4 Ways to Make the Most of Your Diaper Changes
We know you’re busy and probably have a lot on your plate, so here’s one way to optimize your time: take advantage of your diaper changes to foster connection with baby and support their development. You’ll change thousands of diapers over the course of your baby’s life — imagine if you used those thousands of moments to engage in deeper and more meaningful ways.
Here are 4 easy ways to make the most of your diaper changes:
1. Start a conversation
Even before babies can talk, they can still engage in nonverbal conversation. They learn how language works by listening to you and watching your mouth move. A diaper change is the perfect time to engage in a conversation. Speak and watch how they respond, then answer back. Let it be a two-way conversation, both with and without words.
2. Make faces
Babies need to see different facial expressions in order to learn how to decode them. And since newborns only see short distances, diaper changes are a great opportunity to try this. Make different faces and let baby observe you. With each face, let baby respond and react before moving onto the next face. You can even voice over the emotion of each face.
3. Narrate the steps
Babies learn speech patterns from hearing you speak. Try narrating each step of their diaper change, pausing in between each step to give baby time to respond.
4. Sensory stimulation
Engage baby’s senses! Babies need sensory stimulation for their growth and development. Every diaper change is an opportunity for multi-sensory stimulation. For example, you can count baby’s toes while tickling them. This engages both touch and sound. Or you can label body parts while giving a gentle massage. This helps to promote synaptic connections in baby’s brain.
Here are 4 easy ways to make the most of your diaper changes:
1. Start a conversation
Even before babies can talk, they can still engage in nonverbal conversation. They learn how language works by listening to you and watching your mouth move. A diaper change is the perfect time to engage in a conversation. Speak and watch how they respond, then answer back. Let it be a two-way conversation, both with and without words.
2. Make faces
Babies need to see different facial expressions in order to learn how to decode them. And since newborns only see short distances, diaper changes are a great opportunity to try this. Make different faces and let baby observe you. With each face, let baby respond and react before moving onto the next face. You can even voice over the emotion of each face.
3. Narrate the steps
Babies learn speech patterns from hearing you speak. Try narrating each step of their diaper change, pausing in between each step to give baby time to respond.
4. Sensory stimulation
Engage baby’s senses! Babies need sensory stimulation for their growth and development. Every diaper change is an opportunity for multi-sensory stimulation. For example, you can count baby’s toes while tickling them. This engages both touch and sound. Or you can label body parts while giving a gentle massage. This helps to promote synaptic connections in baby’s brain.