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essential movement to enhance your baby's development in the first year
e-Newsletter 3 June 2010
Greetings!
 
If this is your first visit, we are delighted to introduce our new Amazing Babies Moving™ interactive website for parents, caregivers, educators and professionals. If you are a previous customer or have visited our Amazing Babies website before, you will notice that we have changed our logo to better reflect our focus on Movement. Our team has been working behind the scenes for many months to make this an informative and interactive learning experience for you.

Quick Links
Natural Movement Development
There has been very little information available for parents and caregivers about the progression of natural movement development. Our e-newsletter and website will provide you with this valuable and essential information.  
baby grass
Your baby's learning begins with gravity and its effect on his body. For example, in tummy time, when your baby is lifting his head or pushing against the floor, he is exploring his ability to move against the pull of gravity.

During the first year as you follow your baby's movement sequences through which your baby progresses -- first lifting his head, rolling, crawling, sitting, creeping, standing and walking -- you will learn to recognize the essential movement patterns that underlie these developmental milestones.

What an incredible movement agenda that babies accomplish in their first year of development!

Infant Seats, Swings and Exersaucers
There are increasing news items about the lack of play and movement activity for young children (see our April e-newsletter 2).  Today's parents have a wide variety of infant equipment to choose from. Often, babies are moved from one seat to another throughout the day.  All this baby equipment is convenient for parents, but are these options good for babies if they are overused?   These types of seats contain the baby and inhibit their natural desire to move.  Physical activity can be unintentionally reduced, causing an exploration deficit in movement play and motor development.  Babies need movement to build their body, brain and joy of movement!

Move and have fun with your baby every day.  Moving on the floor is the daily activity that gets babies and parents moving.   In movement play on the floor, babies can experiment what they can do with their body.  FloorMoves is the best fitness workout for baby and you.

Parenting Through Movement for a Healthy Lifestyle
FloorMoves Tips for You and Your Baby  
If this is your first e-newsletter, refer to our FloorMoves Tips in our previous e-newsletters.

Body Awareness
Bare Feet in the Pre-Locomotion Stage
Three
Provide a special place so that your baby has freedom to move. Babies enjoy playing and mouthing their feet.  To encourage these explorations, choose a baby bodysuit (a onesie) that is not bulky and allows movement.  Have bare feet to encourage baby's body-to-body contact:
  • hands-to-feet
  • hands-to-one foot
  • foot-to-foot
  • feet-to-mouth explorations
These tactile explorations are common to most babies when they are lying on their back in the pre-locomotion stage. The Pre-Locomotion Stage covers the baby's development from newborn to the end of 5 months.

Bare Feet in the Locomotion Stage

We encourage 'bare feet' in all our activities.

Take your babies socks off - bare feet encourages:
  • Tucking toes
  • Crossing ankle-to-ankle
  • Pushing with their feet
These are a few tactile explorations common to most babies when they are playing on their tummy in the locomotion stage. The Locomotion Stage covers the baby's development from 6 months to the end of 12 months.

We would like to hear from you!  Send us your comments and suggestions for future amazingbabiesmoving e-newsletters.
Observe & Interact with Your Baby

"Keeping the Beat" Vignette

What is a Vignette?  A vignette is a brief, expressive description of an experience.  Our observations and video vignettes are based on the baby's natural developmental movement framework: how babies move, move to learn, communicate and interact in the environment at each stage.  Following is an excerpt from a vignette illustrating Baby-Parent Rhythms.

star blanket
Playing with a lightweight toy giraffe, a 5-month-old baby uses a rhythmic hand gesture and - bangs the floor with the toy in a two-beat rhythm.

Her mother picks up the cue and - vocalizes in response, Yea-ah (two beats) matching her rhythm.

These delightful vignettes provide us with an understanding of how babies and parents attune to each other in their social interactions and enhance the bonding process.

For more information about the original video vignette:
  • Read more on p.88-89 of the Amazing Babies Moving Book.
  • Download the e-chapter,  Directing Discovery - 5 Months.
  • View the Amazing Babies Moving DVD - 5 Months.
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Send this e-Newsletter to...
Please send this newsletter to a parent, expectant parent, grandparent, and caregiver, who would be interested in our Feature Articles and Products that promote Parenting through Movement for a Healthy Lifestyle. Our next e-Newsletter will be sent the first week of August.