textures placed on a tray like sand, shaving cream, rice, ice cubes. Of course, never leave a baby unsupervised during this activity! Here a few examples of touch stimulation I do with Mara.

(4) Auditory stimulation – Music, music and more music! We use instruments every single day (here is a set we LOVE). I use them not only for sound purposes but also for Mara to follow the instrument with her eyes as I move it around. Example here. Also, make sure to point out sounds around the house to your baby, like “Oh, Mara! Do you hear that sound? That is the vacuum cleaner!”. Another thing that we do for auditory stimulation is to sit outside first thing in the morning and listen to the sound of birds, cars, rain, etc. Since I am a BIG believer in combining activities, use this as an opportunity to describe the sounds in detail. There you go! Language time, as well!

(5) Body stimulation – Tickle your baby. To promote language development and anticipation of actions, say something like: “I am going to tickle your belly”. You can also “brush” their body with a soft brush and also “comb” it. Use this opportunity not only to stimulate nerves all over their body but also to teach body parts!

I hope that you found this helpful.