Gross Motor Development and Fun Gross Motor Games

After a baby has spent enough time pulling to stand and holding on to furniture and similar supports in her environment she will begin to feel comfortable in upright. When your baby is feeling stable she will begin to take steps.  This is a very exciting time for both you and your baby.  Walking is a very important milestone for your baby to achieve.  It will also set the stage for new and exciting opportunities for learning and development.  Once your baby has mastered walking she will be ready to move on to other stages of gross motor development.  Before you know it your baby will have blossomed into a toddler who’s running, climbing, jumping, going up and down steps, and kicking a ball. Give your toddler a lot of opportunity to experience, practice, and perfect her gross motor skills.  Outdoor playgrounds and indoor gyms allow for many motor opportunities for you and your toddler to enjoy. There are many gross motor play activities that you can encourage at this stage of your toddler's development. There are backyard toys such as a see-saw or a small slide that you can encourage your toddler to go on.  If you have ample space these items can be provided indoors as well.  You can play catch, throw, bounce, and kick a ball with your toddler.  Ride-on toys are another way for your toddler to develop her gross motor skills. Games such as “ring-around-the rosy” and “hokey pokey” are other fun ways for you and your toddler to practice, have fun, and continue to perfect her gross motor skills. If you have a small stepping stool you can help your toddler practice stepping up on the stool and jumping off of the stool.  Your toddler will love this activity and it will help her develop skill with stair climbing, jumping, and improved balance.  Another good way to use your stepping stool is to have your toddler sit on it. Since the stool does not have a back rest to lean on, your toddler will rely on her postural muscles to keep herself on the stool.  This activity is another way to build strength and balance. Another fun gross motor play activity you can engage your toddler with is getting down on the floor and pretending to be various animals.  They can demonstrate how they are a dog, lion, elephant or any other animal your toddler can imagine. Regardless of which gross motor play activities you choose, you and your toddler are sure to have lots  fun doing them.

TUMMY TIME ALL THE TIME

"TUMMY TIME" What’s all the fuss about tummy time, and why’s it SO important?  Since it is now the recommendation that babies sleep on their backs, babies are spending less and less time on their stomachs. Babies need the opportunity to practice holding their heads up against gravity, using their arms to push themselves up to strengthen their arm and back muscles, and practicing what to do with their feet so that they can learn to tuck them under their bodies…a trick they’ll need to learn before they can crawl. Putting your newborn on her stomach on the floor will allow her to develop head control.  Control of balance and coordination begins at the head. After your baby has learned to control her head she can then learn to use the rest of her body….working through the neck, trunk, arms and legs. In order for your baby to develop the self confidence she needs to move around in space and explore her environment, she needs to feel safe.  Only after your baby has had sufficient time to learn to control and strengthen her muscles, through much tummy time experience, will she feel secure in space. When your baby feels that she can adapt her body to changes and keep herself from falling when her weight is redistributed then she’ll feel confident and secure enough to explore and learn about the environment. Tummy time is not just good for strengthening and motor development. There is also tons of sensory information that a baby will get from feeling the floor against her body. I mean all kinds of floors…go ahead and put your baby on a blanket, on different textured carpets, on a warm wood floor, and let her learn how different textures feel. 

 Review: Babies need tummy time to build strength, promote motor development, and stimulate the sensory system.

 

39th Annual Head Start Conference

Participating in this years National Head Start Conference in Nashville Tennessee was an amazing experience.
The National Head start program has made such a difference in the lives of so many all across the united states.
The commitment to ensuring that all children, no matter what their background, get the best start in life is truly commendable.
The varied programs offered through Head start, help meets the needs of families in different ways.
There is the home visitation programs for families that qualify and the center based programs for infants and toddlers as well as preschoolers.
Head start continues to strive to ensure that their programs are running safe and efficiently with the latest learning opportunities for the children in this country.
Head Start has stringent regulations for how their programs are run as well as policies to ensure that their regulations are being met.
I enjoyed meeting the many directors and teachers of varied Head Start programs all over the country.
The lecture I presented on was on the topic of infant and toddler development. What a wonderful audience of dedicated teachers and home visiting specialists with such an interest in the latest information on early childhood development. We discussed motor development, cognitive development, reflex integrations, sensory processing, language, engagement and more.
Who doesn't like talking about babies?
Looking forward to seeing you all again at next year's conference!!!!!

Information About the National Head Start Programs

The following information about Head Start Programs is taken from the U.S. Department of Health and Social Services.
Head Start is a national program that promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families.
The Head Start program provides grants to local public and private non-profit and for-profit agencies to provide comprehensive child development services to economically disadvantaged children and families, with a special focus on helping preschoolers develop the early reading and math skills they need to be successful in school. In FY 1995, the Early Head Start program was established to serve children from birth to three years of age in recognition of the mounting evidence that the earliest years matter a great deal to children's growth and development.
Head Start programs promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families. They engage parents in their children's learning and help them in making progress toward their educational, literacy and employment goals.
I am proud to be a part of the 39th Anual Head Start Convention in Nashville Tennessee.  I will be speaking about Infant and Toddler Development and promoting the importance of proper stimulation  of our children in their crucial first few years of life.
Next week I will report to you about the convention.
SEE YOU IN NASHVILLE!!!!!!!!

How Developing a Trusting Bond with Your Baby Effects His/Her Brain Chemistry and Why this is Such an Improtant Part of Your Baby's Development

 You’ll learn to understand how your baby communicates with you with smiles, coos, and varied types of cries. When you respond to your babies needs, she learns to trust you.  A strong bond of trust between you and your baby will help to foster the security that she needs. It’s through the development of trust that your baby will form an attachment with you.  Attachment is a necessary component for the emotional development of your baby.

When your baby is first born, she’s bombarded with new sounds, sights, movements and feelings. The world can be a scary place.  While in the womb all your baby’s needs were taken care of. Now she must rely on the environment to have her needs met. Consistently responding to your baby helps build trust. Your baby uses her trusting relationship with you, her attachment, to keep herself regulated through you. Her immature brain and body cannot do this alone.  When your baby is not feeling safe, her sympathetic nervous system will kick in. Her heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure will increase.  Her brain chemistry will change.  Her adrenaline increases and the stress hormone cortisol is released.  This is a defense mechanism for your baby. She will become agitated and cry.  In the beginning this is your baby's way of communicating her needs to you. Conversely, when you soothe your baby or respond to her needs, her limbic system kicks in.  Now the hormones of oxytocin and vasopressin are released to calm her baby system.  As you well know, being stressed or panicked is not the optimum time for learning.  Stress or panic can lead to confusion raising your stress level even more. Your baby is learning about you and her world every day and needs to be in a calm state to conquer this awesome job. She needs to make sense of what she sees. She must learn to communicate. She must learn about every new item in her environment.  Keeping your baby calm and relaxed will aid her in this process. 
Three ways to keep your baby clam and relaxed are:
1) Following a routine and schedule your baby can count on and learn to expect.
2) Making sure your baby's environment is not overly stimulating especially when she/he is tired.
3) Reading your baby's cues and soothing her in the consistent manner that you have learned works best for her/him.

When to Start Reading to Your Baby

Why are we as parents encouraged to read to our children way before they have all the skills that are necessary for them to see, pay attention, and understand the story? Reading is actually an activity that can be experienced with our children at any age.  Each age and stage will provide its own unique learning opportunity for your child.  As a newborn your baby will love to hear your familiar voice.  Your voice will soothe and calm your baby.  Your voice is the first voice your baby recognizes and responds to. Listening to the different tones of your voice, how you pause and start at different points in the story will help train your baby in the finer points of language use. At a few months old, your baby will be relying on his sensory system to figure out the many things in his environment.  At this point your baby will want to look at, touch, and taste the books.  This is a good time to have plastic and cloth books handy. Don't be discouraged if your baby appears disinterested, crawls, walks away, or rips a book.  This just means that your baby is not interested in the story at this moment. Keep trying and eventually your baby will develop the interest in books that you have been anticipating. Introducing sensory books with varied textured pictures to feel, movable parts, and shiny interesting pictures are a great way to cultivate initial interest in books. Once your child has learned what a book is through his senses he will develop an interest in the book as a story.  Your toddler will now start to recognize the book’s pictures and learn to label them increasing his vocabulary. With repeated reading your toddler will begin to anticipate seeing items and people that are familiar helping build his memory and attention. You can help build your Toddlers language skills by using songs and sounds in the story that he can anticipate and eventually participate with. I have found that rather then having a great variety of books to read to babies and toddlers they actually prefer the same books over and over again.  Give your toddler the opportunity to turn the pages of the book and "read" the book him self when he is feeling comfortable and familiar with the story. As your toddler's attention and interest in books increases you can use the books to have your toddler look for and find various pictures and items on a given page or answer questions related to the story. So reading to your child at every age and stage has its benefits. The younger you start reading to your children the sooner you will help them build the skills they need for independence with literacy.

How important is crawling?

How important is crawling? Very!  There are some children that skip crawling or scoot on their backsides rather then crawl before they walk.  I can't stress enough how important it is for you to try to encourage your baby to crawl. Crawling works on coordination of the upper and lower limbs preparing the body for improved balance in walking. Crawling further trains the balance system by giving your baby a new opportunity to learn to move his body against gravity. Crawling also helps to develop shoulder girdle strength that will help facilitate fine motor skills and hand function as the child transitions to upright. Crawling also provides visual training and eye hand coordination for future learning.  The distance of a babies head to their hands on the floor is the same distance they will eventually use, when older, to see a book that they are trying to read. One way to ensure that your baby crawls is by giving him ample tummy time when he’s first born.  Another way to encourage a baby that is a few months old to learn to crawl is by giving them many opportunities for play while on their stomach….such as with bright and musical toys or getting on the floor with them.  If your baby starts to scoot, don’t assume that it’s too late to teach him how to crawl. You can help him by placing him in the crawling position and using your hands to help him along.  Another great exercise for training your baby to crawl is teaching him to crawl up the steps.  You can complete this activity carefully, and when your baby finally gets the hang of it he can practice this fun activity over and over again.  Place a fun toy at the top of the steps for him to retrieve. Always make sure you are behind your baby in case he loses his balance.  After you have practiced on the steps follow up with a few minutes of encouraged crawling time on the floor. If your baby skips the crawling stage you can still encourage crawling games like crawling through a tunnel or crawling under a table to retrieve a toy.  Activities such as these even once a child has already learned to walk will help your baby develop the skills that crawling facilitates.