Have you just returned home from the hospital with your newborn baby? Or you have a two, one, three-month-old baby, and you’re not quite sure what to do with them when they’re awake.
It’s really important to acknowledge that when you come home with a newborn baby, particularly if it’s your first newborn baby, it’s really quite overwhelming. And you might be under the impression that your baby’s going to be awake for a long period of time, and you’re going to have to fill that time with lots and lots of activities. It’s actually not true.
In the first two to three months of your baby’s life, they will sleep a lot , they sleep anywhere from 15 to 16 hours in a 24-hour period. And they’re generally only awake for 40 to 120 minutes. And after that period of time, they’ll need to sleep. During that wake period, you’re going to be breastfeeding or formula feeding your baby. And in those first few weeks, that can take a really long time as your baby kind of gets established with the sucking motion. The other thing is that you’ll need to change their nappy, and then you’ll have a period of time where your baby’s quite content and happy to engage in activities , during this time when they’re really happy. I would recommend doing some of the activities below.
Here are some activities for baby at home:
Talk to Your Baby
The first activity I recommend is simply just talking to your baby. What is really cool is that when your baby is a newborn, they can actually recognize your voice over a group of strangers , you’ll actually notice that when you come into a room with people that your baby’s not that familiar with, and they hear you talk, your baby will actually start to look for you by searching with their eyes. They can’t actually turn their heads, but you’ll notice that their eyes are moving to try and find you. We know that babies really like hearing their parents’ voices and they really love facial expressions. The other thing we know is that babies at birth can see best anywhere from eight inches to 20 centimeters generally, that’s the distance when you’re holding your baby, breastfeeding or formula feeding, that’s the distance that they can see best at. When you’re talking to your baby, if you’re holding their arms, they’re gonna be able to really see your face, which is fantastic. If you’re trying to talk to your baby while they’re lying on the floor, make sure you’re about eight inches or 20 centimeters away from their face, because then you’ll know that they’re gonna be seeing all your facial expressions. Now, if you’re not that sure what to talk to them about, it can be simple things like talking about what you’re doing. It might be that you’re talking about your day.
The other reason I recommend talking to your baby, is that it actually provides the foundational skills required for communication. Your baby learns to listen. The other thing is that around six weeks, they’ll start to smile, which is another great social interaction you can have with your bub. And they’ll actually start to coo, definitely by three months of age, they’ll be cooing back to you, which is a really nice way to communicate with your bub you’ll talk and then you’ll pause and then they’ll communicate back with you by cooing.
Read Books to Your Baby
Now, if you’re not quite sure what to say to your baby, then it kind of leads me onto my next activity that I’d recommend, and that is reading books to your baby. If you find it a bit awkward talking to a baby, then reading books to them is a nice way to kind of have something to say and kind of guide you in what to say. You could read books by holding them in your arms, or you could do it while they’re lying on the ground. Generally, I would recommend at this age having board books. They’re really thick books with thick pages and that’s because the thin page books are really easy to tear. And around three months, your baby’s gonna be starting to bat and hit things, and that might accidentally tear the book. The other thing is these kinds of touch and feel books are really great, because you can rub your baby’s hands on the tactile parts of the book, which is a nice way to get that tactile input and work on that hand development. The other thing is you’ll notice these pictures are very, very bright, which will be something that your baby will be interested in looking at. Reading books is another great activity that you can do with your bub.
Tummy Time
The other activity I’d really recommend highly is tummy time. Now tummy time is simply when you place your baby on their tummy. And it’s really important because it works on the neck, shoulder and back strength to all muscles that are really important when your baby learns to crawl, roll, sit-up and walk. Tummy time is really, really important. It’s recommended. You can start that as soon as your baby returns home from the hospital on their first day. Now there’s lots and lots of different ways to do tummy time you’ll all know the traditional tummy time, which is where you put the baby on the ground and you might put a rolled up towel underneath their arms to give them kind of more support, or you might place your hand on their bottom to give them kind of more support in that position. Now, babies generally won’t stay in this position for a long period of time, particularly when they’re a newborn, it’s only a few seconds. And over time you’ll gradually build that up. At three months they should be able to maintain that position on the floor with their arms in line with their shoulders. And they’ll be able to lift their head up quite clearly off the ground, and hold that position for a period of time.
Initially babies might not like this position and often parents will come to me and say that they don’t like tummy time, so they haven’t done it. I think you can make tummy time more enticing or exciting for babies. When they’re in that traditional position, lying on the ground, I would generally recommend that you as parents lie directly opposite them. And when they’re lifting their head, I generally recommend you talk to them. You sing songs. Actually, sing if you are happy and you know, lift your head. And then I quickly sing that song, particularly when there is a newborn and then get them off onto their back. You can make it really fun for the baby. The other thing is that if you’re not able to get on the ground or at that period of time, you can use the mirror, because babies really love looking at themselves at this age, because they love facial expressions they’ll be able to kind of see themselves in the mirror, not quite knowing it’s them, but there’ll be seeing all these facial expressions, which is great.The other thing you could do is place a toy in front of them, which they might look at. That’s one of the tummy time positions.
The other tummy time position you can do is when you’re lying on a couch or in bed with your back slightly reclined, you can place your baby on your chest. This is a really good one that dads can do. And basically you can put your hand on their bottom to give them more support in that position. But they’ll look up at you and you’ll be able to kind of engage them in communication or again, sing songs.
The other tummy time position you can do is called the football hold, basically your baby’s lying in your arms with their head near your elbow crease. Basically you’re supporting their head, but you’re also giving their body full support, and they’re lifting their heads for a short period of time, which is working on that neck muscle. In this position, I actually found it really helpful when my bubs were getting quite fussy when I held them held upright against my chest, I could put them in that football hold, which then meant that they were able to see the world differently. And they were kind of happy to be in that position. My sister did this with my niece by holding her in that football hold whilst directly in front of a mirror. And then they would actually move around and sing, and my niece really loved it. That’s another way you can do that position.
The next position is where you place your baby across your lap, and the body’s resting across your lap, and they’ll lift their head for a period of time and then lower it again, they’re working on that neck and back muscles.
If your baby doesn’t actually like tummy time, I would just try and make it a bit more enjoyable for them and continue to persist with that activity. I would generally recommend doing tummy time every time your baby has a wake period. And initially you just want to do it for a short period of time. Sure they’re happy and then quickly flip them on the back. And as they get stronger, they’ll be more happy to stay in that position for a longer period of time.
Use a Baby Gym
The next activity I’d recommend is using a baby gym. I find them extremely beneficial. The great thing about that is that your baby can lie on the ground, and they’ll be able to look up at the toys that are hanging from the baby gym. At around three months they’ll start to bat those toys. But initially in the early few months, they would just be watching the toys, which is great because they’re visually fixating on a toy, and then they’re learning to track a toy, which is a great skill. And it’s the foundation or skill required when you’re working on that hand-eye coordination. I actually use the baby gym a lot. I don’t actually think you need a lot of equipment when your babies, or toys when your baby’s a newborn to three months. I think the baby gym is one that I would say is a must have purchase. And it’s really quite nice for your baby. As they get a bit older again around three months, when they start kicking their legs, they’ll accidentally kick the bars of the baby gym, which then means the toys will move a bit, which is quite exciting for them as well.
Sing to Your Baby
The other thing I really like to do with babies is sing to them. Now, babies really love you singing to them. Because again that facial expressions there ,and they also like the tone singing to them is a great way to do it. You can sing standard songs that you know, or you might see nursery rhymes. If you are anything like me, I actually thought I would never sing to my baby ’cause my voice is atrocious, but turns out I was very wrong and I often sing to my children even now. And the great thing about nursery rhymes is it’s often paired with hand action you could do “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star,” which is again, just a bit more enticing for your baby whilst just singing with them.
Poke Faces
Another activity that’s really quite a lot of fun to do with your baby is by poking faces at your baby. When they’re in your legs, resting them in your legs so that they’re facing up toward you, you’re at that ideal of distance from your baby, so about eight inches to 20 centimeters. And so your baby can see your face. What’s really amazing is that from a newborn, your baby is actually able to copy movements of the mouth that you do. If you smack your lips together, so go… (smacking lips) and wait, your newborn baby will actually do that movement back to you, which is really exciting. The other fun thing to do is by poking your tongue out at your baby again, your baby will copy that movement. You might need to do it a few times so that your baby has the opportunity to watch it and then they’ll actually copy it, which is actually pretty exciting.
Bath Time
The other activity you can do with your baby is bath times. Now, some babies really like it. My daughter absolutely hated it, but my son liked it. The midwife shared with me a really helpful tip, which might’ve made my son like it more, which is when your babies in the bath, placing a wet face washer on their chest seems to appear to kind of give your baby a bit more kind of awareness of where they are in space and calm than when they’re in the bath. When I did this with my son, without that face washer he would get really distressed. But as soon as I put that face washer on his chest, he was more than happy to stay in the bath and kind of kick his legs around and have lots of fun.
Playing
Playing with your baby by holding toys above their face. When they’re lying on their back or resting in your lap, looking up at you, you can get a toy and you get them to kind of look at the toy first, you might get them to hold the toy directly in front of their face. Again, remembering it’s about eight inches to 20 centimeters away from their face, first off your baby will start to just look at the toy, and then you can move it around their face and they’ll start to follow it with their eyes. They don’t have that head control initially, but by three months of age, your baby will follow the toy all the way around their head by turning their face as well. Now, when you’re looking for toys for your baby, you will have heard a lot that babies are born… When they’re newborns they’re only able to see black and white. That’s actually incorrect. They can see in color. What they see best is high contrast items with high contrast in colors, so black and white is very high contrast, so they can actually focus in and they’re quite attracted to that, but basically they can see color. They just prefer the high contrast. So toys that I would use with a newborn baby are the crinkly ones which can make a lot of noise. You can hang them from the play gym. They make crinkly noises when your baby touches them. Now again, remember with toys at newborns all the way up to three months, they’re not actually able to grasp a toy. What they will do in three months is kind of hit toys with their hands. And when they’re newborns, they just use their eyes and they really focus on watching the toy. In the early stages, ones that make lots of noise are fantastic to get the toys out.
You don’t need a lot of toys. I would just have a few, and cycle through them with your bub in the first few months, you don’t need a whole lot of things. And it’s just basically, your bub enjoys your company the most. If you can engage with them, that’s great. Do remember that by the end of the day, they generally get a bit clingy and a bit fussy, you might be carrying them a lot more this kind of leads into my next tip or activity that you can do with the bub, which is changing the scenery for them, that might be going for a walk, putting them outside on a mat, underneath the trees in the shades so they can watch the leaves moving in the wind, hear the birds.