Feeling silly playing peek-a-boo? Don’t! Baby games for girls and boys are shown to have HUGE potential benefits for their development!
Baby Games for Girls and Boys – Educational, Imaginative and Creative Impact
Baby-dom is not just a time for cute cuddles and messy faces. This is a time in your child’s development when some SERIOUS learning is taking place. And, as any savvy parent knows, a lot of this A-grade-learning-capacity can be developed and enhanced through play!
Play can also have some serious knock-on benefits to other areas of parenting life:
- Play extends and challenges our babies which might result in better quality sleep
- Play develops language
- Play develops visual and critical literacy
- Play develops understanding and comprehension
- Play helps babies and children move through different stages – trial and error, cause and effect and understanding consequences
Plus? IT’S SUPER CUTE!
Baby Games for Girls and Boys – Some Ideas!
If you’re running on empty and scratching your head trying to come up with some engaging play ideas never fear! We’ve put our mum-heads together and come up with our top tips for easy, creative play that your baby will just love.
- Peek-a-boo. It’s the gold standard for a reason. The baby’s not laughing at your funny face popping up (okay, maybe they are) – instead, they’re developing a limited understanding of the idea of permeance. Things are here, and then they’re not, and then they’re here again! Hilarious.
- Build em up and knock em down! Stacking things and then collapsing the tower is a baby game for girls and boys that helps to develop the cause and effect premise. If we’re going to be maths nerds (which we are, look out!) it also taps into prediction and probability. Will the tower fall in the same pattern it did last time? Trial and error!
- Silly voices. Silly voices when reading or telling stories match into characters. This will help babies develop the ability to role play which is an essential part of imaginative play. Plus, as an added bonus, the first time you hear your child putting on their own silly voice to play a character you’ll be ready to hand them an Academy Award for World’s Biggest Cutie.
Repetition is Key
We know that the above ideas seem pretty straight-forward and obvious. They should be! Don’t be fooled by the million and one apps, products and toys on the market for babies. Their needs are quite simple and easily fulfilled by using your own imagination.
No toy can take the place of real, one-on-one time with a loving parent or caregiver. The best way to enhance your child’s capacity for imagination, creativity and learning is to get in there and show ’em how it’s done.
Happy playing!
