Baby: 3-6 months: How do I play with my baby?

Carry on doing everything you did for 0-3 months (previous blog post), with a few additions and changes.

• It's time to learn to stop swearing now. It's still early, but if you start now you will be able to slip up a few times before you actually need to stop.
• It's time to find radio edits of the songs you've been playing her, and change her youtube playlist to radio edits. You can still play her your style of music but
• It's time to find kiddies songs for her. It's also something you'll need to get used to. And babies (and children) love repetition, so you need to start getting used to silly nonsense songs over and over and over and over...it's worth it for their massive grins when they recognize it though, I promise.

It is still early for these things, but if you're starting to get used to it now you'll be more prepared for later.

So I had a craving one day for a song I heard in french class, and my baby loved it! She reacted so well we've played it to her almost every day since! I don't know if it's the accent, the language, the tone, the sound effects...she loves it. And this has paved the way for very early foreign language learning. If you know another language, you should start teaching it to your children as soon as possible. The younger they are, the easier they will pick it up (I'm talking about 2years here though) She literally dances to this. Maybe your baby will like it too, maybe they won't. It's really worth a try.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v16LyAr3aZ8

and also this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChTEn7h1e6U&list=PL261F0CA7887756DA

Your baby may also like ANY Alvin and the Chipmunks song, because of the silly voices. My baby adores music, it seems to be her world, and with such good reactions to music, it was very easy to forget to help her develop other characteristics.

Don't forget tummy time. This helps with learning to crawl, and roll. You should try and give your baby 5 minutes tummy time every single day. Let her get frustrated. It spurs her on. Don't stop just because (s)he starts to cry. Let her cry for a few minutes first, it's okay, it won't hurt her.

Don't forget to let her grab and touch things. Use her own hand to push buttons on her toys to teach her. Dangle things from the bar on her bouncy chair or across the pram. Suddenly one day she just grabbed it by herself, and I felt really guilty that I hadn't been putting toys for her to grab, at all. keep trying to hand her things, put her fingers around them yourself, and (s)he'll look so proud of herself when she holds it, even for a second. My baby loves crinkling pop tart packets. Never leave the room if you give her something like this, because she will often break little bits off, and you will need to watch her like a hawk, or take ANY little, swallowable bits away from her. Your baby will be starting to develop her love for sound, and making the sounds herself.

Don't forget to let her sit up. A wonderful thing to do, is to put her on your bed, and put pillows behind her, roll your duvet around her sides so she can't fall to the side. (s)he will look so proud of herself when (s)he can do it "all by herself" as she gets older and more used to sitting up, you can support her less and less. You can hold her hands and sing row row row your boat. (s)he will be able to sit completely by herself at around six months, but if you practice with her, it could be earlier. Row row row your boat is so good because it repeatedly used the sitting up motion, which will strengthen her muscles. Don't expect her to sit anywhere (on your lap, on the bed, later, on the floor) for very long. Remember this is new to her and it could be hurting her muscles. Always follow long periods of sitting with cuddles or a nice lie down.