How to Interact With Your 4 Month Old Baby
Month 4: Tiptop 10 Sensory Activities for 4 calendar month erstwhile infant
8 min read
Every bit an Occupational Therapist and a Mom I have put together top activities for your four month old baby. They volition focus on strengthening their cognitive (heed) and motor (move) skills.
Hello Everyone! Josh hither, and I am 4 months old now. I am so excited every bit grandma is hither this month. She is and so funny. She loves to dance with me. I practise have to say though… I have never seen such dancing before. She bounces me upwardly and down, side to side and twirls me all around. Then she picks up a white cloth and waves it all around. Sometimes it falls on my face and tickles me so hard that I tin can't finish laughing. Other times information technology but covers my face… I expect and wait. Then I come across her once more! 'Peek a boo!!' she says. So fun!
We dance inside and outside. I love when we dance on the balcony every bit there are lots of shadows on the walls that I like to lookout man. They dance effectually simply similar me and grandma. It makes me laugh!
Time for more dancing with grandma. See you next month…
I hope you enjoyed Josh'due south 4th month story. Providing your baby with lots of movement is essential for sensory development. Which is needed for your baby'south motor skill growth. As you see from Josh'southward story there are lots of means you can move and have fun with your baby. Look out for more stories in the coming monthly activities posts.
Evolution
What to wait from your 4 month old baby
Your 4 calendar month old infant is growing fast and becoming more alarm by the minute. Here are a few things that y'all might see your 4 month old do:
- Your baby's head should exist steady and no longer wobble.
- They can hold their head and breast upright while laying on their stomach.
- Their legs are getting stronger and they tin push and boot with their feet.
- Some babies are able to roll from tum to back. They may exist practicing to roll from back to stomach.
- Your babe'south mitt skills are improving. They get ameliorate at grabbing, belongings and moving objects. Exist aware as mostly everything that gets into their hands will become into their mouth.
- Your baby loves to communicate with you. They may be laughing, smiling and cooing.
- They are becoming more aware of their environment and observe that people around them reply to their actions. Yous may have started to constantly choice upward objects from the floor that your picayune one is throwing as part of their game.
Activities for your four month old baby
Whenever you have the opportunity to play, endeavor the below activities. Through play, your baby gets to experience different sensations, which assist your baby's evolution, both mentally and physically.
Here are my superlative 10 sensory activities for the 4th calendar month of your baby'south life. These activities accept been tried and tested.
i. Object exploration
Through playing and exploring a variety of objects, you lot help your baby's mitt development. As they play and interact with objects they practice many of import skills. They learn how to grasp, hold, motion and release an object. Through exploring objects of different shapes, sizes and weight, your baby is starting to strengthen all those hand muscles. This play besides activates both tactile and proprioceptive senses. Choosing how difficult or how soft to catch something without squishing it is part of the proprioceptive sense. Information technology is a skill that they take many more months to master, however the foundations can be built now.
Requite them lots of opportunities to explore this. Information technology tin exist skilful through giving them difficult and soft things to play with. Such as a rattle that tin can't be squished and a feather or a foam cake that tin be squished.
Feel gratis to aggrandize from but playing with toys. You lot tin can use random objects that yous picked upward effectually the firm such as an onetime spice container or a big wooden spoon.
Something equally simple equally a clean cloth provides lots of learning opportunities. Watch them pull on it, suck on it, concord it, release it (still a little tricky at this age) and discover what happens when they scrunch it up.
They can explore while sitting supported in your lap, laying on their dorsum or during tummy fourth dimension.
Tip: Ensure you utilize age appropriate and safe toys and objects equally nearly of them will end up in your baby'southward rima oris. Watch out for choking hazards.
2. Milk shake it upwards!
Grabbing, shaking and learning near cause & consequence is lots of fun for your piddling one.
This tin can be so much fun with rattles. There are endless options out there. You can go a whole percussion set going with the combination of purchased or home made rattles. You can utilise standard rattles, bell rattles or catch an empty plastic canteen and brand your own.
In one case you take your rattles, all that's left is to give your babe i. Join in the fun with them and see the delight in the sound information technology makes when they shake it.
Ideas for abode made rattles:
Get a plastic canteen. Y'all can vary sizes and shapes for a different audio and tactile feel for your baby.
You can apply whatsoever of these items inside the bottle: pasta, rice, colored candy (various sizes & colors), dried beans, stale lentils etc. Basically anything that will make noise when shaken.
If you come up with another great ideas please share them below in the comments. Information technology will be great to hear.
3. Texture exploration
The evolution of the tactile organisation is of import. A baby learns almost their body and their environment though the sense of touch. Exploring textures tin can happen through the utilise of hands, feet, face up… It includes their whole torso. Developing a healthy tactile system helps in the development of many skills including gross and fine motor skills.
Here are some ideas:
- Play on a variety of textured fabrics or blankets. It can include sheep pare, silk, cotton etc.
- Give them various textured materials or toys to explore. Examples can include different fabrics, fur, tissue, velvet, textured toys, sponges.
- Let them explore toys or objects that are smooth, bumpy, spikey, hard, squishy, crinkly, shiny or furry.
- Look at textured books together.
- Move different textured materials over their body (artillery, feet, face, belly and back). Again it can include different fabrics or toys. My son Josh loved when I tickled him with a plumage.
- Bath fourth dimension! Water covers their whole body and it is yet another sensation. Y'all may even utilise different textured towels each time to add some multifariousness.
Remember: Most of the objects they touch on, whatever their texture, will get straight in their mouth. Make sure that the toys and objects are age appropriate and lookout man out for choking hazards.
4. Bubbling
These are and so much fun for any age. Even for our little ones.
How to Play
Bubbles can be enjoyed while your little one is laying on their back, breadbasket or is in a supported seated position.
Equally an adult you will have to do all the blowing work. Make those bubbles fly. Make them fly loftier, blow them downward low. Blow the bubbles on your little one's abdomen or arms.
Every bit your baby watches the bubbles fly, they stimulate their visual sense. Every bit they land and pop on their bodies it stimulates their tactile sense. Beware: It may also make them giggle!
Have fun and blow those bubbling.
v. Let's get rolling
Take you noticed your infant trying to ringlet from their back to their stomach? Endeavour the following activity to support this skill.
While your baby is laying on their back, catch their favorite toy. You can gently encourage the rolling by belongings the toy above their breast. Start moving it around to go their attention. When they kickoff reaching for it, slowly move the toy to the side opposite to their reaching paw. Hopefully this will initiate a scroll. If your baby is unable to roll over completely, gently concur their hip on their reaching hand side and gently whorl them over the rest of the way.
6. Getting featherbrained!
I know this sounds easy and information technology is. Still, I practise want to mention it to make sure that you always remember to accept fun with your infant. Even though crying is still your babe'south strongest form of communication, you may start seeing more giggles, laughs and smiles.
Information technology's very of import to make your infant express mirth. Information technology helps to build a stronger bond and gets those 'feel good' chemicals released into their encephalon.
Making your baby laugh should be quite simple. Yous can simply make a funny face and stick your tongue out. Y'all can make funny noises or play different instruments. Have fun and get airheaded with your baby!
7. Visual sensory bottles
Visual bottles have been condign increasingly popular. For your 4-calendar month-onetime infant this is a dandy tool to explore. As they agree and motility the bottle they apply their proprioceptive sense. As they watch the contents of the bottle shift, their visual sense gets a conditioning.
What is keen nearly these sensory bottles is that y'all literally have an endless variety of options on how you want them to wait.
Some of the favorite ingredients in our house included water beads and glitter. Below I have included couple websites with many ideas to go you started. Just one important tip: make sure you lot remember to glue the lid to the bottle to avoid an unnecessary mess.
Here are some peachy ideas for visual bottles:
8. Reading
If you haven't started reading to your baby withal, today is the day that you lot should start. Reading has many benefits, so information technology'southward great to get into the habit of reading every day.
Benefits
- Promote listening skills
- Increase linguistic communication development
- Assist in the development of attention bridge and retention
- Promote bonding between y'all and your infant
- Instill the love of reading
Tips for parents
- Read to your baby in a quiet identify
- You don't have to read all the words in the book
- You tin describe what you run across on each folio
- Accept fun when reading. Use exaggerated faces, blithe voices and just be silly, this will assistance your baby'south attention
- Use a variety of books: lath books, lift a flap, or textured books.
For more information about benefits and principles on reading to your baby check out world wide web.readtoyourbaby.com
nine. Wiggles & Rhymes
There are many ways to incorporate music into your infant's life. Combining music and move is especially beneficial. It helps to build a neat foundation of skills by incorporating many of the sensory systems. As your baby listens to music, they stimulate their auditory sense. You can support your baby on your lap and sway, rock and bounce while stimulating both proprioceptive and vestibular sensory systems.
What to play? Anything actually. You tin can play your favorite tunes or sing your baby's favorite nursery rhymes. "Row, Row, Row Your Gunkhole", "Humpty Dumpty" and "I'yard a Little Tea Pot" are some of my favorites.
Have fun and get your baby moving!
x. Tummy time
Spending time on their tummy helps your baby build coordination. It also strengthens your infant's neck, shoulders, arms and torso. These muscles assistance with the motor skills such as rolling over, itch, pulling self up and sitting up. Read more about Tummy Time and how to incorporate it into play with your baby.
There you have it. My top 10 Sensory Activities for your 4 month sometime. Many heady activities you tin can do today to help your child develop improve.
These are simply a few activities that are bound to spark other ideas. Merely think that every new sensory experience is helping your child'due south growth and evolution.
Remember: each baby develops at their ain pace. If your child is not set up or non interested in this month'south activities, but try them again in a few weeks.
For feedback or further questions delight leave a annotate below.
~ Urszula
Disclaimer: The activities in this blog are intended for sensory play. They are not a replacement for treatment of children with Sensory Processing Disorder, are not medical advice and should not be used in place of the care of a medical doc or other qualified healthcare professional person. These activities should be facilitated and supervised by an developed. All activities are to be performed at your own risk and in no result shall Sensory Lifestylebe liable for whatever damages.
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Source: https://www.sensorylifestyle.com/baby-activities/top-activities-4-month-old-baby/
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