LIFE

Stimulate your baby’s senses! Tips and benefits

Laura Viviana Guevara Muñoz September 13, 2018

128 4 minutes read

In LatinAmerican Post we present you the benefits of stimulating your baby's senses from an early stage and some tips

Stimulate your baby's senses! Tips and benefits

According to a study by the Argentinean child neurologist Máximo C. Etchepareborda, Luis Abad and Jorge Pina, entitled "Multisensory stimulation", "the multisensory stimulation (EMS) of a young child is fundamental for his future existence". Stimulating your baby's senses helps physical, emotional, social and cognitive development.

Leer en español: ¡Estimula los sentidos de tu bebé! Consejos y beneficios

Europa Press adds that "in the first three years of life, 85% of neuronal development is produced that favors communication, understanding, social development and emotional well-being." It is important to mention that according to the research by Dr. Etchepareborda, your baby will begin to have a sense of objects, time, space, language, play and imitation.

That is why, in LatinAmerican Post we present you some ideas to stimulate your baby's movements and / or perceptions.

Visual stimuli

While newborns do not see much beyond 20 to 30 centimeters, in addition to seeing blurred and not focus, they prefer objects of white, black and dark colors. From the fourth month of life they begin to distinguish colors and in the sixth month they see them completely.

In the first months of life, more or less until 5, it is advisable to have a large and colorful mobile or have a strong contrast of colors. You can play with him, putting him near or far. Also, a good idea is to leave it behind your shoulder so that he can follow it with his eyes.

From 6 months the colorful toys, with sounds, lights and different textures will help his psychomotor coordination. Another option is the toys to fit chips, because he will learn the sight-movement relationship.

At 10 months he will be able to move a little bit more. It is ideal that you place the toys away for him to reach them. You can also give him a mirror. By the time he is a year old, an easy and fun idea is to play see-see. With the game he can observe and think what object he will have to describe.

Auditory stimuli

During the first three months of life you can put your baby on his back and sound a rattle to try to hear where the sound comes from. You can also talk to him slowly to become familiar with the sound of your voice.

Another exercise, according to the website Haga Familia, is "to put two bells around his wrists and teach him to associate sound with movement. Let him do it on his own and every time he makes it sound, you can praise him and smile at him."

From the fourth month, you can play the classic Where's The Baby and hide so that when you appear again in front of him, you say "Here he is!" He will probably let out a giggle.

During the sixth month you can take a walk around the house with your baby, showing him the objects of the house and associating them with the sounds they make. Another way can be through stories, which is preferable to have illustrations. You can also sing to him.

Touch stimulation

Through tactile stimulation, your baby can identify different types of sensations to touch. You can start doing massages at bath time or let him experience different sensations with fabrics, plastics, objects with different shapes, stuffed animals, among others. When you let him play with the textures it will be useful, for example when he crawl, to differentiate which objects are soft or hard and to know if the surface is safe or not.

From the first months of life, with each change of diaper you can run your fingertips around the extremities, naming the limb you are massaging. From 7 months your baby will be moving a little more and will want to explore everything that surrounds him. Try not to inhibit what he touchs. Let him explore with sand, rice, wool, silk and water.

Also, very carefully, let him differentiate between heavy and light objects. Another option is to identify the heat of the cold. As reported by El Comercio, children who are subjected to tactile stimuli "rest better, have less sleep disturbances, develop their self-esteem and their ability to relate to others and are 50% more likely to make eye contact."

Olfactory stimuli

When your baby is a newborn, he already learn to differentiate that the smell of the mother is different from that of another person. The Hacer Familia portal states that "at twelve hours of age, babies already have olfactory preferences and will be pleased when you approach a rich smell and grimace when the smell is unpleasant."

You can stimulate him by approaching three times the perfume of the mother or the father to recognize it, you can also reinforce the encouragement by accompanying him with words, such as: "You like this smell, you're happy, it is delicious". Another stimulus can be to bring the food or drink that you are going to give, it is important that you name what food or liquid you are giving to distinguish what foods smell rich and what others do not.

Taste stimuli

As of 6 months, your baby explores everything with his mouth, although it is important that you are aware of what objects are inserted in the mouth, let him taste the different flavors.

With the acid give him a not very large piece of lemon, orange or even a little bit of vinegar. It is important that you let him take and touch everything.
With the salty flavor give him a little salt, fried potato chips or any package product that has a salty taste. Of course, it is very important that you do not exaggerate the amount of the product.
With the bitter taste you can try to give him some cauliflower, legumes or even a bit of bitter chocolate. You will see that your baby will make faces and probably do not want to try more. Do not insist or he will cry.
With the sweet try to give fruits, sugar, honey or a piece of sweet chocolate and let him experience, you will see that of all the flavors, this is the one that reacts best! Of course, it is important that you do not base the baby's diet exclusively on sweets.