Nurturing Growth: Engaging Learning Activities for Newborn Development
Bringing a new baby into the world is an exhilarating experience filled with countless moments of joy and discovery. As a parent, one of the most rewarding tasks is to foster your infant’s development through engaging and educational activities. From the moment your baby is born, they are learning through every sound, touch, movement, and connection with you. It’s hard to believe your newborn is actively learning at this stage, but they are. These activities not only provide fun but also support crucial milestones in your baby’s growth.
Understanding Newborn Learning
Babies first make sense of the world around them through their senses and movement, known as sensorimotor play. Sensorimotor play helps babies develop body awareness, coordination, and early problem-solving skills. Every smile, stretch, babble, and cuddle is a chance for growth. With a little intention, everyday routines become rich learning opportunities. During the newborn months, your new baby is growing quickly. When you think about activities for your newborn, you may wonder how to make time for play when feeding and diapering fills most of the wake window. Don’t worry! There’s no need to fill awake time with complicated activities. In fact, you may be surprised to learn the best toy for your newborn baby is actually YOU!
Activities for Newborns (0-3 Months)
Tummy Time
Tummy time is essential for strengthening your baby’s neck, shoulder, and arm muscles. The sooner you start placing your newborn on their belly, the more natural it will feel for them thanks to several newborn reflexes. Place your baby on their tummy on a soft mat or blanket and encourage them to lift their head and explore their surroundings. Place black-and-white images on the floor. Elevated on your lap, your child will have the opportunity to practice the newborn visual skill of focusing on an object. Although it may not look like your newborn is doing much, trust that they’re hard at work. At this age, even 1 minute at a time at different times throughout the day can add up.
Tummy Time Motivation: Place a crinkly or high-contrast toy just out of reach during tummy time.
Sensory Exploration
Introduce your baby to different textures, sounds, and colors with sensory play. After all that time in the womb, your baby needs to stretch out of the fetal position and use their muscles in new ways. To play, place a baby washcloth, silky scarf, or a mitten over a few of your fingers and use it to gently stroke your baby’s bare feet, hands, belly, and face. Create a sensory board with various materials like soft fabric, crinkly paper, and textured objects. Let your baby touch and explore these items to enhance their tactile and auditory senses.
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Visual Stimulation
At birth, a baby’s vision isn’t fully developed. Right now, your child is learning how to focus their eyes on an object right in front of them. Place black-and-white images on the floor to capture their attention.
Auditory Engagement
Playing music and dancing with your baby can stimulate their auditory and motor skills. Sing to your baby. You don’t need to limit yourself to baby music. Use instruments like rattles or drums, and encourage your baby to move along with the rhythm. Sing songs, clap your hands, and make music a part of your daily routine.
Communication and Interaction
Make silly faces. Talk to your baby. Not feeling creative? That’s okay! Narrate as you go: “Does this feel cool on your hand? This activity encourages your baby to turn their head to stretch their neck muscles. For support, place one hand on their belly or hip and, if needed, the other on their back. Chit chat Face your baby, make eye contact, smile and talk to them when they make sounds. Take turns responding to their babbles and pause to give them time to respond.How your baby benefits: This back and forth helps your child to learn language and conversation skills - and they’ll love the attention they get from you! Making eye contact shows your baby that you want to communicate with them and helps support learning.
Baby Massage
Gentle massages can be incredibly soothing for your baby and help with their physical development. Baby massage promotes relaxation and sleep, and positively affects hormones in your baby’s body that control stress. You can massage your baby with their clothing on or off, and use a baby-safe lotion or oil.
Activities for Babies (3-6 Months)
You’ll probably notice big developmental changes during months 3-6. Your little one may start rolling, babbling, and sitting with support. They’re also able to stay awake a bit longer between naps and before bed. This means that your baby is likely going to transition from 4 naps to 3 during these months. The best activities at this age are the ones that allow your baby to explore the world around them! While you’re sitting on the floor in front of a couch, lay your baby with their tummy on the couch cushion facing you. This allows time to practice lifting their head to see and interact with you.
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Visual Tracking
Play around with tracking objects. Move objects slowly across your baby’s field of vision (about 10 inches away from them) to allow them to track the movement with their eyes.
Floor Time and Exploration
Have lots of floor time to help encourage rolling and sitting upright while supported. Use a playmat or play gym for tummy time and rolling practice. Give your baby toys that are safe for little mouths. Offer your baby rattles or things that make noise when your baby shakes them in their hands.
Sensory Walks
Talk a walk and narrate the walk - What do you see? What do you hear? Have fun exploring outside. Go exploring Take your baby for a walk outside and talk about the things you see and noises you hear. How your baby benefits: Going outdoors helps to expose your baby to new sights and sounds, helping them to develop their listening, visual and social skills.
Imitation and Communication
When your baby makes sounds like “ba” or “da” copy them and see if your baby starts to repeat them.
Activities for Babies (6-12 Months)
You may notice that your baby is showing signs of increased mobility, communication, and awareness of the world around them. Your baby may be crawling, sitting up unassisted, and using gestures. Many babies this age love putting objects in and out of a container, stacking objects, and reaching to grab toys.
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Fine Motor Skills
Play a game having your baby transfer objects between hands. During tummy time, offer a toy that encourages them to push up on both hands or reach. Try out some blocks. Simply let your little one explore with them.
Gross Motor Skills
Practice crawling skills by placing a toy just out of reach. Let your baby explore stacking cups. Practice pulling up and standing while supported. Some ways to practice are: your baby pulling up holding onto your arms, holding onto a stable piece of furniture while supervised, or an activity center. Play with a water table, which helps encourage pulling up and standing.
Cognitive Development
Build a small tower and allow your baby to knock over the blocks to see where they fall. Hide and search Hide toys or other baby-safe objects under a towel or blanket while you play together. Encourage your little one to find it and help them if they need it by pulling it out and saying “here it is!”. How your baby benefits: This kind of play teaches your baby all about object permanence: Even if you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s gone forever!
Interactive Play
Read books together. Let your baby flip light switches on and off in different rooms or turn the sink faucet on and off to play in the water. Make music together! Interactive songs like “Itsy, Bitsy Spider” and “Wheels on the Bus” are also entertaining for your baby.
Sensory Play
Get outside! Try filling shallow storage bins with different textured materials like oats or ground up O’s cereal for sensory play. Do this in the tub or outside if you’re mess-averse. Turn on the music and have a dance party!
Activities for Toddlers (12-18 Months)
Major developmental strides can happen during months 12-18. Your little one is cruising around, and their personality is really shining. They’re also showing emotional growth (cue the tantrums!), and their language is budding. Your 12-18 month old loves watching everything you do. Including them in safe, easy activities with you around the house is a great way to spend awake time together. You’re probably noticing your baby is able to stay awake longer during the day.
Stacking and Sensory Activities
Try stacking activities with objects around the house or a block set. Explore sensory play together. Make taste-safe play dough together, dump a cup of O’s cereal into a small bin and add some spoons and scoops, or simply fill up the bath and let your little one play.
Fine Motor Skill Development
Little ones at this age love zippers, strings, buttons, and snaps. Play with a busy board. Don’t have a busy board? That's okay!
Role Play and Imitation
Encourage some role-play with toys or household items that allow your baby to mimic everyday life (They love this!). Get outside! Encourage language development through reading and singing to your baby.
Outdoor Fun
Blow bubbles! If it’s a cold or rainy day, you can even try blowing bubbles in the bath. See if your baby can “help” you find favorite toys.
Sensory Exploration
Engage your baby’s senses with some sensory play. Wrap some objects (like toy animals or small blocks) in tissue paper and let your baby unwrap them. It’s a 2-for-1! Try sensory play with water. (This is a great way to add time to a wake window.) Set up a shallow storage bin with a little water and measuring cups.).
Creative Expression
Encourage your little artist with some large crayons and paper or finger painting. If you’re not a fan of messy activities, try using water to “paint” on construction paper.
Social and Emotional Growth
Promote social skills by playing with stuffed animals. Have familiar accessories like a bottle, tissue, blanket, or wipes to allow them to play out their day with a doll. Create a little photo album- think pictures of family members, animals, or even colors.
Gross Motor Skills
Build an obstacle course using soft objects, like pillows or cushions. Practice throwing or rolling a soft ball. You can make this a sensory activity by making balls out of tissue paper and tossing them in a laundry basket.
Cognitive Skills
Create a DIY object permanence toy by making holes in a shoebox that your child can push cotton swabs or playing cards through. (DIY not your thing? That's okay!
Social Interaction
Encourage social skills through role play. This is so fun for little ones this age! Invite them to help you with laundry. Show them how to put clothes in the dryer and give them the opportunity to imitate you.
Pretend Play
Build a fort! Set up some chairs and throw a big blanket over them. Try some pretend play! Build a house (boat, train, rocket or whatever you want to imagine) out of a large box. Your toddler will enjoy going in and out and exploring. Bonus activity: allow your little one to decorate! You can use markers or paint.
Everyday Tasks
Invite your toddler to help you with everyday tasks. They love imitation! Go on a walk! Explore nature together. Even a little walk around the neighborhood is exciting at this age. Get in the tub! Add in some entertaining bath toys or large pom poms to extend play time.
Sensory Play
Engage in sensory play with “taste-safe” play dough. Keep it simple! Demonstrate rolling, poking, and squishing. Put sticky notes on a wall and let your toddler pull them off. Dig for buried treasure! Fill a shallow bin with oats and hide small objects like pom poms or puzzle pieces and let your little one explore with their hands or scoops.
Safety Considerations
During months 12-18, your toddler is wanting more independence, but still needs close supervision, especially as they are becoming more mobile. It’s a good idea to check around your house for any new safety concerns (think areas that your toddler may not have been able to reach or open before). Be sure furniture is anchored and door knobs are child proofed.
Activities for 2-Year-Olds
Household Helper
Invite your toddler to help with age-appropriate tasks around the house such as sorting clothes or serving food. Try to turn it into a game and let them know that they’re a great helper! How your child benefits: Including your child in household activities helps to foster independence and build self-esteem by letting them know they’re a valued member of the family.
Budding Artist
Create basic art projects with your toddler like drawings, finger paintings or arranging materials they find outside like shells or pebbles.
General Tips for Playtime
- Tap along Place your baby on their back and sing them a song. As you sing, tap the bottoms of their feet in time with the song. How your baby benefits: This game is great for developing listening skills. Your little one will delight at hearing your voice and the tapping adds a new way to experience singing songs together.
- Reach, reach, reach! Hold a toy or another baby-safe object, such as a cloth, and move it toward your baby’s hand, encouraging them to touch it.
- Story time Read and look at baby books together. Point to the objects, animals or plants on the pages and name them. How your baby benefits: Making time to read together promotes bonding, language skills and visual development.
- Texture talk Give your baby different fabrics to feel and use words to describe them such as “smooth” or “rough.” How your baby benefits: Giving your baby new sensory experiences helps them to develop their sense of touch and introducing new words helps to build their rapidly growing vocabulary.
- Turn the switch Go around your house and turn things on and off such as lights, water taps, flashlights, radios and other devices.
- Let’s get rolling! Place your baby on their back or tummy on a safe surface and place their favourite toy or another baby safe object just out of reach. Encourage them to roll over to reach for the toy. How your baby benefits: This game helps support your baby’s gross motor skill development by working on a big milestone like rolling over.
- Magical ride Place your baby on their tummy on a towel or blanket on a soft surface free of any obstructions.
- Copy cat Observe what your baby does and copy their actions. This lets your little one take the lead! How your baby benefits: By showing interest and placing importance in what your baby does, you’re helping them to develop their social and emotional skills.
- Independent explorer Let your baby explore your home on their own but stay close by to make sure they are safe. This helps them to feel secure while they’re trying new things. How your baby benefits: Allowing your baby to have supervised freedom helps them to build their independence and self-esteem.
- Follow the leader Give your baby commands to follow like “clap your hands!” and show them how to do it.
- Words, words, words! When your baby points to an object, respond by naming the object and talking about it. For example, if they point to a ball, you could say “Do you want your ball? Here is your ball! Let’s play with the ball!”. How your baby benefits: By naming things that your baby is interested in, you are helping them to learn new words. Paying attention to things they point to also teaches them that their needs matter and helps to build their self-esteem.
- Water wonder Place beads or marbles in a bottle or small container, fill it with water and seal it securely.
- Walking buddy Encourage your toddler to walk with you in a safe space as soon as they are able. Go slowly to match their pace. How your child benefits: Your little one will feel more confident practicing their new skill with you by their side. It’s also a great way for you to enjoy getting exercise together!
- Make believe Encourage pretend play with a toy or another baby-safe object. For example, take turns rocking a teddy bear to sleep or grab a wooden spoon and use as a microphone. How your child benefits: This kind of play helps your child to learn empathy and practice social skills.
- In and out Grab a box, bucket or other container and ask your baby to put toys or other child-safe objects in and then take them out again.
The Role of Occupational Therapists
Occupational Therapists (OTs) are specialists in helping children engage in the everyday activities that are most important to them- like playing, moving, and interacting. Lauren is a pediatric occupational therapist passionate about using play to support children’s growth and development. With experience in camps and support work for children with disabilities, she loves partnering with families to help kids reach their goals in fun, meaningful ways. At NAPA Center, we believe in creating individualized programs that address every child’s specific needs across a range of different therapies, including play therapy sessions. Every child is unique, which means implementing unique therapy programs is the only way to help them truly reach their full potential.
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