Stimulate the child's social, emotional and language development:
In the previous article we talked about the linguistic and socio-affective development in our baby from 4 to 6 months.
In this article, we are going to talk about how to stimulate this development.
Let's remember some aspects that we must take into account:
- We should not carry out the stimulation session after our baby has fed. The ideal is to wait at least 30 minutes.
- When carrying out the activities, we must ensure that the child is with the least amount of clothing possible: for example, a diaper or comfortable pants and a loose shirt.
- We must stimulate the boy or girl to carry out the activities, congratulating him on his achievements and making him feel important.
- It is suggested to repeat each activity three to four times per session.
- It is recommended that we carry out at least three weekly stimulation sessions. (for example: Monday, Wednesday and Friday).
- The duration of the session must be according to the age of our baby, in this case, it must last a maximum of 30 minutes, to avoid exhaustion or frustration.
- If our baby is opposed to doing any activity, we can wait, we should not force it.
language development:
- First activity:
Put the baby in front of a mirror, so that he or she can touch their image; meanwhile we can start talking about him/her, tell him/her his/her name, encourage him/her, tell him/her about his/her physical characteristics, eye color, skin, hair, what function each part of the body performs...
- Second activity:
We repeat the sounds that the baby makes, taking his little hands and putting them on our lips, so that our baby can perceive and feel the movement and the escape of air.
Later we can perform this same action but now on the baby's lips trying to make him babble or make a sound.
- Third activity:
Let's read a story that includes animals or objects that make a sound, for example if the story talks about animals like the cow, then tell the animal what sound it makes (muuuuu), the chick (peep, peep, peep), the duck (quack, quack) or a train (puuu, puuu) etc.
- Fourth activity:
Let's sing the baby nursery rhymes. We can use technological resources such as our cell phone.
Socio-affective development:
Socio-affective development is essential to achieve the formation of the affective bond between us parents and our baby, since the strength of these ties will consolidate the foundations of the baby's self-esteem.
For this reason, it is important that we bear in mind that the more expressions of affection and affection our baby feels, the greater his security and trust with other people, which will facilitate the creation of new emotional bonds.
- First activity:
We play imitating our baby in everything he does: if he coughs, if he opens his mouth, claps his hands, or smiles, we do the same.
- Second activity:
We teach him to clap, first giving him a demonstration so that he tries to do it on his own; if he can't do it then we take his hands and perform the action of clapping with help, so that he becomes familiar with this action and when he does it, we smile.
- Third activity:
For our baby to recognize the different states of mind, we make gestures of laughter with laughter, we frown to show anger, pouts, fright, amazement, always through games that allow our baby to identify them.
Some tips :
- For the baby to begin to recognize his own sounds, it is important that we memorize the cooing and babbling that he emits, this will make it easier for us to understand his needs.
- Let's not talk to the baby with diminutives or invented words. It is important to use everyday words and vocalize.
- We can massage the baby, for example using the "raindrops" technique: moving the fingers quickly up and down on our baby's body, while we say nice words.
- Let's pay close attention to what our baby likes and doesn't like, so we can know how best to meet his needs and what we can do to make him happy.
- Let us remember that we can carry out some of the activities proposed in this article at bath time or feeding time.
