HOW YOU CAN PROMOTE EARLY LANGUAGE FOR YOUR CHILD (0-2YEAR OLD)

Language is regarded as one of the prime areas that underpin all other learning. Thus, it is very essential that you commence the support of your child’s language development from his/her earliest days. 

You must start talking to your baby from his earliest moment so that he could build his early language skills.

We need to talk and interact with babies from birth. Babies and toddlers need help to learn how to interact with other people, and children need to build this good store of knowledge in their earliest years when the brain is at its most receptive. Unfortunately, not every parents realizes this. Many parents feel silly speaking to their babies, as they couldn’t answer them. We must speak to our babies. Talking to babies helps their brains prepare for language learning.

The following activities are based on the psychology of child development that you can use to promote early language for your child under two years of age.

Face-to-Face 

         
You can help develop communication skills by using lots of fun face-to-face activities. It is important to bring your face close to a baby’s face – 20–30cms (8–12 inches) away – as this is where they see best. Another important thing is to exaggerate your facial expressions: make your smiles bigger and hold your surprised face a bit longer than you would with older children to give time for babies to take in what you are doing.

Using Rhymes 

Mom singing "Head to Toes" 

Music can lower stress and give a boost to learning. An upbeat rhyme can energize and signal play, whilst a slow tune can calm, reassure and create a reflective atmosphere.

One of these might be diaper changing, which is itself a great opportunity for face to face interaction. Singing a little rhyme you have created can be a good language learning opportunity. For example, say the child’s name and sing something like, “John, John take your diaper off; John, John take your diaper off” then “John, John put your diaper on, John, John put your diaper on”, you can do that to the tune of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” – it is a very simple idea but one that is effective. You can also invent little songs like this to develop an early form of awareness that there are words for putting socks, trousers, jumpers, dresses, coats and shoes on and off.

The Dance of Communication  

You can also try copying a child’s little playful movements such as head moving side to side and forward and back, and smiling, and the expressive hand movements and face touching. When your baby pats your cheeks, pat your face too, then pat your baby’s face gently to initiate a turn-taking game. Say in a song way, “Mary’s patting my face, patting my face”. Then pat your baby’s face gently saying, “I’m patting Mary’s face, patting Mary’s face”. Change the expression and tone of your voice to keep the baby’s interest in looking at you.

Making use of the activities suggested above will enhance your child language and communication development, alongside his cognitive and emotional growth, in a healthy way. You will observe as your child follows his interests and explores his environment in fun ways, while interacting with you through language learning activities. 

Bilingual Baby Boy

Girl Imitating Mother

UNDERSTANDING YOUR BABY’S SLEEP

Are you struggling with your baby’s sleep?

Are you worried about your baby’s night waking and not ‘sleeping through the night?

Are you one of the parents who think that their children have sleep problem?  

I ask you as an adult, do you sleep all through the night? Ironically, nobody actually sleeps through the night – child or adult. Sleep is not that simple. We don’t just go to sleep at night and wake in the morning; we move through a series of different sleep cycles and often wake in between.

Let’s look at the main two phases of sleep known as ‘Rapid Eye Movement’ (REM), or ‘Active Sleep’, and ‘Non- Rapid Eye Movement’ (NREM) or ‘Quiet Sleep’.

At the start of a sleep cycle we enter NREM, moving from a drowsy state through to a light sleep to a much deeper level where arousal based on environmental triggers is minimal. At the end of this phase we move into REM, which is a bizarre blend of deep sleep and a high level of brain activity. REM sleep plays host to vivid dreams and nightmares, whilst NREM is the host to night terrors and bed-wetting.

Non- Rapid Eye Movement Sleep

Rapid Eye Movement Sleep

 At night we move through different cycles of REM and NREM, and often wake at the end of a sleep cycle, although sometimes we may be so drowsy we don’t remember it. 

An average adult sleep cycle lasts for around 90 minutes, whereas for a 0-3years old it is around 45 minutes. This means that, on an average night, an adult has around 5 sleep cycles, whereas a 0-3years infant will have an average of 10 sleep cycles. Or better put, children have 10 chances of waking between sleep cycles at night if their needs aren’t met or something startles them.

A baby will spend between 40 and 50 per cent of their sleep in REM. For a one-year-old this figure will be around 35 per cent, and for a two-year-old, around 30 per cent. Contrast this to an adult who spends on average only 20 per cent of their sleep in REM.   Therefore having more REM sleep is beneficial to babies. Biologically speaking, it’s not a problem: its life saving! Do not force your baby to take more (deeper) sleep than he or she is biologically programmed for, there is almost always a price to pay for it.

Five steps to cope with your baby’s sleep:

1.     Reset your expectations on how long your child should sleep.  All children are different – some need more sleep, some need less. Babies and toddlers by nature are ‘poor’ sleepers; this is totally normal and certainly not an indication of any parenting failure.

 2.     Make changes in your daily routine life to cope better. Try and go to bed earlier, get some help around the house or catch up on sleep at weekends.

 3.     Children shouldn’t be put to bed too early. The average bedtime for 0–3-year-olds is around 8:30pm. This is the time scientists found works best for most toddlers. If your baby attends crèche/daycare, you must give time for the cortisol levels to fall after returning home before taking him to bed. The cortisol is the hormone that keeps us awake and active, and research shows it takes around two hours to fall. In other words, children need to be at home from crèche/nursery, winding down for at least two hours before bedtime.

4.     Remove as much light as possible from the bedroom. Electric lighting, particularly modern energy-saving light bulbs and blue/white/yellow coloured children’s night lights, inhibit melatonin – the hormone of sleep. The best option is no light source, but if you must put light, use a red bulb, which doesn’t inhibit melatonin.

5.     Be patient with your child. The state of sleeplessness won’t last forever, your child will start to sleep more as s/he gets older – and one day you will have a teenager who refuses to get out of bed before early in the morning.