I have been reading the forum posts for a while now and wanted to thank you all for the huge amount of advice you have shared. I have a 13 month old daughter and have been showing her the following list of early learning materials for about 8 months:
LM
LMusician
LR
YBCR
Smartbits (app)
Doman flashcards (an app)
Animals/fruits/veg/vehicles/everyday objects flashcards app
Kidstv 123 youtube videos
Busy beavers youtube videos
Occasional storynory audiobooks
Occasional SAG video books
We listen to an hour or so of classical music daily and I read her lots of stories. I also play quick games with crayola flashcards that we have, more for object recognition than reading.
She has been walking since 10.5 months but didn’t crawl. We have recently started baby gymnastics class once weekly and try to get her to the soft play centres at least once a week.
I would appreciate any advice anyone has for other things that we should be doing as I don’t really know much about this stuff except what I have read on Brillkids. I am concerned that she doesn’t really talk yet, only babbles but not making any sense yet. I hope I am doing it all right!
Hi, I’m from the north east of Scotland, although I live abroad now. Whereabouts in the UK are you? I have a 4 year old son & I have a little girl about the same age as yours.
You are doing really well with all the exposure you are providing, the fact you are doing anything, means that you are doing it right. When you begin to see the amazing results you will know for sure, but that might be a long ways away, keep going! It’s hard not to compare with other babies, my little girl doesn’t say too much yet either, although still manages to be quite opinionated haha. We constantly talk to her so it will come.
One thing you didn’t mention that you might like to look into is sign language for hearing babies. You will be amazed (I use “amazing” a lot about EL) about how much they can communicate… there are several threads covering this topic. A lot less stress on their part to explain what they want & it even helped with potty training. I wanted to follow BSL rather than ASL (which has way more baby focused resources) so I used “Baby Sign”, they have a great little signing dictionary app that I still use. There are a couple of other groups that do it too in the UK so maybe there would be one close to where you are. There are also some new BSL videos on youtube (they weren’t there when I taught my son to sign 3+ years ago!) that I just came across last week when I was searching for the sign for rhino
You will enjoy this forum & love the ideas it provides to interact with your little one, take care
Lois
Wow, good for you! So much activity with your little one. You’re inspiring me to get some apps, we haven’t delved too much into that yet.
My little guy is almost 11months old now. There’s a few of us who have posted intro’s recently. We should start a group thread for updates on our little one’s. It would be nice to have some regular contact with parents with similar aged kids to see what is working, what’s not, etc…
Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to get your little one walking? My guy stands a lot, but doesn’t show much interest in walking. He’s only tried to balance himself a handful of times. If I hold his hands he will typically only take one or two steps before sitting down (although he looks very happy and proud before he does). We play YBCR every night for him before bed. We have a radio flyer walker wagon and he slowly walks it towards the TV, then I back him up to the start again. He does this over and over. lol This is the only time he will attempt walking, HA! If he’s tired he sits down, but that doesn’t happen often. He will usually walk the whole time. It is so cute. I think he doesn’t want to walk because he is a very cautious little guy…
He is starting to say words though! Just in the last two weeks or so he is expanding beyond Mama/Dada/milk to ball, bye, more. I’m pretty sure he’s said “numbers” and “four” a few times. He will also say Moo whenever he sees a cow, and Boo (thanks to the peeka-who book). Not sure if Moo and Boo count as words though. :biggrin: I’ve been using Fowler methods and I’m pretty sure they are working well. Basically just repeating a lot and paraphrasing what they are doing and what you are doing. “you’re touching the ball, you picked up the ball, you put the ball in your mouth”. Also, narrating all your regular routines (bath, diaper change, feeding). It’s pretty simple stuff, but even though I am making a very conscious effort I often still forget to do it.
Best of luck with everything. Thanks for sharing your story and let’s keep in touch!
To answer the question about how we encouraged walking, we didn’t really Our wee one was just so desperate to get moving since she didn’t crawl and was getting frustrated about not being able to get around. She was very motivated to walk from an early age and we just helped her by standing near so that she could try and take a few steps before crashing on to us. The number of steps gradually increased. I don’t blame your boy being cautious with the walking though, our girl had a few cracking falls before she found her balance!
I do the same as you by talking and narrating to her all day, sometimes I get sick of my own voice but I think it must help them loads. I can’t believe how much she knows now, I keep presuming that she won’t know certain objects but then she surprises me! They take in so much more than we think.
Have you been reading many stories to your boy? I try to read loads to my girl but have to constantly change my ‘format’ as she has different phases. For instance, at the moment she won’t let me sit and read a book to her as she wants to turn the pages and even pretend to read it herself. Therefore, I just read it to her in the background as she plays since she seems fine as long as she is busy. I hope some of it goes in to her brain as I ramble on! Haha! Also, she seems quite content to watch video books being read online but my only problem here is that I can’t find many that have subtitles so that she is learning the words!
Our wee one was just so desperate to get moving since she didn’t crawl and was getting frustrated about not being able to get around. She was very motivated to walk from an early age and we just helped her by standing near so that she could try and take a few steps before crashing on to us. The number of steps gradually increased. I don’t blame your boy being cautious with the walking though, our girl had a few cracking falls before she found her balance!