To keep your child occupied while you finish your chores or your work, if you are a working-from-home mom, is a constant struggle in a mom’s life.
This becomes more challenging with small babies (4 -6 months) who have the least attention span. A child of one year or less has an attention span of 3 to 5 minutes which makes it more difficult to engage them in any kind of activity for long.
Though TV or mobile seems the most convenient way to occupy your baby for a longer time, experts keep warning against any amount of screen time for kids under two years of age.
Now you would find numerous products in the marketplace. However, it becomes extremely difficult to know which ones will really engage your baby and which ones are pure marketing gimmicks. So, I have compiled a list of toys that moms across the world are actually using and finding helpful to keep their babies occupied.
Therefore, let’s learn about some toys that moms have been using to keep their babies occupied and entertained.
Toys to Invest in
1. Baby Gyms. Baby Gym is the most loved toy by moms across the world. If you already have it, hold onto it. There is a range of baby gyms or mats available which have all sorts of toys attached that are both colorful to watch and perfect for developing cognitive abilities. The dangling toys on the arches make the babies build their hand-eye coordination. While they attempt to sit up or roll to explore the colors and buttons, it builds on their core strength.
2. Books. Though a baby’s vision begins to fully develop between 5 to 8 months of age, 4-6 months of age might still be the perfect age to introduce books to your baby. Coming from a family of avid readers, the earlier you get them acquainted with books the sooner they will start loving to read. Babies that small might not understand stories or words, but they might enjoy the illustrations, music, or textures. There are even black-and-white books perfect for the developing vision of babies.
3. Audio Entertainment. Surely we know that children younger than 2 years age should not be exposed to any screen, but they can listen to rhymes and songs. You can either play that on TV and switch it to dark mode or use any other gadget like Alexa to get the job done. Search for audios that are age appropriate and you will be amazed to see the reactions of those tiny adorable humans getting excited on different beats and tones. If you have older ones too at home, there are several activities to keep them busy.
4. Crinckle Paper Toys. If you are a new mom and finding toys to occupy your baby, don’t forget how our little bundles of joy brighten up when they have something in their hand that sounds crinkle-y. I still remember how my baby used to love to play with chocolate inside a wrapper. You will find a lot of options in this category if you just google crinkle paper toys. Just buy a few for your baby and be ensured that they are going to be engrossed in it for quite some time.
5. Car Seat Activity Arch Toys. You can bring the car seat and place your baby for a while with his favorite arch toys attached to it. Please keep in mind that keeping the baby in a car seat for long hours is not advisable. However, if there is a dire need to do some urgent work, you can comfortably do it for some time.
Please bear in mind that for that small baby to enjoy any of the above-mentioned activities it will be essential that he is well-fed and not sleepy. Because we all know what can that do to our little ones.
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