Dads and Play

Playing with your baby is one of the best ways you can get to know each other and for your baby to learn about themselves and the world in which they live. Babies learn through their five senses to develop knowledge, skills and awareness. Your child is stimulated and calmed through the following use of their senses

Your Baby's World (from conception to 6 months)

Senses of the heart

Touch

• Develops head to toe, mouth most developed
• Feels hot, cold and pain
• Develops sense of position in space and movement of one’s body
• Sense of balance
• Calmed and stimulated

Smell

• Knows mum’s breast odour
• Reacts to odours by sucking, crying, change of breathing and facial expressions
• Not recognise unfamiliar scents, i.e. bottle-fed, strangers, masked by perfume
• Learns scents
• Comforted and reassured

Taste

• Distinguishes between sweet, bitter, salt
• Prefers sweet
• Texture
• Calmed and comforted

Sight

• Sensitive to light and darkness
• Sees at arms length
• Stares and scans faces
• Spatial vision on the perimeter
• Reds and greens
• Bold patterns and shapes
• Reassured and stimulated

Hearing

• Insensitive to quiet sounds
• Turns attention to direction of sound
• Tuned to higher pitched, spaced sounds
• Recognises familiar voices and sounds
• Prefers “baby talk”
• Language
• Calmed and stimulated 

Ways to Express Intellectual Strengths

The following table gives some idea of how to bring the senses together with play. These  activities will help your child develop a range of different skill areas. Learning with play works best when your child is having fun. So watch out for your child’s signs of interest and follow their lead.

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