Your Child at Play: Birth to One Year: Discovering the Senses and Learning about the World

I have a 4 month old baby. I'm a stay-at-home mom and while I know "everything is fascinating" to such a young baby, the fact is, we have to do something to fill in the hours. I do not think that certain exercises will help baby roll over faster, or that watching Baby Einstein videos will make baby smarter. I DO think that activities are invaluable for bonding with the baby. Enter this book. This is the book I have been looking for! Other books with activities for babies tend to focus more on the toddler ages--aka after walking, or at least after crawling. This book has fun activities even for pre-crawlers--even for babies who cannot yet move their head! And the activities are grouped month by month. O fcourse, take these monthly guidelines with a grain of salt--every baby is different, and as another reviewer mentioned, crawling at 6 months is a little ambitious. Having just found the book, I've gone back and pulled some activities from the youinger ages as well. Finally, while the activities may seem simple, even the most creative caregiver cannot think of everything. For example, in the 4 month section, Dr. Segal recommends placing baby on a blanket and picking up the blanket to cause them to roll over. I've been playing rolling-over games with my son, but never thought to use a blanket to roll him over, and it turns out he LOVES it. The activities mentioned have also sparked my imagine for other activities, and at the very least, are invaluable in the middle of the afternoon when baby is on napping strike and the day seems to drag on.... HIGHLY recommend this book!

We have a library of books to help us understand what we can do to best understand and stimulate our childs growth/development(i.e.- What to expect series, Brazleton, Baby book, etc). This is my favorite book since it covers what to expect each month (vs. grouping 6-9 mos developmental stage). In addition it has great ideas for games and play and is very easy to read. Only warning is that relative to other books this book generally is a bit aggressive in its projected milestones (assumes baby will crawl at 6 mos).

I admit that I'm not the most creative person at coming up with games to play with my 10 week old son, and this book has been inspirational for me. The ideas about how to teach your baby about where his foot is, or how to sit up, or that bubble float, are terrific, and the look on his face when I do something the book recommends is just pure joy! My only recommendation is that you stay at least one month ahead, and do things from that month which you think your child is ready for.