Baby is here! Weeks 1-2

Baby is finally here! It is an overwhelming time, and a time of barely any sleep. For mammas, there is that additional pain and discomfort you are still experiencing from the labor and birth part. You and baby are both trying to get the hang of things and fall into some sort of routine. In this period of time, it is more important to make sure everyone's needs are being met than making sure you are targeting language goals. That being said however, there are periods that baby is awake and if you're not napping, instead of you just having them lie next to you while you play on your phone, there are things you can do to keep baby stimulated and engaged. 

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Try targeting one sense at a time. I find it's easy to overstimulate baby and it's really best to focus on one thing at a time.

My go to rotations are:
* Baby Massage (sensory)
* Listening to music (auditory)
* Looking at black and white photos (visual)
* Talking/Playing (pragmatic)

Massage/ Talking

For baby massage, I use coconut oil or grape-seed oil. This seemed to help with their peeling skin as well. I also found a blend of essential oils if you have those at home. Some say not to use essential oils just yet, but it's something you can ask your doctor about if you are worried. You should always check to make sure the specific oils you are using are safe for the child's age and to discontinue use if there is an allergic reaction. I found this recipe made by other professionals and did not make it up myself. 

The essential oil blend I used is:
10 drops Frankincense
10 drops lavender
​Fractionated coconut oil
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Listening to music

I choose specifically some complex classical music for baby to listen to. I love Rousseau on You Tube. I love watching the notes go by kind of like guitar hero. Don't forget that music is another type of language.

At birth, babies possess the ability to attune their listening and language for the phonemes or sounds of language in their environment. So if a baby was born in China, they would start to hear the phonemes of the Mandarin language and phonemes from other languages, such as German, for example, would begin to fade after some time. It is quite remarkable. This amazed me when I learned it in graduate school. The language you speak, baby hears all the time as long as they are near you. If you speak more than one language, they keep phonemes from both or all the languages they are exposed to. 

Music is a language all it's own. By exposing your baby to complex classical music, you are exposing them to many different notes and sounds as you would a language. I try to put this music on at least once per day. 

visual

A super easy thing to do is get some black and white books. If you have the LovEvery Baby subscription you will have lots of black and white cards. I stand them up when baby is laying down or when baby is laying on top of me I just get one of our black and white books and flip through the pages. I narrate as I turn the pages, labeling animal names, shapes, body parts, etc.