5 Ways you can help your baby grow emotionally

Developing your baby’s emotions is crucial so here are our tips on how to help you help your baby’s social and emotional development.

1. Helping your little one in the womb

You can help your baby’s brain development before they are born by consuming omega 3 fatty acid DHA. This is proven to help baby’s brain development and is most commonly found in fish, but there is a supplement you can take if fish is off the menu in your pregnancy dietry needs. A similar effect could be achieved by including more oily fish in your child’s diet.

2. Pay attention to your baby

Sounds obvious but we could probably all pay a little more attention than we do. When you are with your baby, try to avoid getting distracted by your mobile as your baby will get used to tuning out when you’re around. Engage with your baby as much as possible from a young age even before they understand and can engage back. It all helps their attention development so it will help them concentrate for longer as they grow. 

3. Language development

Helping your little one to develop their language can start way before they understand what you are saying or able to repeat words they hear. It’s a great to idea to talk to your baby from the word go even if it’s simply ‘shall we go for a walk to the park?’ Babies concentrate better on what you’re saying when you speak slowly, if you speak at your normal speed you may notice your baby doesn’t look at you. Sounding excited and singing to a high-energy singsong can help your baby tune in to you.

4. Cause and effect

You’ll hear this term a lot. It’s basically how your baby learns association between things. For example, if the doorbell rings say to your baby ‘That was the doorbell, shall we go and see who it is?’ Or try hide and seek with a teddy so that they can learn that when you hide it behind your back it’s not disappeared, just moved and will be back. Helping them learn to predict what is going to happen can be done simply by repeating the same act over and over whether it’s hiding the same toy and then showing them it comes back, or reading the same book over and over.

5. Essential toys every baby’s toy box should have:

1. Books – great way to introduce your baby early to language
2. Visual toys – Toys with sharp colour contrasts benefit your baby’s visual development (even black and white)
3. Touch toys – Toys with a variety of textures will aid your baby’s early motor skills as they try to feel all the different textures
4. Imitation toys – Babies love to copy what they see so even babies under a year will love a toy mobile or shopping trolley
5. Listening/hearing toys – Anything that makes noise they will love, babies from newborn will love the noise from a rattle.