Help baby in his/her development by doing these fun activities! Not only will she learn to communicate but also help her grow and develop her motor, personal and social skills. In the early months of baby, parents play a big role in each aspect of her development, physically, emotionally, mentally and socially. It is the first months that marks the most in building the foundation of her skills. In my previous post, we discuss activities for your newborn, now that she is growing fast she will need more things to learn!

DEVELOP COMMUNICATION

Your new bundle of joy communicates through her body movement. While she grows and develop, as a parent you learn that each specific movement means something. Just like when she look or stare, whines, shout or cries. Although baby will enjoy different kind of sound within your household, your voice will always be her most favorite music, it will be the most comforting music in her ears. It is also important that you spend a quiet time together for she has to learn and enjoy each of the family voices too.

These are great ideas I wanted to share with you since it has been very effective for me and my baby. Develop her communication while enjoying special moments with her!

1. Music and Me

Hum or sing a song every baby’s meal time, during bath, exercise or even changing. Allow some precious time looking at your baby’s face and her watching your face as you sings her a song. Establish a connection with your baby through the song, include baby’s name in the song every now and then.

2. Make Face

    It’s always delightful to see baby’s smile, make funny faces that he/she likes and when she smiles, do it again! Tell her how funny she is and how beautiful she is when she smiles!

3. Precious Talk

Talk to your baby when she’s awake, especially when she’s all in the mood to look at your eyes and giggles. As she sees your face, cuddle and hold her closer to you. Introduce different kinds of animal sounds and encourage her to do the same, this way you are both communicating and having a conversation.

4. Enjoying Books

    Reading time is essential for baby, showing her colors from different pictures in the book or magazine will be very interesting for her eyes. While she sees all those things, talk softly and share story about it. Soon baby will learn that reading time is very special.

5. Hello, hello Telephone

    Your little wonderer will be curious at all things specially with sounds and light like when your phone rings and lights up. She will be amazed and be interested listening and watching you while you talk on the phone. Hold baby close to you and look at her, she will think you’re talking with her or your talking about her and that she’s special.

ACTIVITIES THAT ENHANCE FINE MOTOR SKILLS

By this time you notice that baby is learning to be more focus on things like how she looked on objects and to other things around her. In due time she will be able to follow her eyes as you move an object in front of her or as you move around her. Unlike before when baby was just a newborn, her fists were closed all the time but around this months she will learn to grasp your finger and hold on tightly.  These following months she is beginning to be aware about her environment and the world.

1.  Little Finger Hold and Grip

As baby grab your finger and hold a grip on it, gently tug a little to let her know that she’s holding your hand and that she’s growing strong everyday!

2. Reach and Grasp

    It is important to put baby lying on a firm surface so she can be able to learn the skill of crawling. But during this time she can learn the ability of reaching to things, offer baby an object or a toy to reach and grasp. You will be amazed by her excitement as she move her arms while trying to reach that object.

3. Gentle Touch

Give baby’s little toes and fingers a gentle touch or massage. Rubbing her little body parts with lotion or baby oil will make it very special. Baby will surely enjoy the feeling, it will relax her and she will feel being comforted too. Also, it will help her learn about her body.

4. Little Hand Sweet Kisses

During baby’s meal time, hold her hand and kiss her little fingertips. Let her touch your lips, if she’s not yet doing it at this age, encourage her to touch it so that soon she will learn how to aim her finger towards you.

5. Baby Tug

Hold any clean cloth like washcloth or a ribbon for baby to grasp and slightly tug the other end. Praise her how strong she is and let her win the game.

The excitement to provide everything for your cute little one is quite overwhelming, it can be a difficult responsibility for new parents to deal with expenses. Parents usually ask the same question when it comes to spending money, “ How can I pay my needs?”, “How about my wants?”. In this post are some pointers to help you with financial expenses through suggested strategies of budgeting during infancy that you may want to consider as these helped and worked for me and my small family.

IS IT A NEED OR JUST A WANT?

Necessities are the essentials in life that you need to buy, while some other things are considered as wants, things you could live without.

• Take into note what will it cause you when you buy that particular item.
• Maybe you still need to buy something more important, why not use the money for that?
• Save as much as possible, find some ways to get that item without spending too much.
• Make a list and write your needs as your top priority.

CREDIT CARDS

Use credit cards wisely, know the benefits and the risk of using it to avoid any trouble with debt. Consider the following:

• Know your limits, know how much you can pay every month and set your expenses on how much you can afford.
• Only use credit cards with big purchases. If it’s small purchases it is best to use cash or debit cards.
• Use credit cards when needed and when it will be very beneficial for you such as in education, home or a loan.
• Pay your balance in full or pay more than the minimum amount to avoid trouble with debt.
  More importantly, always pay on time.

PROS:
1. You can earn rewards, rebates, points or cash back.
2. You can use it almost everywhere.
3. It is very convenient to use than bringing cash or checks.
4. You can build credit history.

CONS:
1. Very easy to spend money more than you should.
2. Charges such as interest and late fees will cost you a lot of money.
3. Irresponsible spending can lead into debt.
4. Withdrawals might be expensive.
5. Bear all these in mind so you can balance and manage all your expenses with your credit cards.

MONEY MANAGEMENT

It is wise to list every income and expenses you make every month to keep track of your money and to always remind you of your priorities. It is best to set a particular list of your monthly necessities after listing all your income for the whole month. Examples of these are groceries which include food, clothing, diapers, formula etc., or expenses with child care as well as monthly home bills from utilities, transportation, insurances and the like. Keep all your receipts and bills and then do all your calculation every end of the month so you know where your money is going.

Planning and budgeting are essential keys in order to meet your baby’s needs or your family needs. There are ways on how to save money or money saving ideas that are proven to be very effective in lowering down the cost of expenses. Listed here are some money saving ideas that worked for my family.

• Food:
  – Take advantage to weekly sale ads of stores and make a complete shopping list of what you really need before going to the store. This is to avoid not so important things that you might be tempted on buying.
  Consider buying store brands or generic brands, they are less expensive and sometimes they are as good as name brands.
  – Be creative with leftovers, find ways to create something special out of it.
  – Prepare meals from home and take it as pack food instead of eating out.
  – Make meals that are less expensive or don’t cost a lot.
• Clothing:
  – Check-out thrift stores or garage sales, sometimes they have cheap quality items gently used or even new ones. Baby will grow fast and buying new clothing in full price is very costly and it’s not really practical.
  – Buy baby’s clothing in a bigger size or a little bit bigger than his/her fitted size so that it can be worn for long or while baby is still growing.
• Utility Bills:
  – Remember to turn off appliances which are not in use. Turn off lights when leaving a room or turn off fan when there’s nobody using it.
  – Take short showers rather than a long bath.
  – Avoid services you don’t use most of the time or you no longer need such as phone and internet services.
  – Use fluorescent light bulbs that will last longer rather than cheap quality ones.
• Others:
  – House Cleaning: Use all purpose cleaner for its very suitable to use in almost all types of cleaning in the house. Make a DIY cleaning products and make use of the basic products you have at home such as baking soda and vinegar to clean surfaces or even newspaper to clean windows.
  – Recreation: There a numerous local parks and local public libraries that you could visit for free. It could be a fun experience for you and your kids. Have a community calendar too, it features free family events.

Be on top of your priorities as you go through the life of parenthood and be smart on managing your household finances. One of the best advice I can give is to cut your expenses, lower down your lifestyle, balance your budget and find more ways how to increase your income.

How about you how do you manage your household finances? I want to hear from you in the comments!

Activities to Help Your Baby Grow & Learn

Greetings to you parents!

I’d love to congratulate you for the wonderful blessing of new life and new member of your family. It was such an amazing moment that you cannot ever compare to anything else, well at least it was how it is for me being a new mommy and I believe it is true for every parent. There will be a lot of changes ahead of you, in your end as a parent and in your developing baby as well.

In my experience when I finally had my newborn I was very eager and excited to try some activities that will help her in her growth and development. These are not strenuous activities that may stress a baby but these are simple activities which we might not even recognize of doing naturally. These will help your little one learn as they grow.

These are list of activities which are very suitable for baby in 0-2 months old.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Babies are naturally born smart, as early as being a newborn they can be able to communicate, even though they couldn’t actually speak or babble words but they have their cues as signals of what they want or what they actually need. Crying, gurgling and wiggling are ways how baby communicates.

When baby looks and stares at you she’s actually communicating as if she’s saying “I love you, thanks for taking care of me” and soon your heart will be filled with joy when she smiles!

1. Embracing and Humming a sweet tune – Baby loves the feel of your warm hugs and cuddles, she simply loves your smell and feel your body close to her. She also loves to hear and feel your sweet voice in a soft hum of a song.
2. Sweet Happy Talk– In some moments baby seemed to be smiling, this is the time you can have a sweet talk and a happy conversation about that smile as you smile right back at her. “Wow is that a smile for mommy? Or is that for daddy? Look at that smile, so pretty!”. In a few months or just even weeks, soon your baby will give you a real smile and even giggles a laugh!
3. Wiggles to Burp– Sometimes baby is frowning and feels uneasy, this might be a sign that she needs to burp. Hold and bring her to your shoulders and gently tap her on her back or massage her body saying the sweet words of comfort: “Just a little burp and you will be fine my little angel”.
4. Voice Familiarization- When baby starts to cry and you’re out of sight, with a sweet voice tell her that you can hear her and that you’re just around to help her soon. By then she will learn that she’s never alone and your voice will assure her that soon you’ll come for the rescue.

MOTOR SKILLS

Developing the motor skills of your little one is an important part of her brain and muscle growth. There are two kinds of motor skills, the fine and gross motor skills. Fine motor skills are the small movements of baby’s muscles, movements from certain parts of her body like her fingers and toes while gross motor skills are the big movements that she can make using the large muscles of her body like the arms and legs.

-Fine Motor Skills Activities

As you may notice baby’s little hands are usually in close fists and if you try to put your finger in in between those little fingers, you will be amazed how strong those cute little hands can exert that strength of grip. But as she grows, as part of her development she will eventually relax her hands, be curious of things around her and be interested of touching anything she can hold or reach.

1. Hold and Tug Cute Little Hands– Play with baby when she’s relaxed and rested, try to put your finger in baby’s fist. When she made a grip slowly pull or tug baby’s hand, you’ll be surprised when she holds on and won’t let go. Then talk about it with her, how strong she is and it would be lovely if you sing her a song while playing hold and tug.
2. Happy Touch– Let baby touch and feel different textures from different things. Make sure that these items will be safe for her to touch and grip. Examples of these things are soft fluffy stuff toys, wet and dry wash cloth, smooth scarf or anything from hard to soft or smooth and rough ones. This will help her learn things about the environment and the world.
3. Gentle Skin Massage– After you clean baby perhaps after a refreshing bath, give her a gentle massage with lotion or baby oil, from her cute little finger in her hands to her little toes. Then make a sweet conversation with baby about what you’re doing.

-Gross Motor Skills Activities

Time flies so fast and baby will grow rapidly everyday and as she grows, you will notice how she learns to relax her closed fist, limbs and legs that are normally held so tight in her body when she was young as a newborn. Soon she will learn to move her legs to kick and when her neck is already strong, she will try to lift her head as well.

1. Pull Open & Close– When baby is relaxed and awake like after a shower, hold her little hands and gently pull her arms away from her body or chest making a wide open arms. As you sing in a sweet melody of how you’re doing it, pull her arms closed again, and do it again. “Open and close, open arms wide then pull them close again baby!”. Don’t forget to praise her how well she has done it, “you’re doing a great job baby, strong arms!”.
2. Kiss that Little Toes– Play with baby’s little feet and her little toes. When she is laying down on her back, put her feet together and kiss the bottom of her cute soft feet and toes. Try to tickle and see if she smiles, if she does, no doubt she’s having fun! Make a little bubbling sound into her toes and tell her words about how wonderful those feet are and how beautiful she is.
3. Relaxing Bath Time– Take a little time for an extra massage during baby’s bath. Gently rub her little arms and limbs, tummy and bottoms. Might as well talk to baby as she learns about her body and feel your comforting love.

SOCIAL & PERSONAL SKILLS

Your sweet little one is fully dependent on you right now. She needs you all the time, for food, warmth and safety. Baby doesn’t know how to speak yet but she communicates through her eyes, by looking at you and using her voice. As you interact with her and responds to all her needs she begins to know you and trust in you. She will enjoy the company of everybody in the family, being held all the time by everyone but as a parent you are the most important person in your baby’s life.

1. Sweet Smile Cute Face- Every time you do a task with baby like feeding, changing diaper or bathing, always give her the sweetest smile you could. For a newborn, a smile is just a reflex but sooner as she grows in few more weeks, she will give you a real smile back and it will be the most wonderful sight!
2. Mealtime Shared Moments– During baby’s mealtime whether she’s nursing or drinking in a bottle, look at your sweet baby with eye contact and touch her little face from her forehead to her eyes, cute cheeks, little ears and tiny lips.Tell her that she’s the sweetest thing that all that she is, is wonderful and that she’s unique and loved so dearly.
3. Look Tiny Hands– Talk to baby about her body, from her tiny feet and toes to her cute little hands and fingers. For baby everything she sees is interesting and that she will stare at it for long and wonders. “Look at your hands baby, whose hands are those? “look at your fingers! Look at that cute little toes!”.
4. Understanding Baby Cues– Newborns have their cues to communicate. These are their ways to interact like for instance, baby cries for a different reasons, either she’s hungry, bored, cold or feeling hot, tired or she just wants to be held. Pay attention to each cry and hear the difference so that you can respond to her needs immediately.
5. And Then After– You will have your routine daily activities with baby and it’s important to share it with her as you tell her what’s going to happen next.”It’s eating time.”, time for sleep.” or time for a bath.” In this way, you will help baby learn it as she grows.

Your newborn will grow very fast and each day you spend with her in her youngest days is a sweet memory to treasure. It is truly a fulfillment when you get to see how your baby develops and learns about life. She might still be very young right now to respond to all the things you do but very soon she will understand each of them and she will begin to smile showing how she appreciates it.

These are the activities I’ve tried with my baby and I am very happy to share it with you, hoping that these will work for you as how it did with us.

Which of these activities have you tried with your baby? Or if you have tried more than what I listed here or have more ideas in mind, kindly share it with us in the comment.