PLAY TIPS
- Calm restless babies by singing or playing gentle, quiet songs to them while swaying them gently.
- When changing, feeding, dressing and bathing babies, say rhymes or sing songs to them.
- Continually change the tone of your voice when talking to babies - they like hearing sounds that change.
- Hang up a set of wind chimes.
- Hang music boxes from the mobiles in your nursery.
- Gather together a collection of old sets of keys to shake to attract attention.
- Use songs that lend themselves to playing with fingers and toes, for example, 'This Little Piggy ...'.
- Tie bells securely to a baby's gloves or booties to encourage them to make a sound by shaking hands or feet.
Hide and seek
- Wind up a musical toy or box and hide it, ideally outdoors on a grassy area.
- Ask the baby 'What's that noise? Where's it coming from?'
- Start looking for it by crawling around on the grass or floor together.
- Congratulate the baby when they find the box.
- Hide it in the same place a few times to build up the baby's confidence in being able to locate the box, then change the location.
Music and movement
- Hold the baby while you dance to fast and slow music, loud and soft music, pieces with high and low sounds.
- Bounce the baby on your lap in time to the music.
- Change the baby's position as you listen, holding them over one shoulder, then the other.
- Show the baby ways to respond to the music, such as clapping, marching, swaying back and forth.
Shake it
- Wash out four different litre-sized juice cartons.
- Cover them with wrapping paper, holographic paper, coloured foil and so on.
- Place small bells inside two of the cartons. Leave the other two empty, then seal them.
- Let the babies shake the cartons. React when they shake the ones with bells inside.
Playing the spoons
- Allow the baby to bang a wooden spoon on different surfaces - on newspaper, on a table, on tin foil, on cellophane and on a woolly jumper.
- Give the baby a large metal spoon and allow the same again. Then give the baby a metal pan to bang, using either of the spoons.
Alice Sharp is managing director of training centre Experiential Play (www.experientialplay.com) and director of resource company Wonderbox, specialising in interactive products for children under three (www.wonderbox.co.uk; e-mail: info@wonderbox.co.uk).