Play and Exercise

You and your baby get to know and understand each other as you play together. Babies learn about their own bodies and about the world around them as they play by themselves. They reach out and examine things, first with their eyes, then with their hands and then with their whole bodies. They listen, then respond, then imitate as you talk to them in play.

In the first months, baths, feeding times, and diaper changes give you the opportunity to handle each other, to listen to each other, and to watch each other. You can stretch your baby out, pull your baby into a sitting or standing position and get to know the real strength of your baby's grip and muscles.

At first, your baby will play using his or her eyes, looking at objects and following them as they move. A few objects dangled on a string above the crib will provide something to watch, and so will the view out the window or the sight of you carrying out your usual household tasks.

By age 2 to 3 months, infants will spend a great deal of time watching their hands as they reach out and bring them back in front of their faces. They will begin to laugh and squeal so you will know when they really enjoy their own games and the games you play with them.

Toys

A toy is anything babies play with. Babies don't care whether it was purchased in the most expensive children's shop or is a cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper. Spoons, boxes, pie tins, pieces of cloth, or clothespins will give just as much to explore and just as much pleasure as expensive toys. To be safe, any toy you give your baby should:

• Be sturdy enough that it will not splinter or break;
• Be large enough so that it can't be swallowed;
• Have no parts that can come loose and be swallowed such as whistles on rubber toys, or buttons or eyes on stuffed animals and dolls;
• Have no sharp points or edges; and
• Be painted with a safe paint.

Babies need only a few things to play with at any one time—the crib shouldn't be stuffed with a great number of toys and household objects. However, the more different things there are to look at, handle, bite, squeeze, scratch, bang, rattle and throw, the more your baby will learn about what things are like. So change the toys frequently. Any household contains plenty of safe objects for even the most curious baby.

Out of the Crib

By 3 to 4 months, your baby will probably demand a little more excitement than is provided in the crib or by daily care. Your child may let you know by screaming and crying from boredom or by just being a little fussy.

Your baby will be happier spending a few hours a day sitting in an inclined infant seat watching you do your work. Your infant will also want to spend some time on the floor rolling, kicking and beginning to learn to crawl. Keep a close eye on your child playing on the floor; young babies have enough strength to pull down a lamp or a small table and can move amazingly far and fast even before learning to crawl or creep. A playpen can be useful because you can leave the baby safely out of your sight for a few minutes while you carry on your household tasks. Later on the baby can use the bars or net of the playpen to pull up to stand. And a playpen can make a handy crib for naps or even for all-night sleeping. When your baby is quite small, you can make a playpen by blocking off a corner of a room with furniture or boxes. As your child grows in strength, you will need something stronger that can't be moved. As your child grows older, set aside some time each day for playing freely about on the floor outside of the playpen. The older your baby gets, the more carefully you will have to watch to avoid dangers.

Discipline and Teaching

The word "discipline" means teaching. It does not mean punishment, as many people think. Children will be well "disciplined" when they learn to do those things which please you and which promote growth and development. They will also be well "disciplined" when they learn not to do those things which displease you and others and which interfere with health, growth, and safety.

The key to learning and discipline is not punishment, but reward. When your baby first smiles, you pay attention and smile back. When you see another smile, you smile back and pay attention again, and you may talk pleasantly and cuddle your baby. Your infant soon learns that smiling causes good things to happen and learns to do a lot of smiling. In just the same way, when you pay attention to the first cooing and gurgling sounds, your smile, your voice and your fondling reward your infant, who then coos and gurgles more and more frequently. By age 5 or 6 months, babies begin to notice that you "reward" more when they repeat sounds that you make than when they make just any old sound. Pretty soon they imitate everything you say and begin to learn to talk.

If a baby's smile is constantly ignored, smiling will stop. And if cooing, gurgling and other sounds are constantly ignored, a baby soon will stop making sounds. You actually teach your baby to smile by rewarding for smiling and to talk by rewarding for talking. You teach by responding in a consistent way to what your child does.

The same thing holds true for almost all other kinds of behavior. When you respond to something your child does by giving your attention, a smile, a kind word, or a caress, your baby will do that thing more and more frequently. If you ignore it, it will be done less and less frequently. With these two methods, rewarding and ignoring, you will teach almost everything that your child will learn.

What about punishment? Will a baby stop doing something if he or she is regularly punished for it? It should work that way, but actually punishment doesn't work well in the first years of life. The baby usually can't figure out just what behavior is being punished. If you slap a baby when a spoonful of food is thrown on the floor, the child may not know whether the punishment is for eating, for trying to feed himself or herself, or for something else. Your child may stop eating or stop self-feeding rather than start to become a neat eater. Then too, punishment is a form of attention. Some babies may enjoy the attention more than they dislike the punishment. Children, when rewarded with a smile for using a spoon successfully—or punished with a frown for throwing their food—will soon learn to give up purposeful spilling.

Of course, babies sooner or later must learn that some of the things they do make people around them irritated or angry. You don't always have to be calm, smile and hold your temper. To show your irritation at your child's behavior is natural and is quite different from trying to teach good behavior through punishment.

There are some things your baby will do which are just plain dangerous. If your infant gets hold of something sharp or something that can be swallowed, take it away promptly. At the end of the first year, begin to teach the meaning of "no" by rewarding your baby when he or she stops doing something dangerous when you say the word. Soon you will be able to use the word "no" to keep your baby out of dangerous situations. Save most of your harsh words for teaching about things that are really dangerous. Don't waste your "no-no's" on things that really don't matter.

Jeff Beaumont

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