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Infants learn many important skills from colorful baby toys like Lamaze toys. At this age (birth to one year), appropriate neurological development is fostered through stimulation of the five senses, as well as a growing awareness of cause and effect. Elementary physical skills are fostered through grasping and shaking rattles and batting at mobiles. Language skills find their start in the cooing games that infants may play with an adult or while looking at themselves in the mirror.
An infant loves to look, and simple, high-contrast shapes help him to practice this skill. He’s fascinated by things that move, from ceiling fans to baby mobiles. And faces, smiling faces or funny faces, he soon begins to try to move his little face around in imitation of the expressions he sees.
Babies also love sounds, from squeaks, rattles, crinkles and jingles. They shake the rattle they stop and listen. They shake again. They’re exercising their hearing as well as their motor skills, and they’re putting the two together. Their little mind is working, too, as they become aware of the cause and effect relationship of shaking and sound, not-shaking and silence.
Rolling over and batting a different toy, they compare the sound it makes. Aha! There is a different cause and effect here. Blue rattle sounds sandy when I shake it. Red ball jingles when I bat it.
Infants love baby toys that combine several textures and colors as well as different sounds. They squeeze and touch the different parts and even chew on them, enjoying the contrasts between hard bumpy handles and soft, velvety middle, crinkly extension that makes a crackle sound when you squeeze it versus dangling bell that jingles.
Well-designed baby toys have just the right degree of complexity. A few different options on a toy can keep baby from becoming bored. Too much, however, and he either becomes overstimulated and cries or he doesn’t understand at all and isn’t interested.
Older babies may enjoy “doing” things with their toys, such as rolling balls or pulling little wheeled vehicles on a string. They may even begin to stack things or practice put one item inside another.
For their careful consideration of what’s fun as well as developmentally enriching, some toys have earned international recognition and won awards. The colorful, linkable animals from Lamaze toys have won some of these, but parents know it’s not the fancy awards that matter.
Does their baby like the toy? Does it encourage him to play in developmentally appropriate ways? If so, it is a success. If not, it doesn’t matter if it has won ten awards.
But so many parents talk about how much their baby loves Lamaze toys, and how it does seem to stimulate their senses with just the right degree of complexity to hold their interest and spark appropriate neurological development. They see their baby happily practicing elementary physical skills, and even language skills. Baby loves it, moms and dads love it, “This toy is a success!” they say.
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