| Your Baby... | You Can… |
|---|
| Explores and uses toys in more complex ways as her brainpower grows. | Provide a variety of safe toys for the bath – containers, rubber toys, plastic books, ladles. Join her exploration and show her different ways to use the objects. |
| Is increasingly mobile – creeping, crawling and even pulling herself up to stand. | Create a safe environment for exploring. Make sure that anything she might use to pull herself to standing is sturdy and fastened down to support her weight. |
| Is using her hands and fingers more each day. | Play back-and-forth games. She’ll love to hand you things that you hand back to her. It’s also a great way to learn give-and-take!
Offer finger food like Cheerios® and cut bananas. With a tasty morsel as a reward, she’ll work hard to pick up the food. Just be sure that she can’t choke on what’s in front of her! |
| Begins to understand that people and things exist even when she can’t see them. | Play peek-a-boo. Even though you’re hiding your head for just a moment, this kind of game is practice for saying goodbye in other settings. You can also play peek-a-boo with objects. Hold a toy under the table, or drop one to watch her try to locate it. |
| Begins to be uncertain or fearful around strangers or even family members she doesn’t see very often. | Introduce your baby to new people from the safety of your arms. Ask the new person to approach her slowly, and give the person one of your baby’s favorite toys or books to help engage her. |
| Begins using sounds and gestures to communicate her wants and needs. | Become your baby’s interpreter. If she points to her bottle, ask, “Do you want some juice?”
Describe what she’s doing. When she throws a toy down, say, “Okay, you don’t want the car, but you’re looking at the bear. Do you want to hold her!” Put the bear within her range and encourage her to get it. |
| Becomes a great imitator | Play copycat games. Make a sound and give her time to copy you.
Push a button on the jack-in-the-box to make the clown appear, then wait for her to do it. This teaches her cause-and-effect and that she can make things happen. |
| Is intensely curious and wants to spend almost every waking hour exploring. | Follow her lead on what interests her and encourage exploration. Does she explore a book, for example, from beginning to end, page by page? Does she turn it upside down, flop the pages quickly or look at one page again and again? There are no ”rights” or “wrongs.” Some babies find books so delicious that they’ll want to chew on them for awhile. That’s okay, too, as long as they’re safe. |