Physical Development
The buzz word around babies is always tummy time! “Make sure they get their tummy time!” “Are you putting your baby on her tummy?” “How much time does your baby spend on her tummy?” Everyone is so concerned with tummy time! and for good reason, too.
Here’s the deal: Babies are born with big heads and weak little muscles. It takes a lot of work to build up the strength in their necks to hold those big heads up. That’s why they sleep all the time! They’re so tired from working on strengthening those muscles.
Tummy time provides the perfect opportunity to help baby develop neck and head strength. My babies, though, are NOT fans of tummy time. Even now, at 8 months, when Elli rolls to her tummy she fusses until we get her sitting up again. But, there are lots of ways to make tummy time work. You can start by laying your baby across your lap on his tummy. Another way to be more involved in tummy time is to lay on your back or recline and put your baby on your chest so you can look at each other. Since babies love faces, this is a great way to make tummy time interesting.
As your little one gets older and stronger, move tummy time to the floor. At first you want to aim for a combined total of 5 minutes a day of tummy time. Once your baby can do 5 minutes in one session, gradually increase the number of times you do tummy time to several a day. Keep tummy time interesting by getting down on your tummy and talking to your baby. You can also put a toy in front of baby to encourage her to keep her head up.
Eventually little ones learn to hold their chest up off the floor with their arms. Then they learn to move their arms to reach for toys. All these aspects of tummy time help babies get stronger and more coordinated which leads to other milestones like crawling and walking.
How does your little one react to tummy time?
I love the term handedness. It conjures all sorts of ideas in my head: to be with a hand; to have things handed to you; the image of lefties writing; cute, chubby baby hands handling objects.
Handedness is defined as the preference for the use of one hand over the other. Here are some interesting facts about handedness in little ones:
- for infants under 1, only about 30-50 % show a preference for the right hand in reaching for objects
- for infants under 1, 10-30 % show a preference for the left hand
- for infants under 1, the remaining show no preference
- the preferred hand may change as they get older
- more permanent hand preferences in infants don’t occur until the second year of life
Sammi showed an early preference for her left hand. We were certain she would be left-handed. Then shortly after her first birthday she started using her right hand more. We thought maybe she would be right handed after all. But now that she is more independent and opinionated (meaning she doesn’t have to exactly imitate us anymore) she has shifted back to a preference for her left hand. She fairly consistently eats with her left hand (she owns left-handed trainer chopsticks, so cute!), draws and writes with her left hand and throws a ball with her left hand. It will be interesting to work with her on writing since I’m not left-handed.
One thing we do that unknowingly influences handedness in our little ones is handing toys or other objects to a specific side of their body (always handing a spoon to the right hand). We can remove this influence (it’s not crucial to, but just for fun to observe their handedness) is to always hand objects to the middle of the body. When Sammi started preferring her right hand, I got in the habit of handing everything to the middle so she could choose and because I didn’t know what hand it would be this time. I think this also shows acceptance of whatever hand they use, especially if it is a different hand from you.
Does your little one have a hand preference?
Cute, chubby baby hands picture courtesy of Lottie Lou Design.
My most faithful commenter, Painting Pink Pajamas, hosted an Earth Day challenge this week. She challenged her readers to celebrate earth day and then blog about their experiences. When I first read her post, I hadn’t made any plans in particular to celebrate earth day, but by the end of the week, I found an adorable craft for us to do.
This Egg Carton Ladybug comes from Enchanted Learning. After gathering the supplies to make the ladybug, I realized I also had the colors to make a bumble bee. Then we truly claimed the craft as our own by completing our set of egg carton creatures by making a caterpillar!
To make the bumble bee, we painted the carton yellow then added a black head and two black stripes. Then we poked two holes in the top, one for each wing. The wings are half a length of pipe cleaner looped and threaded through the hole. Then we bent the end over to hold it in place.
It’s hard to tell in the picture, but each section of the caterpillar is a different shade of blue-green. We twisted a blue and a green pipe cleaner together to make the antennae and then curled them around a pencil. My favorite is the pink tongue. I’m pretty sure caterpillars don’t have tongues, but I added the tongue in memory of the Cooties
In true Earth Day style we did this craft outside on my mom’s deck. It was a beautiful day with a slight breeze. While we were crafting away, we discovered a birds nest with 5 eggs in on of her hanging planters. We had an interesting discussion with Sammi about birds hatching from eggs. She loves to crack eggs when we cook so it was hard for her to grasp that these eggs were growing little baby birds.
One day you have a newborn who lays calmly in your arms, smiling contentedly as you go about your business. The next day, however, your baby has turned into an active, curious baby constantly looking for something to grab onto. This is one of my favorite transitions in early childhood because once babies realize they can control their environment, they begin to interact with the things around them.
Sometime between 3-4 months babies begin to show interest in objects other than faces. They look more intently at new objects discovering every detail. They may even begin to reach out toward objects. By 6 months babies usually have mastered holding and turning an object in their hand.
Here comes another of my favorite transitions: Babies then begin to realize they have two hands and can thus hold two objects. During this period I like to play my favorite game. Elli and I have entertained ourselves for quite some time with this engaging game.
I sit on the floor facing Elli with three blocks. I hand her a block; she grabs it in one hand. I hand her the second block; she grabs it in her other hand. I hand her the third block; she drops a block and grabs the third block in the now empty hand. I pick up the recently released block and offer it again. Elli again drops a block to grab the newly offered block. I pick up the discarded block and hand it to her again. She again drops a block and grabs the new block.
You get the picture. This goes on for a very long time! It’s so cute to see how excited she is each time a “new” block is handed to her. She is so excited to grab it that she forgets completely about the block she already has in her hand.
If your baby is in this adorable stage, act quickly with this game. Sooner than you think babies wise up and attempt to hold all three blocks at once.
We’ve been having so much fun finding the S in Sammi’s name everywhere! I decided she was ready to make one herself. One thing led to another and after a few days, we had her whole name! I wrote the letter with glue and she placed the objects on herself.
We practiced all the letters’ names as we made them. Then just as we were finishing up, m mom stopped by. Sammi loved showing off her letters to my mom along with naming them for her! It was fun to see her remember them all after such a short time. I was also very impressed that she “got” the double M in her name. Usually she ignores the repetition because she doesn’t see it as necessary. She already said it once and correctly at that! Why should she have to repeat it? I think making two Ms helped her “get” it.
For materials we used whatever I had around the kitchen. The S is dry black beans. The A is green yarn. The pink M is harvest rice medley. The blue M is penne pasta. The I is Acini di pepe pasta that I tossed with red and yellow food coloring drops for a fancy variegated look. For the rice and Acini di pepe she scooped it up with a spoon and then shook it out over the glue (like you do with glitter) and then I helped shake the paper around so all the glue was covered up. She liked these ones the best. I think she felt so grown-up using the spoon.
What else would be good materials for making letters?
Today we’ll head into the kitchen and mix up a batch of cookies! This is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. Whenever I talk about cooking with Sammi, I typically hear these responses: It takes so much longer to cook with kids helping; It is so much messier when the kids help; I don’t know how my kids can help.
Here are some ideas to combat those potential setbacks:
- Set aside extra time to bake. Think of this as any other play activity. Let it take as long as it takes!
Plan for messes. Keep paper towels, washcloths, or sponges close at hand to quickly wipe up the messes. It’s so much easier to clean up as you go so it’s not so overwhelming when you’re done.- Making cooking a play activity takes a little extra prep, but it’s worth it!
- Give your kids wiggle room. Let them practice pouring, scooping, stirring. You’ll never know what they can do until you let them try.
Cooking promotes motor development. Kids are practicing fine and gross motor movements: holding a measuring spoon and pouring it into a bowl, stirring, scooping flour or sugar with a measuring cup. As long as you are standing right there, almost anything you do your child can do also (as long as your willing to deal with a little bit of mess!)
I have to credit my husband with this, but since we started cooking with Sammi, she can now crack an egg, open it and dump the egg into a bowl. To top it off, she rarely gets any egg shells in with the egg. I know that the only reason she can do that at 2 1/2 years is because we trusted her enough to let her try. I cleaned a lot of egg up off the floor, but now she has a lot of confidence in her abilities and loves to cook.
If this is your first experience letting your child cook with you, I caution you to not expect it to go perfectly. It may not even go smoothly! But, if you remember that it’s play and the process is the activity, then it can be a lot of fun. Your kids will be so excited to do something they’ve never done before, especially something they see you do all the time.
Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies (from Crisco)
3/4 C (cup)Butter flavored Crisco shortening
1 1/4 C firmly packed light brown sugar
2 T (tablespoon) milk
1 T vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 C all purpose flour
1 t (teaspoon) salt
3/4 t baking soda
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 C coarsely chopped pecans (optional)
- Heat oven to 375° F.
- Combine shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in bowl. Mix until well blended.
- Beat egg into creamed mixture.
- Add flour, salt and baking soda. Mix into creamed mixture.
- Stir in chocolate chips and pecan pieces.
- Drop by the spoonful onto a cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 min. Remove from oven and let cool on cookie sheet 1-2 minutes. Remove cookies from baking sheet and place on cooling rack.
Enjoy with a glass of milk! (I give Sammi the beater to eat while I drop the cookies on the baking sheet. Her attention span for this activity is pretty much up once the chocolate chips come out!)
I’m also over at I Never Grew Up today sharing one of our favorite games. Come check it out!
A shape sorter, to me, represents childhood. It’s one of the earliest toys I remember playing with. I like them because they bring together cognitive development as well as motor development. It takes brain power to match the shape with its hole and it takes motor skills to actually put the shape through the hole.
Shape sorters help little ones work on gross and fine motor skills. Picking up the shape and moving it to the sorter requires gross motor skills to move the whole are. Then, once the shape is at its hole, your little one must then rotate and manipulate the shape to get it to fit just right through the hole. This takes fine motor skills.
I feel strongly that every little one should have access to a shape sorter! There are so many companies producing a variety or styles of shape sorters so you’re bound to find soemthing in your budget! Check out these shape sorters
Along with the shamrock, the rainbow is a symbol of Saint Patrick’s Day. The leprechauns are hiding at the end of the rainbow with their pots of gold. Instead of chasing rainbows or, worse, waiting for a rainbow to appear, we made our own rainbows at a recent playgroup. These rainbow streamers are a fun project for even the littlest ones. All you need is a small paper plate and the colors of the rainbow. You can use crepe paper, ribbon or even construction paper cut into strips.
Cut the center out of the paper plate. Cut the crepe paper, ribbon or construction paper strips into lengths ranging from 12-24 inches, whatever suits your supplies. Staple each color to the paper plate. We folded the ribbon over the inside edge of the plate and stapled through both layers of ribbon. Arrange the colors to match the rainbow. Remember Roy G. Biv? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. We omitted blue and only used one purple color. Anything goes!
After we attached the rainbow to the plate, we turned on some music and danced around. You could also have a parade across the yard or down the street. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. We hope it’s a lucky one for you.
I’m posting this today instead of Friday because we are having our first guest post on Fitness Friday! We’ll be hearing from 3boyzmom from Save Your Money Mama. I’m excited to hear what advice she gives on fitness and health. This is part of the Blog Swing for the Wii Mommies Twitter Party this Saturday. Check it out and register to win a Wii Fit from AceBeach.com
A most anticipated motor milestone is walking. We anxiously wait and wait for our little ones to start walking. And then we wish we hadn’t wished so hard because that means child-proofing, chasing them when they try to escape, and so on.
Despite all that, I was so excited for Sammi to walk. Now she could follow me from room to room. She was much happier about keeping up with me, too. It was obvious, though, why newly walking children are called toddler! Her balance was inconsistent. Sometimes she could walk across the room and other times she fell over after just a few steps. Even when she was walking, she had the “characteristic gait of the child who has not fully mastered the skill of walking.” That does nothing to explain how cute it is to see them waddle like a “duck out for a jog!”
It takes about 6 months from the first step to the coordinated smoothnes of an adult’s walking motion. It takes 6 months of practice regardless of the age of the child at the first step! Balance appears to be the factor that affects the smoothness of a walker’s motion. As a child practices and improves balance, steps become more symmetrical and there is less hesitation between steps.
Here’s a video of Sammi’s first full day of walking. What a riot!
The song is Animal Crackers in My Soup by Joanie Bartels’
Consider your child holding a pair of scissors. What’s your first thought: a necessary evil or the ultimate challenge?
Sammi loves scissors. She loves to cut. Just before she turned two she really became aware of scissors and wanted to hold them, cut with them, even walk with them (if I would have let her!) I didn’t think she was old enough to have anything to do with scissors, but it seemed every time I turned around she was pulling scissors out of my “secret” hiding spots.
I decided to embrace this advancement and take control of the situation. Education was in order. We talked about when we could use scissors, why we use scissors, what to cut, what NOT to cut, that we only sit when we cut (no walking or running) and so on. I was still apprehensive about her using regular-sized scissors so I found some craft scissors
She cut, seriously, for an hour! I had to vacuum to get up the tiny bits of paper she’d managed to cut. She went through probably only 3 pages of the magazine in that hour. She was so focused on developing that skill. I’ve since learned that I did a few things “wrong” in helping her use scissors. So you don’t make the same mistakes I made, here are some tips I found in teaching children to use scissors:
- have your little one cut through play dough first, roll it out into a thin log (about 2 years old)
- move from play dough to card stock or manila folders
- THEN move to construction and lined paper
- move to tissue paper (about 2.5 years old)
- once your little one can cut through all of these, practice cutting along a thick line (about 3-3.5 years old)
- next practice cutting out a thick-lined circle (about 3.5-4 years old)
- finally practice cutting out a square with sharp corners (about 4.5-5 years old)
Check out these great resources for finding scissors and teaching your child to use scissors here and here.
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