Stimulating your baby's eyesight
Your young baby is attracted to moving objects. String some brightly coloured shapes or a special mobile over her cot and she will love to watch them.
© Jupiter
- Put a fairly large photograph of your own face (or any face cut out of a magazine), at the side of your baby's cot so that he can practise focusing on one of his favourite objects - the human face. On the other side of the cot firmly attach a mirror so that he can look at his own face and also see it moving when he wriggles near it.
- Put very simple brightly coloured pictures around the rest of the cot within the baby's range of vision (no more than 25cm (10in) away for the first month).
- Put a mobile over the cot. This doesn't have to be an expensive item. It can be a couple of balloons or a few household objects hung on a coat hanger or on a wooden pole attached to the cot.
- String some interesting objects on elastic across the hinges of the pram hood so that your baby can watch them.
- If your baby's cot is near the wall, you can use toys with rubber suction pads to stick out from the wall between the bars of the cot for your child to watch and focus on.
- As your child gets older it is important that toys move and make a noise so dangle soft, light objects on strings so that they swing when your baby swipes them. Anything that jingles, such as a rattle or a toy with bells attached, is fun.
- In the car stick toys on to the back of the seat. You can also hang them from the side windows or the roof, as long as it doesn't cut down visibility dangerously.
- Your baby's never too young to go to museums or art galleries with you. If he's in a back-pack he'll be able to look at exactly the same things as you.
- When you put your baby outside in the garden either suspend some toys or mobiles from a tree bough or from a washing line. The washing itself is fun to watch as it blows in the wind.
New Babycare
Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley
Text copyright © 2009 Miriam Stoppard
Posted 03.11.2010
See more in the dossier: All about baby's sight
Get more on this subject…
