Baby Care

Posts Tagged ‘baby playing with keyboard’

As parents, we’re living in a paradoxical time. On one hand, the variety of developmentally friendly infant toys available on the market is greater than ever before. On the other hand, this fact can make a visit to the nearby Toys ‘R Us a depressing experience, since we somehow end up feeling like we’re doing something wrong if we don’t exit the store with every book, video and interactive game well-intentioned people have produced for our benefit.

But take heart. Even if you don’t own every toy in existence, your baby is going to be just fine. I promise. In fact, you need not look beyond your own four walls to find plenty of items that will occupy his interest and stimulate his brain. Here’s a list of 10!

1. Paper
Give your infant a single sheet of paper, and he might amuse himself for minutes on end waving it around, laughing at the funny flapping sound it makes or trying to tear it into a hundred tiny pieces. The activity can help him both practice his dexterity and become familiar with an everyday object. Infants’ movements aren’t smooth enough for them to get paper cuts, but you do have to watch out that they don’t try to eat a torn-off sample. They’ll probably be more interested in waving it around anyway. (Note: While regular paper makes for a fun toy, avoid letting your baby play with newspaper, since the chemicals in printer’s ink can be hazardous.)

2. Stainless Steel Mixing Bowls
These offer several fun advantages. One: They’re shiny and reflective. Two: They’re fun to bang on. Three: They make an interesting noise when rattling against the ground. And four: They’re fun to bang on!

3. Computer Keyboard
Most of us have an obsolete keyboard collecting dust somewhere just because we never bothered to get rid of it. Now is your chance to make it useful again. Babies love rapping (OK, pounding) on the keys and enjoying the clacking sounds they make. Your first step is to secure the loose cable to the back of the keyboard with duct tape. Then you’re ready to hand over the keyboard to your infant and watch him pound away to his heart’s content!

4. Piano
If your baby enjoys banging on a computer keyboard, he’s going to positively love banging on something that produces music as a result! From the age of 5 months or so, he’ll probably be thrilled by being placed on the bench – with you holding him for support, of course – and given free reign to compose whatever piece he wants. Benefits of this great activity include practice with hand-eye coordination, learning about cause and effect (he learns that by hitting the keys, he’s the one making those sounds), and, best of all, a developing ear for, and appreciation of, music.

5. Balls
Plastic balls, rubber balls, ping pong balls – any ball large enough not to be swallowed is a good, engaging toy for an infant. Plastic and rubber balls are best, since they aren’t dangerous to chew on. Tennis balls are OK, too, since your infant will probably discover fairly quickly that chewing on fuzz is less fun than playing with the thing instead. By the time your baby is 5 or 6 months old, you’ll start to derive a whole new level of joy from teaching him to play “catch” – passing the ball back and forth with you (even though you’ll probably have to take the ball from him when he passes it to you, since infants learn to grasp objects before learning to release them).

6. Television Remote
While watching TV is a passive activity and therefore not ideal for infant development, the remote itself can be a useful toy. Babies love pressing buttons wherever they see them, and this provides them with a self-contained panel of lots of different buttons to press. If you have a remote with an LED (red light) that goes on whenever a button is pressed, the toy becomes even more fun and educational – your infant will be spellbound by the relationship between his effort and the light appearing.

7. Empty Plastic Bottles
One of the few good things about our society’s obsessive consumption of soft drinks is the enjoyment infants get from the bottles they come in, once emptied. The smaller the bottle, the better for little hands to manipulate. The larger ones can provide lots of fun, too, by being rolled back and forth or knocked ahead only to rotate back. Empty shampoo bottles also work well.

8. Used Toilet Roll Tubes
Part of me thinks the toilet roll tube came first – as a wonderful infant toy – followed by the invention of toilet paper rolls to place around them. These tubes have lots going for them as baby toys. They’re an interesting cylindrical shape, but open at the ends and thus easy for little hands to grasp. They’re stiff, so your baby won’t destroy them in five minutes. They don’t look like something that would be interesting to eat, even to an infant. And they can be banged against other objects without harmful consequences.

9. Watches
The faces of most watches, combined with the texture of their bands and their silver or gold buckles, make them fascinating objects for infants. They may serve you particularly well at the changing table when your baby reaches the age at which he prefers to flip over instead of waiting for you to finish the job. Dangling the watch above his eyes for a moment or two and then allowing him to grab it might keep him interested just long enough for you to complete the crucial task at hand.

10. You
No matter how many pilgrimages you make to the local toy store, your baby’s favorite toy is you. And why not? Just think how exciting a thing you are, with so many interesting parts for a baby to enjoy, including fingers that move around in captivating ways, a nose that sticks out from the rest of your facial plane, features capable of endless amusing expressions and feet that are fun to shuffle after when they walk away. When you think you’re at a loss trying to keep your infant entertained, turn to yourself as the toy most likely to get results. Do an elevator walk, clap your hands under your knees, play peek-a-boo, play a hambone tune on your thighs, do a pratfall or just jump around and sing. Your baby will appreciate the effort you’re making for him, and he may just reward you with a few of those giggles that you’ve come to live for.