Baby Motor Skills
Parents of babies spend a good deal of time over those first few years looking out for ‘motor milestones’ as they are often referred to in parenting courses, or those indicators of development that everybody asks you about. ‘Is he walking yet?’ ‘Is he holding his spoon and feeding himself?’ ‘Can he roll over?’–these are common questions and sometimes they can cause unnecessary worry in new parents as they stress over the rate at which their baby develops compared to everyone else’s baby. While every baby develops at different rates, there are certain activities you can undertake with your baby to ensure their motor skills are coming along nicely.
Help the Head
Of course, newborns have very little neck strength, and as a result one of the primary concerns when handling a precious new baby is making sure their head is supported. After a while, your baby will develop stronger neck muscles and be able to strain this way and that at every little noise. In order to help further strengthen neck and head control once it starts to develop, place your baby face-down on the floor and entice the little one to look up, either by placing visual stimuli at eye-level or getting down on the floor with them. Repeat this throughout the day in order to build up strength, but make sure your baby doesn’t get tired or sore from straining.
Increase the Reach
An important developmental factor is the ability to reach and grasp. This is often fueled by your baby’s own sense of wonder and curiosity, but you can help this skill develop more quickly by providing your baby with a mobile above the crib with colourful objects hanging from it. This will entice your child to reach for the stimulating objects, but for safety reasons should be removed once the child is able to sit up. Another way to strengthen a baby’s gripping muscles is to give them toys like rattles and squeaky-toys which make noise at their touch or movement. The desire to hear the funny noise again will drive them to practice on their own!
Baby Massage
Baby massage stimulates an infant’s nervous system as well as helping them feel comfortable and more body-aware. Increased body awareness improves coordination and precision when it comes to those later milestones like crawling and walking, and can greatly assist bonding with the parent. In addition to this, baby massage can encourage flexibility and muscle control, which means your baby’s motor skills will come along in leaps and bounds.
Developmental and motor-skills milestones are different for every baby, so don’t worry if your child does not fit exactly into the specified parameters. If, however, you have a serious concern about your child’s physical development, do not hesitate to contact your GP, pediatrician or Child and Family Health Nurse about it, it is always better to be safe than sorry!