Guest Post: Best activities to do with your baby

Best activities to do with your baby that are age appropriate for a 3 month-old or 6 month-old baby

Today’s guest post comes to us from Jennifer Sheckelford at Themamaneeds.com and she writes about how to play with your 3 or 6 month-old baby and the types activities to do with your baby. The period between 3 and 6 months for a baby is developmentally equivalent to different lifetimes. Between 3 and 6 months a baby goes from laying and having tummy time to sitting up and able to grasp at different items around them. This article explores many of those developmental baby milestones and offers up some activities to make your time with your baby a lot of fun. I’ll be honest. When my first child was born, I had no idea what to do with her. I longed for the day to throw the ball in the backyard or fly a kite with my little one, but I was stumped as for what to do with a 3 or 6 month-old baby. These are definitely quality tips for those who are like I was an unknowing of what to do with baby in those first crucial months in building a bond with my little girl who changed my entire world.

Enjoy.
– Will

Best activities and games to entertain a 3 month-old or a 6 month-old baby

At the age of six months, your child’s behavior changes in new ways. He/she begins to react differently to relatives and strangers. Seeing strangers or relatives who can be rarely seen, a child may look at them with apprehension. A child smiles less and when a stranger speaks to him or her, babies can start to cry. But after a while, a child gets used those new people. This behavior is due to the fact that a baby does not know what to expect from strangers since a baby has no experience communicating and/or interacting with them.

At this age, child’s motor skills are improved. Many children try to move forward on their belly, sit steadily, and hold a baby toy with both hands. Things are changing fast and what you did one month or a couple weeks ago may need to change to accommodate the baby’s growth and development. At a loss for what to do? Here are some activities to do with your baby that are age appropriate for a 3 month-old or 6 month-old baby.

Activities to do with a 3 month-old baby

Firstly, in our activities to do with your baby list, let’s discuss how to entertain a 3 month-old baby. Three-month babies love to knock,m bump and touch various objects with arms and legs. Therefore, you can safely hang rattles so that your baby can reach them. It is advised to routinely change the baby’s rattles because one rattle can quickly annoy the baby. And you can even make your own rattle! To do this, simply stretch a rubber band through the crib and hang different toys on it.

Sing songs to your child, read fairy tales, tell interesting nursery rhymes to children. At the same time, you can try calling your baby by name more often.

At three months age a baby is able to hold a variety of things in their hands. Therefore, let him/her hold the rattles, but remember that they must match the age of the baby. They should be light enough and not have sharp corners. Another unique way to entertain a three-month-old child is to make small balls from different materials and stuff them with cotton.

Activities to do with a 6 month-old baby

During feeding, put your baby in a highchair and put cookie pieces on the table of the high chair. Your baby will take a piece of food and put it in their mouth. Through this item in our list of activities to do with your baby, the baby improves finger movements and coordination of hand movements.

Next in our list of activities to do with your baby, watch and observe your child’s reaction to various smells. Make a few balls from gauze or bandage, put a garlic clove in one of them and in another, piece of onion. In the third one some carnation petals or other flower petals. Bring them one after another to the baby’s nose, and see how your child reacts to the smells. By the mimicry of the child, active movements of the legs or turning the head in the opposite direction, you can determine which smells the child does not like.

When offering toys or performing activities with them, encourage your child to explore and make decisions. When the child holds a toy in both hands, offer a third toy. At first, the baby will try to take the offered toy, without letting go of one of the toys in their hand. But over time, the child will understand: in order to take this toy, it is necessary to release another.

Next up on our activities to do with your baby list is to entertain your 6 month-old baby with the sound game. Do not forget that educational toys for children of this age are almost all surrounding objects. Fill several metal jars with cereals or small toys. Alternately shake each jar so that the baby can see how you do it. After a while, the child will shake the jars himself to hear the sound.

Show your child a “bye-bye” gesture. When you leave the house, shake your hand and say: “bye-bye”. Very soon, your tot will wave a hand in return.

Do not forget to look at the child from time to time and smile. Bring the baby to a radio or tape recorder and let listen to music or songs.

How to play with your 6 month-old baby

• Conversation with a cup: Collect several cups of different size together and put them in a cardboard box. Then, place each cup on your mouth. In turn, repeat some familiar word. For example, your baby’s name. The kid will notice how differently the name can sound. Continue the game and try to pronounce a variety of sounds.
• Ball with water: Fill a balloon with a little water and tie a string to it. Show your baby how the shape of the ball changes, when you squeeze and swing it, and let your baby to do the same. The baby will soon find out that the ball is jumping from a floor, and swinging if it is twisted.

  Important: Do not leave the child alone with the balloon and remember if your child put it in their mouth, the balloon can cause the child to choke.

• Game with sounds: Pour a different amount of water into the plastic bottles. By striking a spoon on each of them, you will hear different sounds. A child will also notice the difference and after a while will join the game.
• Photos of Mom and Dad: In any opportunity, say the words “Dad” and “Mom”. Pin the pictures of mom and dad over the baby’s bed or tape them to the wall (or use 3M Strips so that tape doesn’t damage any paint job you might have done to spruce up the nursery). Every time you hear the baby saying “Mom” or “Dad”, show the photo and say: “This is Mom, and this is Dad.”
• Floating bath toys: One more in our activities to do with your baby list is to entertain your 6 month-old baby with floating bath toys. As your baby can confidently sit by now, add floating toys to your baby’s bath time fun like rubber duckies and plastic cups or cups with holes in them for draining/strain water. For everyday use, ordinary household items can be used. Offer your child a teaspoon, a lid from a saucepan, a sieve, or a wooden chopstick or spoon. Another option to entertain your 6 month old baby will be a plastic mirror in which the baby will be able to study his/her reflection. Or a small basket with toys, in which he/she will be happy to dig into to find a fun toy to play with.

  Which toys to choose? For your baby, the sixth month of life is a time of continuous study and learning about the world around him/her. Offer your baby toys with opening doors, mirrors, knobs, wheels, etc. The main thing is that your baby is experimenting under the supervision of adults.

Very often children of this age begin to show interest in “adult” items, for example, a remote control from the TV, a mobile phone or even a case for eyeglasses. As Parents, please watch your baby’s play carefully so that your baby doesn’t swallow a small item.

With this list of activities to do with your baby I hope you can find something new and fun to do with your 3 month-old or 6 month-old baby that you, perhaps, have not yet thought of doing to entertain and help your baby explore the world around him/her. Have fun with it and help shape your baby’s understanding of the world around them, growth and development.