6 proven ways to promote your newborn baby’s early brain development

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Do you know that the human brain has 100 billion nerve cells? All these nerve cells are always firing to facilitate every action we take from lifting a finger to brainstorming a genius idea. It is the intricate network of these cells that makes us big humans call ourselves brainy!

All these nerve cells are also present in your newborn’s brain but they need to be developed and trained to build that intricate network to support their brain development.

The process of engaging your newborn or toddler in any activity that promotes healthy brain function at their age is called Early Brain Development.

So If you’re a parent or a caregiver with a kid aged between 0-3 years then by the end of this post you will know 10 ways to stimulate Early Brain Development in your newborn or toddler.

Let’s start with certain brain development activities for infants or toddlers.

1. Exercise Pupillary Reflex by adjusting light:

Newborns are a little sensitive to strong lights given that they have spent 9 months in low light in their mother’s womb. So start with low light in your room as well.

In low-light, your baby will open her eyes and will look around her.

This will start the process of early looking and help them exercise their both eyes. Babies at this stage are in exploring mode so they will always be looking around in different directions which ultimately is good for them to work their eyes-to-brain coordination.

After a few weeks, when your baby is used to the same low light you can start adjusting lighting a bit. Avoid any strong bright lighting such as direct sunlight.

Looking around in different lighting conditions will initiate the exercising of pupillary reflex which is pupils getting bigger or smaller in different light conditions.

Curtains, low-lights, or dimmer switches can help.

2. Working on Sound recognition:

Sound recognition is also a part of early brain development.

But sound recognition activities are little sensitive jobs.

First of all, you need to understand the newborns or toddlers can’t handle typical sounds. They haven’t truly developed a filter to, well, filter out unwanted noise, sounds.

Several typical sounds like a TV running in the background (and that too with multiple ads coming up), a blender running in the background, or a vendor calling out to sell his vegetables in the street.

All these sounds can confuse a baby causing them to get irritated and uncomfortable.

Your kid at this age prefers more rhythmic & polite sounds that are pleasant to mind and are easy to predict.

Rhythmic sounds allow your newborn’s mind to track and follow patterns and during the process build their ability to predict and track patterns.

3. Skin-on-Skin Interaction: We agree that Skin-to-Skin time is a bit of a task but it sure has its benefits that have great effects on the Early Brain Development of your kid.

Skin-to-Skin interaction has a multitude of benefits and these benefits are;

• Improved immunity
• Improved brain growth
• Weight gain
• Improved sleep
• Temperature regulation

 

Here are some skin-on-skin ideas that you can use to do this brain-developing activity.

1. Feeding time: Feeding time is the perfect opportunity for you to try out Skin-on-Skin interaction. You will need to strip your baby down to a diaper, take your shirt off, get essentials like water, a book to read maybe, a blanket nearby, and just relax. Your baby will calmly fall asleep enjoying this skin-on-skin time with you.
2. You can also take a bath with your baby together. This gives you and you another baby to increase the skin-on-skin interaction with your baby.
3. A healthy massage is also a great opportunity to facilitate skin-on-skin interaction with your baby and allow her to take all the benefits of this activity to develop her brain.

This activity is great for moms, dads, and elder siblings. This activity releases feel-good hormones in both your newborn and you, a natural antidote to inculcate the feeling of love and affection in your baby which is also a part of Early Brain Development.

4. Using Brain Development Toys:

Gone are the old days. Now there are newborn brain development toys that help facilitate brain development activities in infants to support their early brain development.

These toys are scientifically made for babies according to what their brain is currently doing at this stage.

For eg: At this stage, kids’ brains are wanting to develop their cognitive abilities and that’s why they find high contrasting images very intriguing.

This happens when your baby’s eyes start to coordinate. To fully support the cognitive development that their brains need. You can get them toys that are in high contrasting colors.

Learn more about brain development toys according to your little one’s age here.

5. Physical Activities to support brain development: Now your baby has been in the womb for 9 months. So without a doubt, you need to indulge your newborn in some activities that help them stretch out from their womb position. Try these activities;

 

1. Side-lying
2. Turning head side to side
3. Switching sides gently in between a few periods
4. Having them lie on their tummy once in a while.

6. Use your sound:

This is a traditional method of stimulating your baby’s brain and getting them thinking. Though it is absurd to talk to someone that you know who’s not going to talk back. But it sure is an amazing activity to develop your baby’s intelligence.

All the research has shown clearly that more words you speak to your baby is directly linked to their intelligence. Plus it also triggers their brain’s memory-building ability.

So start reading poems, and stories to your baby in an intriguing manner, and the magic will happen.

 

So as a parent, a guardian, or a caregiver to infant(s) or toddler(s) – now you know half-a-dozen At-home tricks and activities that can help stimulate Early brain development in your newborn. Join our Program today to know: the SUPER SECRETS about ‘Raising a Prodigy Kid’ during their precious 0-3-year-old window, and How to Unlock your 0 to 3-year baby’s inborn genius & amazing abilities with our At-home Program for Parents & Caregivers.

 

This was brought to you by the brain behind PSK – Mr. Arjun Seth, and the PSK Learning Team, through the medium of ‘Here with You’ – an informative platform specially designed for New Parents and Guardians, that they should definitely make “their thing”.

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