Play with your little one! With these ideas, you will help him have fun and stimulate his sense of sight
TEXT: Jessica López Cervantes
1 MONTH
– Can barely focus about 25 centimeters away
– He has a puzzled look
– His world is not in color, but in gray and ocher tones
– It is capable of differentiating the great contrasts (black and white, white and red…)
Play with him
Make two tiles: one will be “The checkerboard” (4 squares in black and white) and the other, “The eye” (one circle within another). With the baby in your arms, place the chips 25 centimeters from your face, centered. If he doesn’t show interest, move them closer and away until he notices them, that is until he shows amazement. At that point, it is better to stop. First, you show him a card and then another. In a few days, you will know and enjoy them every time you see them. Also, each day you will be able to hold your attention longer.
2 – 3 MONTHS
YOU CAN NOW FOCUS UP TO 40–50 CENTIMETERS
Play with him
-Find the distance at which your child maintains the best attention, zoom in and out until you notice that his eyes are focused on the figure.
-Teach them as follows: place “The eye” in front of your face for five seconds (this helps you increase your concentration) and “The checkerboard”, when you are looking at it, move it to one side and then to the other (like this you favor monitoring).
4 6 MONTHS
-His hemispheres connect and he begins to move his hands in search of an object.
It is no longer just about seeing: you want to grab what you see.
-Focus at different distances, start exercising eye-hand coordination.
Play with him.
-The ducklings. The music boxes on which dolls move attract their attention. With his eyes he follows the movement of objects and he may easily want to hunt them down with his hands.
-The rain stick. You can build a rain stick with a plastic bottle in which you place stones of different shades, small and large buttons … show it to the baby, turning it gently downwards, so that he can observe how the objects fall.
The puppet
Make up a story with her for your child. Take advantage of this moment to zoom in and out, this will make you follow her with your eyes and try to touch her. Observe how far your child looks at her comfortably, which one she stops paying attention to, which one she wants to touch…
7 – 12 MONTHS
-Control the muscles that allow you to roll your eyes in all directions.
-You can now command your senses: it increases coordination, balance and memory.
-It is very sharp.
-What you see propels you to move not only of the hands, but of your entire body.
-About nine months he looks at the details.
-When he starts to crawl, he follows the objects, catches them, touches and manipulates them.
-The crawling helps you calculate distances and focus more.
Play with him
Bubbles. Blow bubbles in front of the baby. He will look at them first, then try to exploit them. Practice focusing different distances and adjusting your hand to changing distances.
Strollers. Get a set of car or ball ramps that slide down to stimulate more complex eye movements.
Scarf with surprise. Wrap rattles, rattles, or balls in a handkerchief; gradually drop the objects on the ground and he will launch after them.