Infant Entertained | Baby On Baby | Infant | Baby Online

Keeping an Infant Entertained

Play “Peek-a-Boo” to teach object permanence. Babies aren’t born with the idea of object permanence; that is, something still exists even though it can’t be seen. That means that for a baby, when you are in another room, you might never come back. Understandably, this is scary for a baby! You can start to teach your baby the idea that things continue to exist even when the baby can’t see them by playing “Peek-a-Boo.” Most babies love to play "Peek-a-Boo" with their caregiver, starting at the age of about 4 months. Whether you play “Peek-a-Boo” with your hands covering your face, with a blanket, or with something else (such as a towel or a scarf), is less important than the routine of covering your face and then uncovering it.

• Playing “Peek-a-Boo” teaches your baby not to be anxious because you’ll come back, no matter what.
• You can teach older babies to lift the blanket up and down himself/herself.

Read a book together. Even though your baby might be a long way from learning to read for himself, he will enjoy hearing your voice and developing the language part of his brain. Try using different voices, tones, pitches, gruffness, and accents to make it more entertaining. Point at and name each thing on a page.

• Babies tend to love repetition, so don’t be afraid of reading a book too frequently.
• As your baby gets older, start to encourage him to turn the pages of the book on his own. Thicker pages will help support his fine motor coordination.

Encourage playing with food. Once a child is around 6 months old, you might try playing with food. Food can be an entertaining activity even when not at meal times. Place the baby in a high chair with a secure tray. You’ll want to stay close by, but a high chair will provide a safe place for your baby to be while she entertains herself. For example, put a few spoonfuls of yogurt directly on the high chair tray makes for fun “finger painting” for a baby.

• You can put ice cubes onto her tray to play with as they melt. Make sure you take the ice cubes away by the time they get small enough to put into her mouth.
• Playing with rice or pasta noodles makes for good fun as well.
• Non-food toys at a high chair might include the metal rings from canning jars, which can be chewed, stacked, banged or rolled around on her tray. A baby might also enjoy playing with utensils such as wooden spoons, rubber spatulas, or silicone brushes.

Play with soap foam. If your baby doesn’t like to put new things into her mouth, soap foam can be a great toy to play with. To make nontoxic soap foam, you can a few tablespoons of water to ¼ cup of nontoxic liquid bath soap (such as Babyganics foaming dish and bottle soap), and then mix these ingredients with a hand mixer. You’ll quickly have a bowlful of soft foam for a baby to play with.

• You can also use shaving foam for this kind of play, but some babies don’t care for the smell.
• Put the baby and the foam on a towel or another soft surface for easy cleanup.
• This is another activity that could easily be done in the high chair.

Make a water table. Because a lot of a baby’s entertainment comes from sensory exploration, water tables make for wonderful entertainment. A childcare center might have a professionally-made water table, but at home you can make a water table simply by putting a sturdy, shallow tray of warm water on the high chair tray.

• You’ll want to make sure that the water tray isn’t likely to be pushed off the high chair tray.
• Try making the water more interesting by adding a few drops of food coloring.
• If playing with toys at the water table is more interesting than simply splashing at the water with her hands, bring in some bath toys.
• Never leave a baby alone in a bathtub, even if the water is shallow.

Give the baby some pots and pans. If you’re in the kitchen, it will be easy to provide ordinary household items like pots, spoons, plastic containers, empty boxes, etc. for your baby’s entertainment. If the baby is older, he’ll be be interested in exploring the items, seeing what they sound like when they’re banged against the floor or each other. Younger babies may be more interested in learning what they smell and taste like.

• You’ll want to make sure that the items are clean enough to be put into your baby’s mouth.
• Make sure you never give your baby anything that he can break, or which might have small parts that could present a choking hazard.