"¿Ves las luces parpadeando?" "Escucha esta canción de cuna." "Siente esta bola de peluche." Los bebés aprenden explorando el mundo a través de los sentidos. Cuando le presenta vistas, sonidos y texturas al bebé, lo ayuda a estimular los sentidos y a preparar el "banco de memoria" de experiencias que alimentan la imaginación.
Even if your baby's quiet periods between sleeping, feeding and crying are brief, your baby is ready for "play." Whether you're cooing and stroking your baby or introducing first toys, activities that stimulate two or more senses may catch and lengthen baby's short attention span. Watch your baby's response to a music box with twinkling lights. Notice how your baby tracks the brightly colored toy you move or turns toward the rattle you shake. Your baby's concentration may be short but in those few minutes, sensory stimulation literally "lights up" areas of your baby's brain.
As babies absorb new sensory experiences, they learn to connect what objects look like with how they feel. Later, they use their experience to imagine how objects feel—smooth or rough, cool or warm—just by looking at them. You can contribute to your baby's imagination "bank" long before your baby's hands reach out to the world. Provide toys with a variety of different textures and fabrics. Give safe, teethable toys with interesting surfaces for baby's mouth to explore, baby's first way of touching. Even your baby's bath can supply a wealth of sensory experiences. By providing lots of tactile sensations, you're activating the parts of baby's mind where imagination develops.
Your child is hungry for visual stimulation—first within a focal range of about eight to 10 inches, then increasingly farther. Soon your baby connects seeing you walk across the room with hearing footsteps and begins imagining you at the sound of your footsteps. To spark baby's imagination with new sights, offer a variety of light and dark patterns. Rotate the detachable toys that dangle from a floor gym. Provide child-safe mirrors to increase what your baby sees—baby, you, baby's surroundings. On walks, introduce moving patterns: a flowing fountain, swaying branches, waving banners. Visual novelty creates the connections that feed imagination.
Ejemplos de juguetes que encienden la imaginación:
Gimnasios para el piso con objetos colgantes para estimular el agarrar y el patear
Gimnasios para el piso con luces parpadeantes y música
Móviles para la cuna
Cajas de música para la cuna con luces en movimiento
Juguetes que chirrían, timbran o "claquean"
Juguetes con diseños geométricos muy contrastantes
Juguetes con una variedad de colores brillantes y/o luces
Espejos seguros para niños
Mantas con actividades
Juguetes con caritas amigables
Libros de cartón y de tela para dar palmaditas, señalar y hablar
Even if your baby's quiet periods between sleeping, feeding and crying are brief, your baby is ready for "play." Whether you're cooing and stroking your baby or introducing first toys, activities that stimulate two or more senses may catch and lengthen baby's short attention span. Watch your baby's response to a music box with twinkling lights. Notice how your baby tracks the brightly colored toy you move or turns toward the rattle you shake. Your baby's concentration may be short but in those few minutes, sensory stimulation literally "lights up" areas of your baby's brain.
Your child is hungry for visual stimulation—first within a focal range of about eight to 10 inches, then increasingly farther. Soon your baby connects seeing you walk across the room with hearing footsteps and begins imagining you at the sound of your footsteps. To spark baby's imagination with new sights, offer a variety of light and dark patterns. Rotate the detachable toys that dangle from a floor gym. Provide child-safe mirrors to increase what your baby sees—baby, you, baby's surroundings. On walks, introduce moving patterns: a flowing fountain, swaying branches, waving banners. Visual novelty creates the connections that feed imagination.
