VisualEyes
Recently, I've been reading up on other new mommas' blogs and about infant development. This led to feelings of great guilt on my part, because I discovered (much to my horror) that I wasn't stimulating my baby enough. Some bloggers already knew that babies like 100% contrast images best, so they had prepared a bunch of black-and-white "stuff" for their newborns to look at. Keeners. This would, in theory, help build visual acuity and also stimulate learning in their wee ones.
Well, I hadn't done any of that up until yesterday, when the guilt sank in deep and I decided to print off some black-and-white patterns to make into a sign and a bunch of flash cards for Baby Loquacious. Here she is enjoying the sign as it hangs from her playpen:
Of course, she enjoyed it (for nearly 30 minutes!), and my guilt was sufficiently eased. However, much as she liked looking at the patterns during her "alert time" post-feeding/changing/burping, it wasn't like she was going crazy with excitement over the new images. In fact, I would say she was only engaged and enjoying it because she was wanting to play and hang out in her play pen, and she was in a good mood. The cranky version of her wanted nothing to do with the patterns, as evidenced by the loud wailing that ensued after I showed her three flashcards while cuddling her in my arms earlier this morning.
Then today, I came across this article from the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, which pretty much challenges everything that I had read and that has caused me such guilt as a momma. Turns out, babies see a little more than we give them credit for, and there is no need to go out of our way to surround them with high-contrast patterns. Huh. This might explain why Baby Loquacious also loved the light-up star that plays music (detached from her playmat), and spent a good 30 minutes this morning gazing at that and hanging out on her tummy.
So, lesson learned. Before I invest an hour or two of effort into anything, I should probably do my research and read up on the topic. Also, babies are smarter than we give them credit for.
Well, I hadn't done any of that up until yesterday, when the guilt sank in deep and I decided to print off some black-and-white patterns to make into a sign and a bunch of flash cards for Baby Loquacious. Here she is enjoying the sign as it hangs from her playpen:
Then today, I came across this article from the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, which pretty much challenges everything that I had read and that has caused me such guilt as a momma. Turns out, babies see a little more than we give them credit for, and there is no need to go out of our way to surround them with high-contrast patterns. Huh. This might explain why Baby Loquacious also loved the light-up star that plays music (detached from her playmat), and spent a good 30 minutes this morning gazing at that and hanging out on her tummy.
So, lesson learned. Before I invest an hour or two of effort into anything, I should probably do my research and read up on the topic. Also, babies are smarter than we give them credit for.
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