While genetics can play a key role in your infant’s intelligence, you’ll find other activities and interactions to be beneficial to their learning process. By promoting a healthy environment and quality care, you’ll be able to boost your baby’s brain power that can last beyond their years of infancy. Activities that promote bonding and first-hand interaction are far more useful than the latest expensive toys and gadgets on the market today.
1. Bonding and Childhood Interaction
Humans have been shown to have minimal brain development at birth, and the environment where they grow and nurture can affect their intelligence. During the beginning stages of their brain development, you’ll want to allow your child to form human attachments. This includes the parents, grandparents and other friends and family members. Communicating through touch can allow a child to grow up in a secure and trusting environment where they show strong social and cognitive developments through adulthood.
The simple act of playing with your baby and introducing them to different images and sounds in their environment can have an influence on your baby’s IQ. These types of toys are usually referred to as developmental toys and different toys are available for the various stages of development of your baby. The website of Baby Einstein features developmental toys that provide hours of fun for both parents and infants. The toys focus on incorporating real world activities into playtime.
At a very young age your child will begin to differentiate between various sounds, images and objects. This also allows the baby to associate learning with fun.
2. Breast-Feed
Breast milk contains powerful nutrients that support your child’s developing nervous system and brain. In addition to its boosting brain properties, you’ll find that breast-feeding your infant will help strengthen their immune system. Per the latest studies, infants who are breast-fed have been shown to have higher IQ rates than children who were bottle-fed.
3. Sign Language
Introducing your infant to sign language by the time they reach 11 months can help increase their IQ by as much as 12 points by the time they reach second grade. Sign language is a skill set for your infant that will boost their creative thinking process and promote their language skills.
4. Talk to Your Infant
Audio stimulation comes in the form of talking and chatting with your child, even though they may not be able to fully comprehend what you’re saying. By beginning this process throughout the early stages, you’ll be able to stimulate their brain and encourage their cognitive development. Reading to your infant can help improve their vocabulary and aid in the amount of memory that they’re able to retain.
Repetition may seem mundane for you, but it can prove beneficial when you read a particular favorite story over and over again. You can also open doors to the world of music. Songs, instruments and melodies can boost a child’s brain power and help your infant achieve success well beyond their years as they mature.
5. Touch and Explore
Try introducing a variety of textures and shapes to your infant early on to challenge their brain development. Since a child’s mind is blank at the early stages of their infancy, you can engage their mind’s development in a host of activities through soft and hard textures. You can also incorporate a variety of shapes to boost their mind. Exercise is another activity that is critical to challenging their IQ and games of peek-a-boo, crawling and rolling over can be most beneficial.
One-on-one activities and childhood interaction can stimulate your child’s brain development. However, stress can lessen the level at which your child develops, so you’ll want to prevent over stimulating their senses and keep the activities to a minimum.
Valerie Stout Cyrus is a freelance writer and mother of two who frequently researches child development issues. She has found that Baby Einstein products provide opportunities for bonding with babies, as well as enabling them to learn about their environment, and encouraging their development.
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