How To Play With Your Baby
Play is an excellent way to bond with your baby and help them develop motor skills. We talked to experts to learn ways to play that help babies grow strong.
People often joke that babies do nothing more than sleep, eat, and poop all day. But any parent or caregiver who has spent time with a baby knows they are curious and eager to explore the world around them. When you play with your baby—telling stories, singing songs, dancing, snuggling, and more—you are giving your baby opportunities to develop and grow their brains and bodies.
Keep reading to learn more about the important role that play has in your baby's development, including fantastic ways to engage your baby in play.
The Power of Play
Playing is serious business. It's how your little one gears up for all those milestones you're waiting to chronicle in your baby book from rolling over and sitting up in the baby stage to walking and jumping in toddlerhood. Play gives your baby the tools they need to make cognitive leaps, too.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the power of play is a critical opportunity for brain growth and development. Starting from the newborn stage, babies can benefit from play in many vital ways, including the promotion and development of:
Social-emotional skills
Cognitive skills
Language skills
Self-regulation skills
Brain structure
Safe relationships
Body muscles
Fine and gross motor skills
When a baby explores the world around them, they learn how things work, which is the foundation for the development of language as well as the understanding of math and science, says speech-language pathologist Rebecca Landa, PhD, director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. They discover how high they can stack blocks before they topple, how much pressure they have to put on something to make it move, and how that pressure relates to the size and weight of an object, she explains.
Parents and caregivers who are concerned that their babies are not hitting their milestones on time can seek help from physical or occupational therapists who can use early intervention exercises (i.e., strategic play!) to help them catch up. Playing can also help a child who's developing typically. "Babies who get these kinds of enrichment activities with caregivers tend to have more advanced motor, communication, and social skills," says Dr. Landa.
Ways To Play With Your Baby
Play is vital to your baby's development. But how can you make the most of their precious playtime? You don't have to go out and buy expensive toys to engage your baby in play. With just a few simple items like a soft ball, some blocks, and pillows, you can create some super fun games for your baby that will challenge them to learn and build muscles.
Just like playing with toys can help your baby develop their brain, physical play can help your baby develop fine and gross motor skills, which in turn helps them to build strong muscle memory for grasping, walking, and more.
Here are 11 wonderful ways to play with your baby that promote their physical growth and development.
Do an inflatable ball balance challenge
By 6 months, your baby should be able to sit on an inflatable exercise ball if you hold them securely on their hips. Tilt the ball slowly so that they have time to realize what's happening and shift their weight.
This baby exercise will strengthen your baby's core muscles and help them improve their balance. As they get stronger, you can move the ball a little faster and tilt them a little farther.
Make it fun by gently bouncing your baby and singing rhymes. "If you do it on a regular basis using the same words, your baby will start to understand them," says Dr. Landa. "The rhythm of the music helps babies remember words."
Play with blocks
Babies who play with blocks not only have stronger fine motor skills but more advanced language, according to research by pediatrician Dimitri Christakis, MD, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior, and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute. The physical act of playing with the blocks isn't as important as the conversations that occur as your baby is sorting and stacking, and you're creating things together and explaining what they are, says Dr. Christakis.
Try spreading out blocks of different sizes, colors, and shapes, then talk to your baby as you sort them together. The act of playing combined with talking will help your baby develop language skills.
Set up an obstacle course
Challenge your little one by blocking their path with a cushion, suggests Dr. Girolami. At first, your baby may scoot around it. Then, set up a row of pillows so that they have to climb over them. Building a super simple obstacle course for your baby is a great way to have fun while building muscles and problem-solving skills.
Introduce new objects
While your baby is sitting up, either supported or on their own, hand them objects of different weights and shapes so they can learn to use their muscles to hold them.
A child's ability to pick up toys, look at them, put them in their mouth, pass them from hand to hand, rotate them to get a different view, and bang them helps your baby to learn enough about objects to attach words to them eventually. Be sure to use rich language when playing with your child—describe colors, textures, sounds, smells, sizes, etc., to give your baby lots of experience with words as they touch and manipulate toys.
Play a grabbing game
While your infant is on their back, dangle toys of different shapes in front of them to see if they can grasp them and bring them to their mouth.
At first, your baby will probably just swat them. Move the toy higher, lower, and to the side. Offer your baby a variety of toys and objects so they learn how to approach them with their hand in the right position, says Dr. Landa. "Lying there, looking at a rattle, assessing the shape and figuring out how to put [their] fingers around it, grasp it, and bring it to [their] mouth may sound like a mundane thing, but it's a great accomplishment for a baby," she says.
Eventually, your baby will use these same skills for more complex movements, like taking books off a shelf.
Do some tummy time
Make sure your infant hangs out on their tummy every day during waking hours—even if they complain. "The reason a baby fusses on [their] tummy is because [their] muscles are weak," explains Dr. Landa.
The AAP guidelines on tummy time say that babies need 3 to 5 minutes of tummy time at least two or three times a day—work your way up to 15 to 30 minutes of tummy time per day by week 7.
Babies need tummy time to practice holding their heads up, getting up on their elbows, and balancing on one elbow while they grab a toy. Playing with toys while having to support their body weight with their arms requires different muscles and skills than playing with toys when a baby is on their back and reaching out into the open air.
Help them stretch
Starting at about 3 months, put your baby on their back, gently take their ankles in your hands, bend their knees, and then stretch their legs toward you to increase flexibility and to help your baby get a sense of where their legs are in space.
You can make it more fun by saying "in" and "out," singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," and kissing their feet. As your baby gets stronger, they'll start pushing their legs out on their own.
Get them to belly crawl
Encourage your baby to belly crawl. Some babies skip this step and begin crawling on their hands and knees without their belly touching the floor. Either way, it helps a baby develop strength in the hips and trunk, which is necessary for standing, as well as in the muscles of the shoulder girdle, which will help with handwriting in the future, says Gay L. Girolami, PhD, clinical associate professor of physical therapy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Once your baby can get up on their hands and knees, place toys in front of them so that they have to support themselves with one hand while reaching for them. Then move the toys out to 11, 10, and then 9 o'clock. Do it on the other side, too.
"As your child reaches in different directions, [they'll] learn to shift weight more to [their] shoulders and legs," explains Dr. Girolami. Soon, your baby will take off!
Teach them how to reach
Put toys slightly out of reach—on a sofa cushion on the floor, for example—to encourage your baby to explore upward from a crawling position, suggests Dr. Girolami. You can gradually place objects even higher (on a low, stable bookshelf or a sofa with the seat cushion removed).
Help them squat
Once your baby can stand, place a small box about 8 inches away from them when they're at a coffee table or a sofa. Put a toy on the box, and your baby will have to squat to pick it up. After they've mastered that, place the toy on the floor.
You can also move the box farther away from the sofa so that they'll have to turn and squat to reach the object. Do it in both directions and move the box farther and farther out until they are turning 90 degrees. This will encourage them to go from shuffling sideways along a sofa to walking forward, says Dr. Girolami.
Go shopping
Once your child can squat, stand, and cruise, they are probably ready to push one of those little toy shopping carts so they can practice walking independently. Dr. Girolami recommends weighing it down with a 5-pound bag of flour placed in a bag so it doesn't go too fast.
How To Pick Toys That Teach
It may seem like toys with flashing lights and fun sounds have the most to offer babies, but the opposite is true, says Dr. Landa. "Adults are the ones who think those kinds of toys are cool," she explains. When a baby puts blocks into a container, they create the "clunk" sound, they see them fall. And that's great; they don't need the container to light up too, she adds. In fact, for some kids, those extras are distracting.
You also don't have to spend a fortune on toys, says Jenn Berman, PsyD, author of Superbaby: 12 Ways to Give Your Child a Head Start in the First 3 Years. Bubbles, for example, are inexpensive and excellent for encouraging eye tracking and coordination, and as your child gets older, they can reach for them, chase after them, and start blowing them, too. Some other objects Dr. Berman recommends by age include:
6 months: Soft balls, crinkle toys, stuffed toys, and plush trucks
9 months: Stacking toys, sorting toys, nesting toys, toy food, Giant Lego Bricks, bounce toys, baby dolls, and fabric tunnels a baby can crawl through that fold up like an accordion
12 months: Blocks, puppets, large wooden peg puzzles, wagons, music toys, finger paint, nontoxic crayons, toy kitchens, and dolls with clothes that can be changed
Using Play To Identify Delays
There's a wide range of "normal" when it comes to motor milestones, so experts worry most about kids who have multiple delays. Missing a single motor milestone may mean that a child hasn't had a lot of experience with that particular skill. If you are concerned about your baby, however, you can check out the CDC milestone tracker to chart their development.
Motor delays are especially worrisome for babies who have relatives with autism. "Other problems may develop later, like communication and social delays," says Dr. Landa. According to her research, 6-month-olds at high risk for autism often flop their head back when being pulled up to sit—and babies who did this were more likely to eventually be diagnosed with autism or a social or communication delay.
According to the CDC, the milestone timeline for physical movement from rolling to walking is:
4 to 6 months: Roll from tummy to back
5 to 6 months: Roll from back to tummy
6 to 7 months: Sit independently
By 8 months: Transition out of sitting; push up on hands and knees
By 9 months: Belly crawling or crawling on hands and knees with belly off the floor
10 to 12 months: Pull to a stand
12 to 15 months: Walk
The sooner delays are identified, the easier they are to correct. If your child's skills aren't following this timeline, bring it up with your pediatrician.
Key Takeaways
Playing with your baby is a marvelous way to bond and a golden opportunity to help them develop and practice essential skills from grasping to walking. Talk to your doctor if you are concerned about your baby's development. Remember, not all delays mean something is wrong, but if your child does have a delay, the sooner it is identified, the easier it will be to understand and work with.
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