Your baby gains so much information from the world around her in her first year that her brain will actually double in weight and triple by age three. When she was born, the brain cells or neurons were all in place but there were very few connections between these cells. These connections occur through new learning. It is a critical time for providing your baby with learning experiences and stimulation because the brain cells that are not stimulated within the first few years actually die away in a process called neural pruning.
Your baby is learning about the world through her senses of touch, sight, sound, taste, smell, and feeling movement on her body. Through a process called sensory processing she has to first take in all of this information and then learn to make sense of it all. Sensory processing lays the foundation for learning and development. You can dramatically improve your baby’s development by providing experiences to stimulate each of her senses.
- Talk to her, read to her, sing to her.
- Carry him in vertical carriers so she processes her world from a different position.
- Allow her lotions and soaps to smell.
- Think about what he sees and keep it novel and unfamiliar so it is visually interesting to him.
- Allow her to gaze up at your face.
- Provide mirrors in the car seat and bassinet so she can look at herself.
- Play music.
References:
Gopnik, A. Meltzoff, A, & Kuhl, P. (1999). The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind. William Morrow and Company.
Healy, J. (1994). Your Child’s Growing Mind. A Practical Guide to Brain Development and Learning from Birth to Adolescence. Doubleday.
Gopnik, A. Meltzoff, A, & Kuhl, P. (1999). The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind. William Morrow and Company.
Sinclaire-Harding L., Vuillier L., Whitebread D. (2018) Neuroscience and Early Childhood Education. In: Fleer M., van Oers B. (eds) International Handbook of Early Childhood Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht