Infant education: When and how to start educating your baby

The term “infant education” sounds intimidating, but, actually, infant education can be a wonderful interactive experience for you and your baby. This fancy term refers to the parents’ ability to stimulate thinking in their newborn. Experts agree that if parents start infant education early, the child will have better thinking and reasoning skills as he/she grows. Determining how and when to start infant education is the hardest part for parents.

Most specialists encourage parents to start educating an infant early. In fact, theAmerican Pregnancy Association states your new baby shows awareness of situations at 3 months and is able to make language connections between the 7th month and the 8thmonth. But, infant education does not have to start on a particular month in the baby’s life. You can begin to gradually working in techniques that will stimulate your baby.

How do you start educating your infant? When most people think of infant education, Baby Einstein and other types educational DVD’s usually come to mind. These programs have fallen under heavy criticism recently due to DVD’s being used for infant entertainment and distraction. However, studies have shown that learning DVD’s can work when used correctly; you can visit HowStuffWorks to see how to correctly use Baby Einstein with your infant. While throwing in a DVD seems like a pretty easy option to educate your baby, there are other techniques to promote your child’s learning potential.

With very young babies, infant education can involve techniques parents use everyday. Parents can stimulate a newborn’s senses to aid in development of muscle coordination, memory, and attention span. Connecting sound to certain objects is a learned skill; try shaking a rattle one side of the baby’s head, waiting until the baby follows with his/her eyes or head, and then, moving the rattle to the babies feet or to the other side of the head. You can also try heating a teether in the microwave until it is just a little warm, getting another teether out of your fridge, and letting the baby feel the difference between warm and cold. Think of your own ideas to stimulate your baby to learn through the senses!

Simply interacting with your baby can be the best education of all. Repeat the coos and sounds he/she makes; this will encourage an infant to understand how communication works. Sing to your young infant and read books to promote the learning of pitch and tones. Finally, play games that encourage movement and identification, such as, touching the baby's hand to your a body part on you, stating the body part’s name, touching the baby's hand to his/her same body part, and repeat the name.

Come up with your own ideas and games to play to create learning. As long as the game is interactive, even a very young infant can start the learning process.