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If there was a secret ingredient that parents can apply to  help baby develop and thrive then it is lots of love and attention provided by parents and family.  This coupled with interesting experiences creates the best condition for a baby’s brain growth, learning and development.

The first six months

During the first six months your baby begins to discover emotions and learns quickly how to use them.  They learn this by watching how you react when they express emotions and by seeing you express your own feelings.  Babies are extremely kinaesthetic and their feelings are heightened as they start to know when they feel specific things, such as happiness, sadness and excitement.

After about three months babies learn how to use triggers to get attention.  They discover that if they yell and scream loud enough mum and or dad, or perhaps both come running to see what’s happening.  They realize that if they smile parents smile back and if they cry the parents expression changes to that of dismay. 

It is very important for parents to be able to differentiate between a cry of pain and a cry for attention, otherwise, baby gets the upper hand and has the parents conditioned to this trigger of crying.

To help you connect with your baby it is important to deliberately look into your baby’s eyes.  When baby starts cooing and making noises it is good to make contact with baby smile, nod, widen your eyes and talk back to baby.  You may think that they don’t know what you are saying, and that might be true, but what you are doing is letting baby know you are listening.

After baby has an emotional upset it is good practice to stroke baby softly and play some soothing music this helps baby calm down and helps to develop emotional control.

Maintain a routine so that baby feels comfortable and can make sense of all the new sights.  This also allows you time to get other chores completed and don’t forget to allow yourself some time in your routine.

The next three months

Six to nine months sets the scene for some rapid development.  By the end of nine months baby’s brain has undergone a growth spurt that helps form visual, auditory, kin aesthetic connections.  In other words they start to make sense between what baby sees, hears, tastes and feels.

During these months most babies can now sit up on their own and some may even start crawling.  Another milestone is that baby by now begins to understand who they are and they begin to get attached to people and objects.

At times their attachment is such that they have separation anxiety.  To help baby cope with this it is important that you help baby understand that if things disappear they reappear.  One of the ways that you can help baby understand this is to have other carers come in occasionally to look after baby whilst you go out for coffee with your partner.

Nine to twelve months

As your baby approaches twelve months their development escalates even more.  Baby could become extremely vocal.  Even though it may sound like babbling to you those ‘ba ba ba’ and  ‘da da da’ is baby’s way of trying to communicate with you.  It is never too late to start talking to your baby, in fact, hearing lots of words helps your child’s intellectual development later on.  Baby may also be walking and climbing by now and it is important that you ensure that the environment is safe.  You may find that to keep some control and to keep your sanity it could be helpful to have locks on doors and perhaps close off an area where baby can play and explore without pulling everything out of your kitchen draws or putting things down the toilet or climbing on the sofa and falling off.

Once again routine is vital.  Children whilst active at this age need to sleep.  It is easy for baby to become over active and this will interrupt his sleeping pattern, try setting some time aside to put baby on your lap or lie him/her down and read to them. Big colourful books will keep them amused and will settle them down enough to encourage them to sleep.  It is a good idea to play some soft background relaxing music while you are ready you can perhaps look at Lifestyle Plus Centre’s Sweet Dreams CD which has been developed to relax even the most active of minds.  This makes the perfect background music for both baby and parents.