INFANTS – LEARNING FROM THEIR SENSES
A quality family childcare program for infants will include activities that satisfy curriculum objectives and maximize provider/infant interactions. Infants learn a great deal through their senses. Here are some ways infants learn and activities that will assist the infants to reach developmental milestones:
SIGHT
• Tie brightly colored magazine pictures, colorful scraps of material, old costume jewelry, or pieces of plastic straws to string and hang them from a clothes hanger. Although the very young baby will not be able to reach up and grab the mobile, you will want to be very certain that everything you tie to the hanger is securely and firmly attached and has no sharp or pointed edges.
• Hang a shiny aluminum pie pan, a crushed ball of aluminum foil, or a brightly colored piece of tissue paper crumpled into a ball and hung where it can twist in the wind.
• Put some pictures on the walls of the nursery. Tape some of the other children’s art to the walls, mount some dried seed pods or flowers in an old box lid for the infant to see.
• One of the most interesting things for an infant to see is your face. Your face is important to the infant; it talks, smiles, and laughs. When the infant smiles, your face smiles back, and when the infant gurgles and coos, you coo back. With these pleasurable experiences, the baby learns he or she is loved and enjoyed.
• Have something for infants to watch while you’re changing or dressing them. A small mirror near the dressing table is fun for the baby to look at.
• Routinely play games with infants, when they’re in a playful mood, while you’re changing them, or after they’ve been fed. Peek-a-boo is a favorite for babies.
All infants are different and each one will act in a different way, if they are smiling and watching you to see what will come next, they are most likely having fun and want more. Follow the infant’s cues and they will tell you what they like and don't like. If the infant fusses, cries, or seems restless, then you know the baby has had enough and it’s time to stop.
HEARING
Every time infants hear a sound, they are learning, and because they enjoy hearing new sounds and interesting things, they want to learn more and more about their world.
• Sing to the infant-even if you can’t sing a note, the baby will be delighted and impressed with your ability as you sing nursery songs while you change or dress the infant.
• When infants make sounds, play with these sounds. For example, when they make a sound, a coo, gurgle or squeal-make it back to them. When infants hear you repeating the sound they’ve made, they will make other sounds and soon you’ll have a conversation going.
• Rattle some plastic keys by the infant’s ears; give a safe rattle to hold on to.
• Hang a set of bells or a wind chime in the doorway.
• Take the infant with you around the house as you work or play with the other children. Let the infant see and hear the sounds in their environment.
TOUCH
Around three months of age, infants will be able to focus their eyes and will begin to use their hands to reach, touch and grasp the things they see. From this point on, the baby will be very active, and will want many more things to play with. Infants need toys they can feel such as:
• strings of plastic beads
• rattles
• floating bath toys
• bells
• toys they can shake, push and pull
• toys they can finger, hold, touch and drop.
MAKE SURE ANYTHING YOU GIVE THE INFANT TO HOLD IS SECURE AND NOT A CHOKING HAZARD.
As infants feel, mouth, touch their toys they learn, and if they can make the toy do something; they begin to learn that they are important in their world because they can make something happen. Here are some things you can provide:
• Make a cradle gym-out of empty thread spools, plastic bracelets and other nice-to-pull objects, suspended securely on elastic across the crib…When the infant pulls the objects, the string stretches, and when the infant lets go, they bounce back.
• Find playthings that are safe and of different textures like - soft, smooth, rough, bumpy or fuzzy.
• Make a cloth ball by stuffing an old towel or scrap fabric with nylon stockings and sewing it together into a round shape.
• Tie some netting together to form a puff ball, and watch the infant experiment while playing with this ‘prickly’ toy.
The best thing that infants can touch and feel is you. The warmth of your body as you hold them, your soft skin or dress, the rhythm of your body as you rock or walk, these are the things the baby needs to feel, and the things the baby learns from.
TASTE
Infants begin developing taste around 9 weeks of pregnancy when tiny taste buds form on his mouth and tongue. He can taste when you are eating foods that are sweet, savory, or spicy. Your infant will grow to like foods he gets used to, therefore try to introduce the infant to foods with various tastes and textures. Follow the CACFP infant guidelines in introducing new foods.
As you have experienced, a baby will put everything in his mouth. That’s because the baby uses his mouth as a way of exploring, learning, and making sense of the world around him. They learn about different tastes and textures of both food and nonfood. Because babies will put anything in their mouth you need to be vigilant in keeping the environment around the baby free from any small, sharp, and dirty things that could cause harm.
Here are some things you can do to help the infant learn through taste:
• you can help him learn by offering age-appropriate and interesting toys to explore with his mouth.
• Toys with different textures
• Toys that have interesting colors
• Toys with lights
• Toys that make noises
• Introduce baby to foods with different textures and tastes
A baby eventually stops using his mouth and taste buds in this way by the time he's 12 to 18 months old, he uses his mouth less to explore and make sense of objects.