Play & learning

Play is important for your baby’s development. Babies thrive and learn in a loving, caring environment. Babies will touch and explore anything they can reach.

Bright toys near your baby invite them to move to get them. Make sure they are safe for your baby. Safe toys are bigger than a 35mm film cannister and have pieces that cannot be broken, pulled off and swallowed.

Children have no understanding of danger, so need to be kept safe. You may need to either move things out of reach or protect them from dangers (eg using guards for heaters and stairs, safety catches for cupboards and plugs for power sockets).

Your child may enjoy being held, talked to and shown things, listening while you talk, sing, read and repeat nursery rhymes and grasping your hair and your face. They enjoy looking at books and pictures, themselves in the mirror, and lying on the floor, learning to roll and move. Place bright things nearby to encourage them to move to try to get them.

When on the floor on their tummy, roll balls and toys towards and away from them to encourage eye movement and develop their muscles. Play peek-a-boo games, or let them see you hide a toy and then find it themselves.

Other things they may enjoy include:

• playing with plastic containers, blocks, plastic cups, pots and pans
• going for walks and meeting people
• feeling different textures (eg crawling in the grass or lying under a tree on the grass)
• you gently spinning them and dancing with them in your arms.

At 4–8 months they may enjoy playing with toys that:

• they can reach, grasp and chew on as they learn about size, shape, taste and texture by putting things in their mouth
• make noises (eg rattles, squeaky toys)
• hang above them.

At 8–12 months they may enjoy playing with toys that they can:

• bang together
• put inside one another (eg blocks in and out of plastic containers, pots and pans)
• move or pull along
• chase after (eg a rolling ball)
• watch (eg playing with bubbles).

You may like to join a toy library, as they provide a toy-hire service for a small cost. Plunket staff or other well child health providers will be able to tell you if there is a toy library in your area.

Choosing toys

Choose toys that are suited to your child’s age, stage of development and personality.

If the toys are too difficult, your child may become frustrated and, if too simple, may become bored. Try to find toys that can develop skills, encourage imagination, be used in different ways and help them learn about sound, touch and how things work.

To keep your baby safe, check toys are not too small (they need to be larger than a 35mm film canister - about the size of a ping-pong ball), that pieces cannot be broken off, chewed off or pulled off.