Key Concepts: Attachment
It’s normal to notice new and BIG feelings from your baby. Having big reactions can be a shock to you as parents, but they are developmentally appropriate! Your baby is not yet able to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and actions - but they will get there.
What to Try: Attachment
- Focus on understanding and validating your baby’s feelings. Talk about how they are feeling and continue to build their emotional vocabulary by labeling how they might be feeling.
- Try and pause between the behavior you’re seeing and your reaction. This helps your little one to feel safe and secure being upset around you. It’s important for them to know that you can tolerate their distress.
Key Concepts: Feeding
For picky eaters:
- Picky eating is a normal part of development. Did your child love strawberries yesterday and is now refusing them and yelling? This has to do with control and them having a say in something.
- Around the one-year mark (soon!), your baby will move from bottles to more consistent solid meals throughout the day. The morning and nighttime bottles will be the last to go, as those are the most comforting.
- Starting around 1 year old, children should eat approximately three meals and two snacks per day.
What to Try: Feeding
For picky eaters:
- Try “supportive prompts” like “How about trying this string bean? It’s crunchy and fun to chew.”
- Try to give your child some creative agency with their meal. For example, let them sprinkle (throw?!) cheese on their taco meat.
- Offer new foods at snack time. This allows for your child to try a food without ruining a meal for you.
Key Concepts: Sleep
- Between 1-1.5 years old, babies generally transition to one nap per day. Once the transition is made, a typical schedule would be 7am wake, 12pm nap, 6-7pm bedtime.
- If your baby is consistently fighting one of their naps or having a hard time falling asleep, this might be a sign they are ready to drop a nap. If you’re seeing a shorter morning nap that leaves your baby content and ready to play, that could also be a sign that they are ready to drop a nap.
What to Try: Sleep
- Get outside as much as you can! Exposure to natural light is important for all of us. Plus, it helps regulate your baby’s circadian rhythm.
- A schedule change (like dropping to one nap) takes time. Increasing your baby’s wake time should be gradual.
Key Concepts: Development
- If your child has a specific word they use for something consistently, it counts as a real word. Word approximations are when your baby uses part of a word to describe something. For example, water is “wa.”
- Children 1 year old and over should move for 180 minutes a day. And by the way, when your baby is sitting, reaching, grabbing, crawling, they are moving. So chances are, you’re already hitting this.
What to Try: Development
- Look out for your baby’s first “words” and treat them as the real meaning. When they ask for “wawa” you can say “here’s your water.” It’s not about correcting them, but rather giving them the correct word.
- When your baby uses a gesture to communicate, for example, handing their spoon to you for more food, you can add some language to what they’re asking for. “Oh! Thank you. Are you ready for another bite?”
Key Concepts: Relationships
- There are many ways to engage in play with your baby. One way is through parallel play - just as it sounds, this is when you play next to your baby.
- Another kind of play is multisensory play, where multiple senses are engaged through play. This rich sensory experience is important for brain development and learning.
What to Try: Relationships
- During parallel play:
- Move slowly in your actions so your baby can see what you’re doing and try to copy you.
- Make intentional mistakes (“oops! I dropped the ice cream cone”) and then try again. By doing this, you’re showing your baby resilience.
- We hate to say it, but one of the best ways to try multisensory play is through eating. Give your baby sweet potatoes and cinnamon and stimulate their tactile and smell senses. It’s okay if this gets messy (as it inevitably will!) - in fact, the messier, the better. Remember - hold off on wiping their face until the end.
- Gather some safe materials and make a sensory bin. Try spaghetti, felt, soft balls. OR, take a bath! One of the quickest and easiest ways to stimulate multiple senses.