You don’t have to be a child development expert to give your baby a great start in life. Your love, attention and care are all your baby really needs and wants. To help your baby reach their full potential, follow these simple steps.
Show your love
Children need love. Your care and support will give your child a secure base from which to explore the world.
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Love, attention, and affection in the first years of life have a real impact on a child’s physical, mental and emotional growth. So cuddle, touch, smile, encourage, listen to and play with your little one whenever you can (Bigelow 2020).
You can’t spoil a newborn baby by answering their cries promptly. They’ll cry less over the first couple of months if you respond to them (KidsHealth 2019a), which will make your life easier too. Giving your baby attention when they're upset (as well as when they're happy) helps to build trust and a strong emotional bond (Karakaş and Dağli 2019). Practising regular skin-to-skin with your baby can also help you both to create a loving and nurturing bond. Skin-to-skin contact increases levels of the feel-good hormone oxytocin, and decreases levels of the stress hormone cortisol (Cong et al 2015, Moore et al 2016).
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Care for your baby’s basic needs
Your baby needs good health and energy to learn and grow, and you can help by taking care of their basic needs. Visit your baby clinic for regular weight checks and talk to your health visitor or GP if you have any concerns. Remember to keep their immunisations up to date so that they're protected against serious diseases (NHS 2019).
Sleeping
Sleep is anything but wasted time for your baby. They need plenty of rest so that they can grow well and develop properly. You can lay down the foundations of a bedtime routine for your baby from around three months (NHS 2021). But you start showing them the difference between day and night right from the start (NHS 2021).
During REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, your baby’s brain cells lay down important connections, called synapses. These synapses are the pathways that enable all learning, movement and thought. They’re the keys to your baby’s understanding of everything they see, hear, taste, touch and smell as they explore the world (Tham et al 2017) .
Feeding
Breastmilk or formula milk will provide all the nutrients your baby needs for the first six months, and will be an important part of their diet until their first birthday Martin et al 2016). If you think you may need to start weaning your baby earlier than six months, speak to your health visitor.
Breastfeeding is best for your baby if you can both master it. Breastfed babies have lower rates of:
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- infections and hospitalisations
- diarrhoea and vomiting
- respiratory problems
- sudden infant death syndrome
- ear infections
(NHS 2020, SACN 2018)
Although formula milk can’t replicate all of the properties of breastmilk (Martin et al 2016), formula-fed babies thrive too. Give your baby lots of cuddles and eye contact when you feed them and check their feeding position to help avoid ear infections (Schilder et al 2016 ).
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Daily care
Make sure your baby is comfortable. If they're too warm or their nappy is wet, respond to them as soon as you can by taking off a layer of clothes or changing their nappy. You and your baby are a team, and one of your jobs is to take care of the basics so they can get on with their challenging tasks!
Talk to your baby
Talking to your baby and encouraging them to "talk" back will help them to express themselves (Polka et al 2022). Good communication skills are very important in helping children grow into happy adults (Mendelsohn et al 2018).
You can even begin during your pregnancy. Chatting to your bump is a great way to start the bonding process.
Once your baby is born, talk to them as you change their nappy and feed them. They’ll respond if they know the words are directed at them, so try to look at them while you’re speaking (Sheridan 2022).
Don’t worry about words of wisdom. Just describe what you’re doing and what your baby is doing. For example, "I’m putting warm water in the bath so I can get you nice and clean".
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It’s fine to use baby talk while your baby is still young. Young babies prefer to listen to the higher pitch and slower speech that adults tend to use when communicating with them. It can help them to recognise vowel sounds and, later on, words (Polka et al 2022).
Watch this video to understand more about communicating with your baby.
Read to your baby
Reading out loud is one of the most important things you can do to help build your child’s vocabulary and boost their imagination and language skills (KidsHealth 2019b). Reading aloud to your baby boosts the number of neural pathways in their developing brain. These become the foundation for learning and may also help your little one do better at school later on (FirstBook 2018). By showing them books are fun, you’ll also be encouraging what will hopefully become a lifetime habit.
Reading also gives you a chance to cuddle and spend time together. Babies can enjoy simple board books as early as six months old (KidsHealth 2019b), but you can start reading to them from the moment they're born. A bedtime story is a great way to wind down as part of your baby’s bedtime routine, too.
You can buy, or borrow from a library, a book designed specifically for your newborn too, with simple, contrasting images that are easier for their eyes to focus on. These books often feature horizontal and vertical stripes in black and white, and use large, simple illustrations of faces that your baby will start to recognise and respond to.
Stimulate their senses
For your child to learn about people, places, and things, they need to be exposed to them. Every new interaction gives them information about the world and their place in it.
Of course, children can become over-stimulated. You don’t want to bombard your baby with information, 24 hours a day, or try to engage all their senses at once. As they get older, though, they will start to be interested in playing. Have a variety of toys and other objects, but try to offer them only one or two at a time. Try the following, to help them get the most from playtime:
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- Choose solid objects with different shapes, textures, colours, sounds and weights.
- Sing songs and lullabies to them. Experiment with different kinds of music to see what they like.
- Play interactive games such as peekaboo and pat-a-cake.
- Go on walks and shopping trips together, and let your baby meet new people. Even the simplest daily activities will stimulate your baby’s brain development. Talk to your baby as you move around, pointing out objects and other things of interest.
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If you’d like some more ideas for simple games to play at home with your baby, go to our baby games section.
Give them room to roam
To develop strong muscles, good balance, and coordination, your baby needs plenty of space to crawl, cruise, and eventually walk. They’ll also benefit from safe spaces where they can explore their surroundings without hearing "no" or "don’t touch". The easiest way to do this is to childproof your home wherever you can.
Keep dangerous objects out of your baby’s reach. For instance, in the kitchen, put childproof locks on all the cabinets except one. Put together a selection of plastic bowls, measuring cups, wooden spoons, and pots and pans that your baby can play with safely. Get these out of the cupboard whenever you feel your baby needs something to focus on when you’re working in the kitchen (NHS 2022a).
Encourage new challenges
Toys and activities that are way beyond their abilities may frustrate your child. However, a little struggling can go a long way towards developing their strengths and skills as well as their social and emotional development (Mendelsohn et al 2018). When an activity doesn’t come easily to your baby, they have to work out a new way to accomplish it. That type of problem-solving is the stuff the best brains are made of.
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If they're attempting to open a box, for example, resist the urge to help them. Let them try first. If they continue to struggle, show them how it’s done, but then give them back a closed box so they can try again on their own.
Take care of yourself
Simple, everyday interactions between you and your baby are important for their development.
But if you’re feeling drained or exhausted, try to find ways to divide the household and parenting responsibilities with your partner. This way you won’t feel so put upon. If you’re a single parent, try to surround yourself with people who can offer you help and support. And treat yourself to a little me-time once in a while. Being a parent is tiring, and you need time to re-energise.
If you feel sad, guilty or irritable, it could be a warning sign of postnatal depression (PND). PND is more common than you may think and it can affect both parents (NHS 2022).
Your GP, midwife or health visitor will understand and they can really help, so talk to them if you are finding it difficult to bond with your baby (NHS 2022). Also talk to your partner, family members and friends about how you feel. Extra support can help you in bonding with your baby.
Find good childcare
If you work and aren’t able to care for your baby during the day, good quality childcare is essential for your baby’s healthy development. The same is true if you need a babysitter regularly. You’ll want to find someone who can do all the things mentioned above when you’re not around.
Whether your childcare provider is a nanny, a relative, or a nursery worker, they should be experienced, caring, and reputable. They should have a genuine love for children and the energy to help your baby thrive.
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Read more about helping your baby’s development
- Learn how to help your child grow up happy.
- Find out how much your little one understands about the world around them.
- Discover when your baby may reach major milestones in our video on baby development.