You bring home your baby from the hospital, and those first days are kind of a blur of trying to figure out feeding and schedules and changing diapers and grasping the fact that this baby is YOURS. You are now a parent.
Then you start to settle into a routine. You get the feeding/sleeping down (for the most part), and you start to wonder, "What else should I be doing?" It's fairly simple (most of the time) to get those basic needs down but everyone wants to be a "good" parent and that usually leads to a lot of thought by most moms about what you should be doing with your baby to help them develop?
We all know to do tummy time. Babies hate it, but we push through it. What are other ways you can interact with your newborn? It can be hard because they sleep so much, and most of their awake time is just spent eating. Still, there are things you can do.
It's never to early to start talking to your baby. It totally feels weird at first but just talk to them and tell them what you are doing. Make things you would normally do a conversation. They won't understand you, but they are beginning to hear language and recognize your voice.
I would just talk through my tasks with the girls. "Harper, I'm going to wash the dishes now." Blah Blah. Of course being home all day with a baby kind of made me want to talk to her just to have someone to talk to. ha!
My favorite thing is to sing to my babies. I'm no singer, but that doesn't matter. I would sing song after song to them, and they would just light up. Harper is 3.5 and still wants me to sing to her every night before bed. I like to think she likes music so much because I spent so much time singing to her as an infant.
Another thing to do is sit your baby in the bouncy seat or swing and read books to them. Show them pictures in the books and point to things. You can never read too much to your children, and you can never start too early.
I also liked to "exercise" my kids. Lay them on the ground and do the bicycle with their legs.
I'm not a child development expert or speech therapist; I'm just a mom who is offering a few ideas of how you can spend time with your baby and interact before they can actually interact. And don't worry - in just a few short months - you may get more interaction from them than you really want. Ha!
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