Brain Development and Your Baby

The brain is the most immature of all organs at birth.  How it grows was thought to be determined by genetics. Scientists now believe that it’s highly dependent on the child's experiences.  The belief is that the "plasticity" of the brain , its ability to grow and develop in different and changing ways, will cause the brain to adapt to its environmental experiences and needs.

The brain consists of many areas.  Each area has millions of neurons or nerve cells that speak to each other by sending messages through synapses.  These synapses are your brain’s wiring system.  Multiple areas of the brain communicate to each other in this manner.  Neurons  have branches on them called dendrites and axons.  Dendrites bring information to the nerve cells and axons take information away from the nerve cell.  Information is passed from one nerve cell to another through a synapse. 

 The number of connections will influence how the brain functions. For the most part we do not develop new nerve cells but rather we develop new synapses.  In early childhood, the brain is programmed to create new synapses.  New experiences create new synapses.  This is our window of opportunity.  By facilitating varied and new experiences for our children, particularly before three years old, we facilitate the creation of new synapses. We now understand that what a child experiences in the first years of life will effect how his brain develops and how he’ll interact with the world throughout his life.

Sooooo, helping your baby have many different kind of experiences will actually set a strong foundation in the brain that will help his future development.  Therefore it would be beneficial to think of diverse and interesting ways for your baby explore, interact, and learn from  his environment.

Sensory Experiences Learning and Summertime Fun

It is important to take advantage of all the senses when playing and teaching our toddler's about the world around them. Playing a variety of music for our children, helping them with art projects, allowing them to handle varied textured items such as sand, rice and water in play are important sensory experiences. When the brain is able to understand information that is coming through multi sensory avenues simultaneously, it will learn with greater ease. When you learn something new it gets stored in the brain.  When the senses are used to assist with that learning the brain stores the new information in more then one area.  For example if you learn a new concept in a song you are more likely to remember it because another place for storing that information was added to the learning process. So whenever possible, allow for hands on and multisensory experiences for facilitating learning.

Summer time creates many opportunities for children to learn through their senses. The petting zoo, feeding the ducks at the lake, going to the beach and backyard water play activities are just some examples of fun and sensory learning opportunities for your baby.

What Babies Wear Will Have an Impact on Their Motor Development

When your baby is first born, he has very limited control over his body. As he grows he will begin to understand where his limbs and body parts are and how to control them.  He will then learn how to use his new found control to manipulate objects and his own body, to play and roll and eventually sit and crawl, so that he can play some more.  Learning to control his body is an awesome and amazing job and your baby will complete this tasks with wonder and joy.  It’s our job to facilitate this growth and development.  It’s because I know this that I stress how important it is for you to make sure that your baby wears comfortable clothes. After he has outgrown the swaddling stage, clothing him will become more important. As far as clothing is concerned, a tee shirt and a diaper are all your baby needs.  Keeping your baby warm is very important so if your baby requires more than a t-shirt, stick with cotton pajama-like shirts and pants.  Socks are only necessary to keep babies toes warm.  Remove socks when your baby is in a warm comfortable place.  This will allow your baby to experience varied sensory textures and help him to learn to use his toes and feet as an anchor for movement.  When your baby begins to experiment with crawling, pants can make surfaces slippery and difficult to manage.  Babies will feel more stable if they can learn to crawl on their bare feet.  If your baby is wearing pants, carpeted surfaces are easier to negotiate.  
Think about what your baby is wearing as he transitions through his development.  Make choices that will help your baby to move freely through his environment and you will be rewarded with the joy that every new movement activity brings to you and your baby.

Sensory Play and Your Toddler

   We often read about the sensory system in five parts.  We talk about our five senses. Sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste.  In fact, our sensory system is also made up of movement called the vestibular system and our ability to feel where our body is in space called the proprioceptive system. Movement and proprioception help us with our balance, body awareness and our ability to understand the information getting through to us from our other senses. It is movement and vision combined for example that gives us a sense of three dimensional space. Our experience with movement and sight teach us early on what objects look like from different angles and positions. We rely on our movement system and the feedback we get from our moving muscles and limbs through the proprioceptive system to help us make sense of what we see, hear, and feel.  In other words, providing an environment that is rich with movement experiences as well as rich in experiences through our other senses will help our babies learn, develop and grow. So, rough housing with your toddler, swinging your toddler through the air and providing him with a lot of movement opportunities is a great way to stimulate your toddler through his sensory system.

   When choosing games and activities for your toddler consider activities with multi sensory components.  Multi sensory input will aid your toddler in learning through play as well as promoting attention for activities.

Great multi sensory experiences:

The Beach

Back yard pools with varied toys

Baking and making doughs

Movement play like rocking horses, slides, swings, and sit and spins.

Play dough

Helping with the "Dishes"

The possibilities and fun are endless!!!! Enjoy!!!!