8 Fun Activities to Develop Your Newborn Baby’s Brain
Newborn babies’ brains develop at an astonishing rate, creating links between the nearly 100 billion nerve cells each brain holds. However, in order to form lasting connections and increase your baby’s cognitive development, play is crucial.
But what kind of play activities are most effective and still fun for your little one?
Today, we’re sharing eight fun activities to develop your newborn baby’s brain. Try them out for yourself, put your own spin on them, and get creative – these are all great fun!
How to Develop a Newborn Baby’s Brain
There’s no “one” way to most effectively develop a newborn’s brain. However, regularly interacting with them, stimulating their minds with new things, and making sure they move around enough are crucial parts of creating a healthy noggin. Let’s look at some of the most important activities:
1. Show Them High-Contrast Images
You may be wondering, “How can I develop my baby’s brain at 1 month old or so?”. Show them high-contrast images. Newborns usually see things a bit blurry at first, yet still use their vision as the main method of figuring out how the world works for their first months of life.
Showing them high-contrast images or books allows them to focus, helping to coordinate their eyes. This intense and repeated practice of focusing on these images increases visual and brain development.
2. Avoid Overstimulating Them
As adults, we often tune out the sound of traffic outside, strangers talking, or the neighbor mowing their lawn. While we may be able to ignore multiple sources of noise occurring at the same time, babies can easily become overstimulated by them.
Instead, they really enjoy calm, consistent beats or tones as well as the sound of a singular human voice.
3. Make Sure to Stretch!
Stretching is important for adults and it’s no different for babies. In fact, it’s probably even more important for little ones! Imagine being squished in the fetal position for months on end. They have more than earned some leg-stretching time!
Aside from comfort, stretching out and moving their bodies in new ways is healthy for muscular development, improved range of motion, and can even help them avoid flat spots on their head. We know that car seats, strollers, swings, and other equipment that keep babies somewhat stationary are also necessary at times, however.
4. Tummy Time
This point kind of goes hand-in-hand with our last point. Tummy time is crucial for ensuring your baby doesn’t develop flat spots on their head, while simultaneously strengthening their neck enough to be able to lift their head up. Keep in mind, this one isn’t fun for all babies! Even if they aren’t fans of tummy time, keep trying it as they’ll need these coordination skills to roll over, crawl, play, and walk!
Supervised tummy time is very important - don’t let them do tummy time without you keeping watch. You can even combine some of these points by showing them high-contrast images while on their tummy to keep their interest.
5. Skin-on-Skin Time
While it may not always be the most convenient of activities, it’s more than worth making the effort. There are an array of benefits that skin-on-skin contact offers, such as:
Calms and relaxes mother/father and baby
Helps regulate baby’s heart rate and breathing
Stimulates digestion
Regulates temperature
Weight gain for baby
Improved immunity
Better sleep
Brain growth
6. Low-Light Environments
You know when you first come out of a movie theater and it feels like a spotlight is being flashed right into your eyes? That’s probably not too far off from a newborn’s experience coming into the world. Remember, they just spent 9 months in a dim womb environment!
Your baby will adjust to more bright light in a few weeks, which will help coordinate their eyes, work their pupillary reflex, and more. You can help strengthen their brain-eye connection by switching up the intensity of the light, avoiding strong or direct lights when they’re alert. Dimmers work very well, but you can even do this with a window and some curtains in the daytime.
7. Your Voice
While some parents are naturals at chatting away to their babies, others may feel it’s a bit awkward speaking to someone who can’t talk back to them yet (just wait until they’re 14!). However, hearing your voice will make a huge difference in their speech and vocabulary development.
For their first few months of life, they’ll be listening and constantly absorbing what you say. They’ll be taking in the rhythm in which you speak, as well as the intonation and patterns of your specific voice. Even if they can’t understand what you’re saying, their brain is like a sponge and quickly developing these links necessary for acquiring langage skills.
8. New Sounds
While it’s crucial for your newborn to hear human voices, around the 4-week point they’ll also start showing some interest in different sounds. You have rattles, crib mobiles, and plenty of other toys that make noise. However, they’re probably going to start noticing “real-life” sounds, too.
For example, they may enjoy the sound of water running, the sound of paper being crumpled, or birds chirping outside. Try exposing them to high-pitched and low-pitched sounds, and sounds made in different patterns. These “natural” sounds can help strengthen their neural networks more effectively than pre-recorded sounds.
Track Activities to Keep Tabs On Your Baby’s Development
A great way to track how your baby’s developing is through an app like Baby Connect. You can track the activities you did with them that day, any notes you have about their progress or experience, and the reactions they had with each one.
Of course, it tracks things like their sleep patterns, feeding, diaper changes, and much more. This information is so valuable to have, especially during their regular doctor visits!
