Your Child At Play

Entertainment For You and Your Baby

• What: Your Child At Play: Birth to One Year book
• Why: Great ideas for long days at home with your infant
• Where: Amazon

I first stumbled across this series of books fourteen years ago at my local library. I checked it out for work, and loved it so much I not only checked it out again and again for the same child and subsequent ones, but once I had my own child, I bought a copy to keep from Amazon.

If you’re looking for ideas to entertain your little one, this book is a gem. It includes tons of activities you can do to entertain your little one organized by month. Each month has a great introduction on what babies learn at that age, from recognizing faces and grasping toys to gross motor skills like rolling and sitting. It offers fabulous activities to encourage all these skills and more, using simple household items and other inexpensive materials. If you’re on a budget after baby or because of unpaid time from work, this book helps prevent spending on more expensive toys they won’t love half as much. As an added bonus, it has great ideas to keep you from getting bored. And it includes a variety of songs to sing to well-known tunes.

Because the book breaks down into age-appropriate sections, it takes only a few minutes to read the portion for your baby’s age. So unlike books you need to read from cover to cover to incorporate the ideas, you can grab this book and read one paragraph and have a new idea to try in the time it takes to find the book where you left it.

The series features more books on older ages, but I never graduated from the first twelve months. Don’t expect up-to-date information on child rearing or technology. But aside from that, playing with infants hasn’t changed much in the years since this book was published, and I’d recommend it for anyone staying at home with their infant for six week to six months or more.