Baby is learning
Your baby doesn't grow, develop and learn at a constant rate. Learning spurts are well known and every child has them. During a learning spurt, your baby will gobble up new ideas, acquire new skills and put them into practice immediately. However, while she's going through these learning spurts some activities, and possibly certain skills that she's already learned, may appear to slip. Don't worry. They won't have gone for good. It is just that your baby is using all her concentration to learn something new, but once it is learned she'll regain all the other skills.
Learning spurts
© DK
During a learning spurt you should try to make your child's life as interesting as possible. Of course if your child shows that certain things are enjoyable then you should do them as often as you can, but don't hesitate to introduce your baby to new things too; she is ready to learn and absorb information at a very fast rate. And don't be too discriminating about the kind of entertainment you give either. Babies simply sieve out what they prefer and understand, and let the rest go by. In the first year learning is an entirely piecemeal process, so you'll help your baby most if you provide as wide and interesting a range of things as possible.
Learning spurts are invariably followed by periods when development appears to slow down. Treat them as recovery periods during which your baby consolidates newly learned skills and prepares herself for the next spurt. Don't get anxious about this - just let her practise the skills that she has already learned. You can help during these slower learning times by practising with her, saying something like “Let's sing that song again”, or “Why don't we try to push the peg through that hole again?”.
Let your baby guide you
All the way through life, teachers who succeed do so by helping us to develop and reach our full potential. They help us maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. As your baby's teacher, it's important to try to make the best of her good points and play down her bad ones. You also have to give your child the kind of help she needs when she needs it. Giving help is worthless if the person who is being helped doesn't really require it or like it, so while you have to be an active helper, don't be an interfering one. Your baby should not be learning what you want her to learn, she should be learning what she wants to learn, and this should be your first priority.
You have to suppress any ideas of what you think a child of her age ought to be doing and respond to what she wants to do. This means that you have to be guided by your child. You have to respond to her needs. While it is your job as a good parent to introduce her to as wide a range of interesting things as possible, it is not your job to decide which of those things she should find interesting. In other words, having presented her with the menu, you must let her choose her own dishes.
New Babycare
Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley
Text copyright © 2009 Miriam Stoppard
Posted 30.06.2010
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