You just brought home your beautiful bundle of joy and as far as you can tell, all your baby does is sleep and eat.

Not so.

Your baby is learning from birth!

During the 2009 Early Care and Economic Summit held April 27 in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Harvard Professor Dr. Shonkoff explained that 700 new synapses are formed every second in the brain.

A synapse is a connection between cells in the brain to make the circuitry necessary for everything we do, think, and feel.

According to Dr. Shonkoff, by the age of two the circuitry for vision and hearing sensory pathways, language, and much of higher cognition have been developed. The more interaction babies and young toddlers receive through positive experiences, the better. The bottom line, 90% of a child’s brain is developed by five years of age.



Simple Ways You Can Help Build Your Child’s Brain Power before Age 2

• Provide a safe, loving and nurturing environment. Ensuring a safe, loving environment is essential to helping babies and toddlers feel secure. Speak in a soothing tone. Make one-to-one connection by giving gentle hugs, kisses, and touches to which your baby responds. Help them to safely explore their environments. Child proof your home by using safety locks on cabinets, plastic plugs in unused electrical outlets, and gates on stairways.

• Take your child to the Doctor for “Well Child Visits”. Taking your baby or toddler to the Doctor regularly will help ensure your child is healthy and developing normally. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends well visits and immunizations occur at 1-2 weeks, 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, 18 months 24 months and 36 months. If a developmental delay is recognized early, steps can be taken to get the help your child needs.

• Consider quality child care. If your schedule requires outside care, don’t forget to look for licensed providers who participate in the Keystone STARS program. All STARS’ facilities provide quality early learning experiences.

• Talk to your child. From birth babies recognize and especially love the sound of their parent’s voices. Talk about what you see and what you’re doing during every day activities. Babies learn and build vocabulary by listening to you talk.

• Sing to your child. Music helps babies and toddlers develop language and cognitive skills such as mathematics. Since babies and toddlers learn through repetition, sing songs with repetitive versus. Put music to nursery rhymes and stories as you read. Lullabies sung before bed creates a soothing environment and can build a special bond between parent and child.

• Read to your child. It’s never too early to read to your child (even at birth). By reading to your child every day, you are building the foundation for word recognition, sound identification, and early literacy. You can be the reason your child loves to read! Introduce cloth and board books to your infant. Choose books with brightly colored pictures. Photo albums of family members are also good. You can “tell a story” about what is happening in a particular photo.

• Turn off the TV. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television for children under 2 years of age. Babies and toddlers learn best by interacting with their environments. If your baby or toddler does watch television, choose shows that are educational. Make sure you watch with them. Engage them in the story by asking questions about what they are seeing. After viewing, extend the learning experience by incorporating what they saw into real life.

• Take your child to a library program designed for your child’s age. Libraries focus on early literacy and offer free family friendly programs for babies and toddlers. These programs include finger plays, music, rhymes, dancing and story time.

• Play with your child. Babies and toddlers learn through play. Bornlearning ™ a public service that helps parents, grandparents a caregivers explore ways to turn everyday moments into fun learning opportunities for young children, explains that exposing babies to simple toys will activate the baby’s imagination and help him grow. Babies and toddlers imitate through play. As your child gets older he/she will use play to imagine, invent and problem solve.



Dazzle their senses:

Sight: Babies love to watch human faces. Mirror their facial expressions at a close distance, and play peek-a-boo. Show brightly colored objects.

Babies prefer black, white, red and other high contrasting color patterns best. Put a mirror in front of your baby so she can look at herself.

Hearing: Since babies love the sound of their parents’ voices, sing nursery rhymes and coo back to your baby. Play a pleasing sound at various places in the room so baby can “follow” the sound.

Touch: Babies respond best to touch, so cuddle, tickle, and hold your baby often! Run a feather across his cheeks or feet. Give him a stuffed animal to hug. Play games with your baby while in the bath using soap suds, simple tub toys, measuring cups, funnels, and plastic bottles.

Smell: Babies have a strong sense of smell. They can recognize their parents by smell. Help develop this sense by introducing a variety of scents and watch how your baby responds. While playing in the lawn, run a well scented plant past your baby’s nose. .

Taste: According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, breastfeeding alone is enough to support a baby’s growth and development for approximately the first six months of life. Complementary foods may be introduced gradually to babies at around six months.

When beginning to introduce foods, watch their facial expressions. Your baby will tell you if he likes it or not.

Kinetic: Babies love movement. Gently sway and rock with your baby when you carry them from place to place. They will be ready to move on their own in no time. Entice your baby to reach, roll, and crawl by placing favorite object at a distance.



Explore home environments:

It is not necessary to buy expensive toys. Any parent will tell you babies and toddlers have no concept of cost and tire from expensive toys quickly. Look around your home and turn everyday items into toys:

- Use plastic cups or bowls for nesting and stacking,

- Use pots, pans and spoons for banging

- Dance with your child to different types of music

- Sort different sizes and colors of socks and shoes

- Build a tower out of books or boxes

- Choose items and toys that can be played with in more than one way

- Go outside and dig in the dirt

- Show young toddlers living things such as birds, worms, butterflies, and plants

- Take your child on a wagon or wheel barrow ride around the yard



To learn more about quality initiatives visit www.humanservices.state.pa.us/compass through the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning. For more parenting tips visit www.bornlearning.org and www.betterkidcare.psu.edu on the web.



Community Engagement Teams in Northumberland, Union and Snyder County aim to promote the importance of quality experiences and education for very young children, and to educate parents, childcare providers, and business leaders about the lifelong social and economic impact of early education. The Early Care and Education Coalition of Northumberland County is supported by the Greater Susquehanna Valley United Way. For more information contact Karen Ulp, Coordinator at 570-988-0993. The Early Care and Education Community Engagement Team for Union/Snyder County is supported by the Union County Commissioners and Penn State Cooperative Extension in Union County. For more information contact Mary Mahoney-Ferster, Coordinator at 570.966.8194.



- Karen Ulp is the early Care and Education Coordinator, Greater Susquehanna Valley United Way.