I have read throught the forum information of many educational or early stimulation products but there are so many that when the time comes to start, i am a little overwhelmed.
Can you share what you are doing and more or less at what time of the day? Do they sleep to much?
My grandaughter is 1 month old and i think we have to get well organized and have a schedule to follow because if not, i will keep doing sometimes the same things and other time leaving important activiies as tummy time.
| agree you must be organized and 3 steps ahead or you else something has to give. My son is currently 14 weeks old. I have been trying to follow Doman’s how smart is your baby program. So, for the first 4 weeks, I did the following items:
Light activites - the book says 10x a day, and for most days I did get 10 in. I would do them almost immediately after Baby was awake, every time he woke up, including the middle of the night.
Sound activity - the book says 10x a day, and I think I only averaged about 5. I would do them after the light activity, but I wouldn’t do these during the night, so I didn’t get as many as the light.
Tactile - the book says 10x a day, and I would do them while breastfeeding, so I was getting in at least 10 a day.
Mobility - tummy time in crawling track - 10x a day - I put him in the crawling track after every diaper change, and since I EC/Cloth Diaper - I would get about 10 of these in a 24 hour period.
Mobility - Flat Track - Book says 3-4 hours per day, And I did NOT get this done. I could barely get my son to sleep in the track at all, he would just wake and cry. For the first 6 weeks I perservered during his afternoon nap and had him sleep in the crawling track for about 45-60 minutes, but then I gave up. I still don’t do this part of Doman.
Balance Program - I would do 1 balance activity after the light and sound during the day. Most days I get all 15 activities in.
Manaul - grasp - books recommends 10x a day. For the first 4 weeks, I was only doing this once a day, I sorta added it as part of the balance program.
So, for the first 4-6 weeks my days and nights were basically one long never ending quest to complete all the Doman Stuff. Baby would wake up, I would EC and/orchange him, put him in the crawling track for 1 minute, snuggle him, do a light activity, snuggle him, do a sound activity, snuggle him, do a balance activity, snuggle him, change/EC again, breastfeed and do the tactile, and he would fall asleep again. I would sleep. Repeat.
Thank you Kathy for sharing.
Some of the activities are being done by my daughter but since she is breastfeeding most of the time i think it is diffucult to keep up with all that. Nevertheless it gives me a good idea of what you have been doing and i will follow you since my grandaughter is 2 months behind.
Thanks a lot.
Are ther any other moms, dads or grandparents with babies under or around 3 month old and want to share their schedule?
I agree that a schedule is important. There was no way I could keep up with all of the Doman things. My baby was such a sleepyhead. I usually had feedings at 9 12 3 and 5 where I did Doman things. When her dad was home for the other feedings they just plyed. The goal was to do veach of the Doman activities once during each wake time after each feeding. At most that was only half what Doman recommends and I did not always do it. After the noon feeding shewould stay awake longer and I would read to her or dance with her or other things. Bu that was the only time of day she was awake for long. Doman activities can be useful even if you cannot do them as many times as he recommends.Everyone has been amazed by her development. Just do the best you can and it will pay off.
May I say 2010BEBES, you must be an awesome mom and probably will be a great grandmother. Man…I wish I had such a supportive mom…who is soo helpful and would even help with teaching their grandkid. I guess we should take a lesson or two for when we have grandkids … lol
Hi guys. I’m Ryan, I’m 25 and a first time dad. Little Hailey is now 6 months old now but we never really thought much about a schedual. Both Lauren and I live fairly stress free lives and live in a calm quietish environment (I have an electric guitar and drums you see). So when she was sleepy she slept and we fed her when she was hungry. And once Lauren Was back at work then we all har to be up at 6:30am and the sleeping patters sorted them selvesout. In between we read books and had floor time and played then when she got sleepy we gave her a nap. She was great and sleeped through the night from an early age. So in a way Hailey controlls her own wee schedual
There is an article aclled “The Biggest Secret Of Worry-Free Baby Development” at http://www.teachyourbabyinfo.com/category/baby-development/ that sort of touches on the subject.
Hi to all and thanks for your comments.
Wolfwind what you mentioned is exactly what i was looking for. We are taking early education calmly cause my daughter is really tired breastfeeding everytime her baby wants. When i had babies, it was much different and maybe easier. We gave them breastmilk every 3 or 4 hours even if they ask for it or not. I went to work after a month with each baby and we had no idea of educational bits, babies reading etc. Just with my third son (now 26 yrs) i came across Domans book on Teach Your Baby Math and since i like math a lot, i started the program. Really making the cards with the red points was awfull and one more point each time. So i ended it in a short time.
The idea of the SCHEDULE is trying to keep track for ourselfs and have diversity in the things we are doing trying to cover most of the important areas and not only intellectual but emotional and physical.
Besides the schedule we are certain that we have to be in the mood and do it happily and with love paying attention to the baby’s reaction. That will be the best way of seeing if our schedule is ok or it has to be adjusted.
With my grandson i had something similar but started at an older age and that makes a difference.
Ariel, thank you very much for your words, I appreciate them. With my son’s kid was different, he was not fan of early readers and so. Maybe my grandson felt some of this and he make it clear that he likes ‘español’ … our native language so i play with him with encyclopedic bit which he likes a lot. But now with my daughters’ girl she is taking this more seriously than me, i guess and this is something great.
Hi Ryan, welcome to this forum. Sorry for making a long story. I am sure you and Lauren are doing an excellent job with Hailey and are covering the most important things besides being fed and sleeping that is reading time, floor time and playing. I can imagine your baby listening while you play the guitar. Thank you for the link to Baby Development, it is very good. Just as they say , i am ‘looking at all aspects of your baby’s development’. I hope to hear from you more in this forum and am sure you will get wonderfull ideas from the developers of Brillkids products and forum members.
hi everyone… i’m a first time mom and have a 5 week old daughter… i’m new using this webpage and find it really interesting to learn from all your experiences… khatty/wolfwind i was wondering, could you explain me a little bit more about the doman activities? it would be lovely to get some examples
I really recommend getting a copy of Doman’s “How Smart is Your Baby?” It has a fairly complex plan of what to do when to stimulate different areas. But here’s a summary:
The first three areas are sensory: visual, auditory, and tactile. You have a sequence of activities to stimulate each sense. With vision, you start at birth with a dark room and then suddenly turring on a light directly to their eyes, so their pupils react to light. Later you move on to having the baby watch the light move (a flashlight in a dark room). With hearing, I can’t remember as well, but one step is to stimulate the startle reflex by banging two pans together, and then later a 'danger" sound, like a horn. (It was really interesting to me to find that my baby really had no reaction whatsoever to these noises, and scary to know that she wouldn’t be screaming if the fire alarm went off - it seemed weird to want to stimulate these reactions, but when I saw that it made sense.) I forget the first tactile stimulation, but the second was to touch her with a hot washcloth (not burning, obviously!), a piece of ice, or a pinch. Again, it startled me to get no reaction whatsoever from my one-month-old, but Doman points out the lifesaving value of these reactions and so I did it.
The other three areas are motor: forward motion, language, and grabbing things. For motion, just being on the tummy as much as possible; at least 3-4 hours, he advises. Language for the first few months is actually building up breath support by having the baby grab your thumbs and lifting up more and more of her body each time; this expands lung capacity. Grabbing things is taken care of by the same activity. Then you also do balance activities each day: putting her over your shoulder and spinning in circles, on her tummy and each side, rocking her from side to side and head to toe on her stomach, setting her on a changing mat and and pulling it across the floor, trotting with her held close to your chest… that kind of thing. THis is supposed to make her aware of the effects of gravity on her body and help her move more easily.
As you can see, this is very complicated, and this is only for the first three months; there’s more after that. It goes through the whole first year. It’s very intense, and I haven’t done it perfectly, but it was worthwhile in my opinion. I highly recommend the book. Good luck!
