A sensory board is a lovely thing to make for a baby. Young babies are explorers, they learn through exploration, especially when all senses are involved. This is why most toys involve noise with lights and colours, as well as different textures. Babies use their hands, feet, mouths and almost anything they can to explore with different things in their environment. At this young age, the ability to interpret and perceive tactile perception is actually best when done through sensory receptors in the mouth as opposed to the hands, as it is in adults. It is important to remember that mouthing toys and objects is normal, and to ensure that whatever you are exposing your baby to, that there is no safety risk. Remember to make sure you use non-toxic glue when sticking things onto a sensory board, and ensure any ribbons or string are not long enough to pose as a choking hazard. Small objects should be carefully stuck down and babies should be carefully supervised when playing with a sensory board. What objects are stimulating to the senses? · Shiny, metallic objects (keys, coins, foil, wrappers, mirrors, stickers, glitter) · Bright colours with high contrast images (polka dots, stripes, big bold images) · Noisy objects (crinkle paper, wrappers, packets) · Rough textures (pasta pieces, cork, rock, wood, grass, Velcro, sandpaper, corn) · Smooth textures (pebbles, beads, silk, ribbon) · Soft textures (felt, cotton wool, gel beads, pipe-cleaners, feathers, sponge) · Patterned textures (cupcake liners, bubble wrap, zips rows of straws) It is important to ensure a variety of senses are stimulated, but also to ensure the baby or child is not over-stimulated by limiting the number of sensory objects on the board. For younger babies, try use a board with 6-8 objects. As the child gets slightly older, add a few objects and see how they cope. You should be able to tell if your child is over-stimulated by watching how they interact with the objects. If the baby avoids interaction, he is probably overwhelmed and it might be best to consider removing some objects. Here are some ideas of sensory boards: I really love this idea using old wipes packets to create a peek-a-boo sensory board.
https://motherhoodandotheradventures.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/peek-a-boo-sensory-board/ Have fun crafting, and enjoy watching your little explorer play!
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If we compare the generation of our parents, and their parents, with the generation of today, there is so much we can say is different. For starters, look at all the technology available to us today. We have modern gadgets all over the place - and that has shaped and changed the way we raise our children.
One of the biggest differences seems to be that we have both parents now working full time, or a mom working at least half-day, to make ends meet. Things are much more expensive, and we somehow just need so much more of everything. We no longer have all friends, family and a workplace within a 5 minute radius of our homes as well. We travel longer distances to spend longer hours doing a job that pays just enough to make ends meet. And so we work even longer hours and travel even further distances to make more money so that our children can have more expensive toys and go to a more expensive daycare. It just seems never-ending, and whilst its often unrealistic to expect mothers (or fathers!) not to work, we get so caught up that we forget the little things. I have seen far too much of this. And I have seen the effect it is having on our children. 10 minutes of TV time turns into an hour, and before you know it, the whole afternoon. They say with everything that moderation is key - whilst this is true, there is no standard, set criteria for moderation. My version might be half an hour in the exersaucer, yours might be 3 hours a day. Moderation is subjective. And this is my biggest concern when the media are throwing the word around - for the food we eat, the exercise we do, the bad habits we have. It seems like everything is okay, as long as it is done in moderation. But there comes a point as a parent, when you stop and look at what your children are doing, and wonder whether these few minutes or hours every day could be spent in a far better way. When it comes to parenting, none of us like to hear that we are doing things wrong. We defend our choices and our actions because, lets be honest, we actually are trying our best! There are things we don't know and things we are not aware of, but regardless of the circumstances, we are trying to be good parents and give our babies and children the best we possibly can. So my advice for today is this: 1) turn the TV off. 2) put away the electronic toys. 3) take your child out of the entertainment stations - the exersaucer, the jumper and the walker. 4) turn the computer, tablet and mobile phone off. And do these instead: 1) use an activity gym to allow for movement that is natural and free, like rolling or transitional movements. Use a boppy pillow to support sitting with toys around your child for him to play with. 2) bring out toys that captivate your child and allow for the development of cognition, problem solving and decision making - like shape sorters, stacking rings, blocks, mirrors, rattles, rainsticks and musical toys. Give him toys that he has to figure out and that require effort. Not electronic toys that play an entire tune at the light touch of a button. 3) play with your child, on your lap, on your hip, on the floor or on the bed. Wherever you are, bring your child with you. Show them what you are doing. Point and name things around you. Talk to him, and let him learn about the environment he lives in. Play peek-a-boo, blow bubbles, sing nursery rhymes and just interact with one another! 4) facilitate some sensory play. Children learn by using all of their senses to explore with things. Give them things to touch, to smell, to taste, things to hear and things to look at. Use ball ponds, sand pits and allow for outside play on a blanket (in the right weather, of course). Make a sensory board with things that you have lying around the house, just remember to ensure the safety of your children with all objects they come into contact with. Let them feel, move and explore. Let them learn. Crawling is a milestone often overlooked, despite it being one of the most important. It usually develops after independent sitting has been established, and before standing and walking occurs. Most children crawl from month 8/9, until walking at around month 11/12, on average. This gives a baby a solid foundation of 2-3 months on their hands and knees. So, why is this important, if we almost never have to crawl again in life? Why is walking not the main focus of development instead? The answer is this – crawling makes use of all of our limbs, in a coordinated manner, incorporating the use of the trunk, and requires much control and strength. Not only this, crawling demands great levels of accuracy when it comes to our physical movement, and the planning thereof. We need to judge and perceive distance in order to accurately get where we want to, working on our visual perception too. We use these skills in walking too, but the physical demands are actually less (aside for the balance aspect, that is) since all four limbs are required to move in a sequential manner that coordinates arms with legs as well as left with right. Due to the nature of crawling, and the position the body is in – called four-point kneeling, and the incorporation of our arms, we are able to develop greatly in terms of proximal stability, which is the strength and stability of the shoulder and pelvic girdles, in order to assist in the maintenance of postures. As adults, we still find long periods of time in four-point kneeling challenging, and the weaker you feel your core strength may be, the chances are, the more you’ll struggle maintaining a weight bearing position through your arms, like ‘planking’ or doing push-ups. So, why do we need strong arms and shoulders? Most of us are not planning to be heavy-weight champions, right? So we think upper limb strength shouldn’t be too important. But this is so wrong! We take our shoulder strength for granted, and those of us who have dislocated a shoulder or broken a clavicle may understand just how difficult things are without that strength. A task like cutting requires the use of both hands, and in doing so, both arms generally need to be lifted off of the table to cut properly. For a child, this means a few minutes of elevated arms, which, for their small bodies is really no easy task, considering their core is working hard to hold their seated posture correctly at the same time. Add a weak core to this mix, and we have so many more problems. I can think of so many bilateral activities requiring both arms elevated – mixing something in a bowl, pouring a glass of juice, carrying a heavy object, reading a book whilst sitting/lying, throwing and catching a ball, lacing and threading beads – all tasks we expect our school-going children to be able to do. For this very reason, a weak core and weak shoulders is something most often picked up when children start school and these tasks are expected of them. Tasks requiring fine motor skill like writing and colouring become really messy because children with weak shoulders fatigue easily. In OT we have a golden rule called ‘proximal stability before distal dexterity’ – which means a strong core is essential for adequate and effective function of the limbs and hands. So when a child has a weak core, it’s often most evident in poor fine motor skills or even gross motor skills, depending on how weak the core really is. A child with a weak core – often termed low muscle tone, also slouches and fatigues very easily. This is a child rocking on his chair in class, hooking his feet around the legs of the chair, resting on his hands, slumped over the desk, fidgeting and shifting positions frequently. He might even compensate by getting up and walking around. It’s an effort to sit up straight and they are exhausted by the end of the day. Paying attention in class is difficult when they are so busy trying to sit properly. A tired body makes for a distractible mind! It is quite common for these children to be misdiagnosed with ADD/ADHD because of this. So yes, whilst we are not all training to be weight lifters or professional swimmers, a strong set of shoulders is really a big deal to a young child. A well developed core allows them to develop in many other ways, and when these muscle groups are not well-developed, some serious issues can arise. Another question I get asked is why children do not crawl. In my eyes, a child bum shuffling across the floor is considered as ‘not crawling’, as is a child who leopard crawls (moves on their tummy). These do not have any components of crawling – no four-point kneeling, no weight bearing through the arms or hips and no use of tummy muscles. So essentially, there is no advantage or development in those kinds of movement. These happen when a child has a weak core and is reluctant to get into the correct position because it may be simply too difficult for him to achieve it, and he comes up with his own means of mobility. We then get the parent who claims “my child was so advanced he just skipped crawling and went straight into walking” – however, your child was probably too weak to crawl, and his fine motor abilities will really be affected, making him struggle through first and second grade. That is definitely not considered advanced and having a child unwilling to crawl is cause for concern. It is an indicator of weakness from an early age – please do not ignore it, address the problem there and then! A common link has been found between non-crawlers and the use of exersaucers, walkers and jumpers. These prevent core strengthening due to the support they provide. They also remove most motivation for mobility, 1) because my toys are always right here in front of me, and 2) I can move around while I am in the walker, and bounce or rock in other devices, which is much easier and way more fun – that crawling thing is hard! As humans we are naturally taking the easy way out – and babies are very much the same. Why learn to crawl if you can get what you want through other means? So yes, these devices are so much fun, our babies do love them for that reason. But they also cause laziness, delayed (or even skipped) milestones and problems later on with other areas of development. Other areas in which crawling has advanced development – are in our visual perceptual abilities. We use these skills everyday in all our movement patterns, and fine motor skills, as well as accuracy in tasks. We need visual perception to build puzzles (visual closure), find something in a cluttered draw (figure ground perception), copy off the blackboard in class (visual motor integration), organize things in rows, columns, left and right (spatial relations) and pay attention to detail in order to find the differences in things (visual discrimination). When we crawl we use depth perception in order to identify where objects are in our environment – so that we can judge, plan and adapt our movement patterns using this visual feedback. Crawling babies are seen to develop mostly in their spatial relations skills and visual motor integration abilities, as well as motor planning skills. Children need these skills in writing, cutting, threading, building puzzles, doing a pegboard activity, and even when matching and copying. The ability to coordinate movement is also a very important aspect of development. We learn to move one side at a time (unilateral movement), and we then learn to coordinate both sides moving together at the same time (bilateral symmetrical coordination), in tasks like holding a bottle and drinking from it. It then advances to moving both sides in a sequence, at different times of the body (asymmetrical bilateral coordination), as in crawling, walking, skipping etc. It is a very important skill because it teaches us to sequence and time our movements in order to move in an accurate and controlled manner, which is essential in things like catching a ball or even hopping. One needs to know where to place his feet, legs and arms, in an instinctual, instant manner. When these require more planning than normal, children are slower in these areas, often missing the ball when thrown to them, missing the ball when trying to kick it, cutting uncontrollably, and colouring outside of the lines. It is important that we, as parents, see milestones for what they are – stepping stones paving a way for development. Imagine walking along a path and there is a big gap where a stepping stone should have been – you will need to take one large leap and might lose your balance and stumble for a few of the following steps. Our children need to achieve these milestones in order to prevent limitations or difficulties in future development. We wouldn’t let them miss a milestone important as learning to read, and it is essential we understand and identify crawling as a milestone with just as much value! Crawling is essential for development, and advances your child in so many ways – and the longer the crawling phase, the better. Ideally, 2-4 months of crawling before walking is best. If your child learns to walk soon after crawling, this is okay too. We don’t want to delay walking or prevent a child from walking in order to crawl for longer, but it is advised that children with a shorter crawling phase do upper arm strengthening activities to compensate for this. These include climbing a ladder, climbing up a rope, doing monkey bars, throwing and catching balls (weighted balls are better for older kids), or wheelbarrow walking. Non-crawling, or even incorrect crawling should never be ignored! |
About MeI am a Pediatric Occupational Therapist by profession, but a full-time mom to a beautiful baby girl, born in September 2014. My husband and I live in sunny South Africa. Archives
October 2015
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