If you’re a parent of a 2 month old baby, you may be wondering what are things you can be doing with her to help her grow and develop into a healthy little one. If so, here are eight developmental activities for 2 month old babies that can help with her growth and development.
1. Talk Aloud
This is an age at which your baby will start to make more sounds as if she wants to say something. As she is making the cooing sounds or repeating some vowel-like sounds, just imitate the sounds she makes and sprinkle some simple words and phrases in between your conversations with her.
Talk aloud as much as and as often as you can to your baby about what you’re doing, as you go through your regular day. The interesting thing about this activity is that you don’t have to take too much efforts to get creative and find a topic to interact with her.
2. Read
Read to your baby – every day. It is by far an incredibly valuable activity for more reasons than you can imagine. Reading can encourage your baby to look, gaze, point at, and touch and feel, among others. Even though she can’t understand what you’re saying yet, her brain is busy laying the groundwork to make new connections for language development.
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3. Talk Face-To-Face
Take time out to talk to her face-to-face, as it is an excellent opportunity for displaying a lot of positive emotions, the most important one being laughter. Most of all, face-to-face also reinforces deep bonding between you and your adorable one.
4. Tummy Time
This is by far the most important among the developmental activities for 2 month old babies, as over time, it helps in strengthening the muscles needed for rolling, sitting and crawling.
Make sure that by the time she is four months old, tummy time becomes part of her daily routine, by giving her tummy time for 60 to 90 minutes per day. This can be done easily by having a few sessions of 10 or 15 minutes each spread across the day.
5. Sing to Your Baby
She will love you singing because it’s your voice after all, the voice she would love to listen the most! Babies tune into singing even more than talking. Singing lowers the heart rate of your baby, brings down anxiety and can also release endorphins in her.
Singing lullabies to her can create neural pathways in her brain, which is a very important development especially during the early months. It also helps in soothing, falling asleep and calming her down.
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6. Bicycle
Bicycle her legs a few times and then transition to bringing them together in and out (knee and the ankle at the same level and touching each other) while talking to her face. This activity helps strengthen and develop her leg, core and lower back muscles.
7. Change Positions
Since at this age your baby will be spending a lot of time laying on her back, make sure you regularly change her positions to avoid development of what is called “flat spot” on her head. Flat spots can happen quickly during the first 2 to 3 months of life and relatively slowly when baby is over 3 to 6 months of age.
If your baby is bottle fed, then during feeding time, make sure you alternate the arms with which you hold her at regular intervals, so that one side of the back of her head doesn’t get too much pressure than the other.
Always talk to her from different sides and different angles. For instance, when she is on her back, sit in front of her and rock her body slowly from side-to-side as you talk to her. This will ensure that she keeps watching you no matter what position she is in.
Once she is 2 months of age or above, you can do this when she is doing tummy time. Being on her tummy, it becomes more challenging for her and she will require more strength to track you from side-to-side.
8. Baby Rattle
One of the best age-appropriate toys for your little one is a baby rattle. Shake it slowly, move it around her and get her to follow it and turn her head around. Make sure you move it both clockwise and anti-clockwise, so that she gets to do the activity both ways.
Conclusion
The above 8 developmental activities for 2 month old babies are very simple but highly effective activities for your child. When done consistently over weeks, your little one will benefit a lot in terms of growth and development to prepare herself better for the coming months.
Also Read | 27 Developmentally Appropriate Activities for Infants
Disclaimer: The content in this page and across this website are for informational and educational purposes only. In case of any concerns about your child’s growth and development, please contact your professional child healthcare provider.
