Time flies and soon you will see your little one who was struggling to place his head straight moving around the house. Babies grow every week and it’s important they have exposure to play and other stimulating age-appropriate activities. Play activities for babies 0-6 months help them build strength and develop their sensory systems.
Even before babies are mobile, they will start interacting and communicating with you. But the challenge is keeping them entertained and engaged with the correct developmental activities for infants. These activities, when planned correctly, give you also a chance to spend quality time with your little ones.
However, it could be confusing what you should do with the baby when they don’t sleep, feed or cry – that is when they are in the age-group of 0-6 months. Below are our suggestions for different activities that you might use when you are stuck on ideas for fun and sensory activities for babies under 6 months. Trust us, your baby will thoroughly love these fun and learning activities.
12 Fun And Learning (Activities For Babies 0-6 Months)
Your tiny cuddled baby will soon start moving about and try exploring the world around them. They get into a pool of discoveries. Your baby will be waving, babbling, smiling, nodding, and in no time will become the center of attraction. Mind you, they know they are the center of your universe from day 1.
Though these small things could make you happy, it is also important that you keep a track of their milestones and play sensory activities for babies under 6 months which make their growth better. Your love, touch, and time for them are very crucial to help them develop their sensory system.
The activities you play now will be loved by the little one and simultaneously improve their social, mental, physical, and emotional development impacting her overall development.
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Let us see through different sections what the best way we could develop the baby overall.
1. Physical Activities For Babies 0-6 Months
Babies go through incredible physical changes during a short span. When you are choosing an activity for the children it should include both play and fun. If you see the child enjoying what you’re doing, most likely they like it and want you to do more.
For babies around 0-6 months, they need a lot of free space to move and explore in a safe environment. It helps the child learn skills such as reaching a place, crawling, moving, rolling, etc.
Babies love to stretch and play. Below are a few physical activities you could try with your child.
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1. Tummy time
This is an essential sensory activity for babies under 6 months in your baby’s everyday routine. It helps to build coordination and strengthens the baby’s neck, shoulder, arms, and trunk. It is even recommended by doctors to have tummy time daily, soon after birth1. Start with shorter spans of tummy time and gradually increase.
Tummy time helps to develop motor skills like rolling over, crawling, pulling up, and sitting up. This physical activity can be done both indoors and outdoors.
2. Touch your baby
Touching your baby is one simple to do at home activity with babies 0-6 months. Your baby gets stimulated in the areas you touch her. Lightly tickle your baby to make her giggle. Give her a lot of hugs and kisses and see her enjoying those.
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3. Wear your baby
One of the best physical developmental activities for infants is wearing them on a sling or a baby carrier while you do your chores. Children love the warmth and smell of their mothers. Wearing your baby will make you and the baby feel close to each other.
Hold your baby while you do household chores, go walking, or shopping. The more you keep them close, the closer they will become.
2. Baby Brain Development Activities 0-6 Months
A lot of brain development of the baby starts happening right from the time they are formed. Your pregnancy phase is the most important for their brain development. As long as you are healthy there is nothing extra you need to do for your baby’s brain development.
So finally, when your little one arrives there is a lot of growth and development that has already happened. Their brain size is only 25% of adults during birth, yet they have a sufficient number of neurons required.
Let us see ways through which you can improve the cognitive skills with activities for babies 0-6 months.
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1. Turn on talks
Keep responding to the baby’s coos every time so they get assured you are listening to them. Try out exaggerated facial expressions and loud syllables using various tones. In this way, the child learns and absorbs sounds of the language.
The inputs you give during their early stages are what helps the child tap the areas of the brain responsible for understanding speech and producing language. The song “baby shark” is a suggestion you could try singing to your little one.
2. Respond promptly
Responding to your child whenever they cry helps to build a positive brain circuit in the limbic area of the brain that’s responsible for emotions. Your day-to-day engagement such as soothing, nursing, cuddling your child whenever they cry could assure your child with positivity that sends emotional signals to the brain.
3. Use empathic feelings
Children learn from their surroundings. Use moments when someone is happy, sad, or angry to teach various emotions to your child. The more you expose your child to this kind of thing the more their circuits will be wired, which is one good sensory activity for babies under 6 months.
It not only helps the baby develop language and cognitive learning but their emotions too.
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3. Indoor Activities For Babies 0-6 Months
All you need to do with your baby during the initial phase of their growth is to play, play and play! Your acts of kissing, cuddling, giggling become your interaction with them. This kind of interaction help to grow the baby’s brain and their little muscles.
Just find moments when your baby is calm and alert and make use of it to enjoy playing together. There are many indoor activities for babies 4-6 months which could keep it fun and interesting. You can also do the below if you are looking for things to do with a baby 0-6 months.
1. Mirror show
Babies love faces and movements right from the first few weeks. Hang a mirror and make them see their facial expressions that keep changing now and then. Until 9 months old they won’t realize it is them. Make sure the mirror is not within the child’s reach.
This is one of the best indoor activities for babies 0-6 months. You can also do this during their tummy time.
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2. Funny faces
Although this might sound silly, your baby can make out your face and features from a distance of up to 20 to 35 cm. Allow your baby to observe your face. Slowly smile and then stick out your tongue and raise your eyebrows.
Over a point in time, your child will start imitating you. Sometimes, babies around 3 weeks stick their tongue out to imitate you.
3. Pull and sit
Once your baby turns around 3-4 months with their heads a little steady, you can choose to play this at-home activity with babies 0-6 months old. Lay them on their back and sing rhymes that come with many actions. Hold your baby’s hand and bring them to touch the floor. Then gently make your baby sit and keep moving their arms.
Finally, you can lay the baby on the floor. You will be surprised to see their reaction for every position.
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4. Outdoor Activities For Babies 0-6 Months
Do you all agree that it is fun to take your kids outside for a play? But when it comes to activities for babies 0-6 months, how much can they play? Nature play has many benefits. But when kids aren’t mobile or when they are too young, taking them to your backyard could be difficult especially when you don’t have an idea of what things to do with a baby 0-6 months.
For infants, the activity isn’t of much importance especially when they aren’t mobile. It’s all about taking them to a new environment. These outdoor activities for babies 0-6 months are simple and quick yet fun.
1. Sensory play
One key developmental activity for infants is sensory play and the world outside has many. Kids get exposed to a new world with different varieties and textures such as sand, dirt, grass, etc. Let them pick up different material and get exposed to new learning.
2. Playgrounds
The playground is an apt choice for outdoor play activities for infants. You can choose to take your child to the playground during odd hours when no other big kids are playing around.
Playground helps babies develop motor skills like crawling, climbing, and trying to stand.
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3. Balls – different colors and sizes
One best play activity for babies is offering them different colors and different sizes of balls to play with. Since the outside space is spacious without any hurdles or objects, it is advised you pull out a blanket and let the child explore with colored balls. It also helps to develop the baby’s gross and fine motor skills.
Conclusion
As mothers, it could be tough for us to choose the right baby activity by their growth. Babies have a phenomenal capacity to learn and grow. As mothers, our role is to make them explore the world around them and make their environment interesting.
It could be challenging to find the appropriate activity that enables the right stimulation for the baby’s growth. We hope the above fun activities for babies 0-6 months might be helpful which helps you support your baby’s development. However, supervision is mandatory.
Also, if your child doesn’t like any activity, we suggest you stop it immediately rather than forcing the child.