Choosing developmental toys for your baby can bring us joy or frustration. It is important to choose toys that are age appropriate. As your baby grows, she goes through different stages of development, and toys that are age-appropriate for her are geared toward developing those skills during that time.
There are 7 elements of development.
The five senses. Through the five senses, babies receive information from their environment, so that they are able to explore and process it. Our babies’ senses open up the world to them and help expand the range of their understanding. When our babies see, they learn to distinguish between size, shape, colors and movement. They hear sounds, with their volume, pitch and pitch. They taste and smell, they capture and feel the texture, the temperature and the weight.
Gross motor development involves the large muscle group that controls the head, shoulders, arms, back, abdomen, and feet.
Fine motor development involves developing control over the group of small muscles (in the palms of the hands and fingers, and around the mouth and eyes) that allow us to perform specific, highly controlled movements, such as grasping and manipulating. objects, coordinating our eye and hand movements (hand-eye coordination), speaking, and moving our eyes.
Language and communication. Receptive verbal skills precede the ability to speak, and this is a much better indication of your baby’s developing language skills than her verbal repertoire in the first few months of life.
Cognition. Babies are born with a variety of cognitive abilities that help them acclimate to their new reality outside of the womb. They are constantly learning, and every day their cognitive abilities grow and develop.
Object permanence: During the first few months of a newborn’s life, the entire world as they know it is what is before their eyes. As soon as something disappears from his sight, it’s as if it never existed. Gradually, the world opens up to encompass what is beyond his senses, and he begins to think and imagine people and objects that he does not see in front of her. This is object permanence: the ability to understand that objects still exist after they are no longer in view. Object permanence is an important element in the infant’s intellectual and emotional development. As soon as a baby is able to conjure up an image of a person or object in her mind, she is also capable of thinking cognitively: remembering, imagining
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, encompasses all the social and emotional skills that make up our character.
When choosing developmental toys, it’s important to keep the recommended age in mind, as babies develop certain skill sets at certain times during their first year. If the toy is too small, your baby will get bored. If the toy is too fancy, your baby will get frustrated.
It is also important when choosing developmental toys for your baby that they are safe, environmentally friendly, and developmental toys that meet or exceed the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), Code of Federal Regulations (CFR ) of the Consumer. Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and European standard EN-71 (CE) meaning no sharp edges, no small parts, tested for flammability, NO LEAD or lead paint, NO heavy metals or toxic elements .