Sleeping Beuty
Tasnim Amani : Month 3
Your baby will smile more and babble on delightfully. He will begin to reach out more for things and hold onto small objects without dropping them. He is gaining more and more strength and his motor skillsare improving rapidly. Play lots of games with your child and encourage him to begin to turn pages of a cardboard or plastic storybook.
He may even be able to turn multiple pages of a magazine but could easily tear them so don’t give him anything that you are not willing to have destroyed. He is learning more about cause and effect and will lovesplashing his arms and legs to enjoy the movement of the water.
He may even be able to turn multiple pages of a magazine but could easily tear them so don’t give him anything that you are not willing to have destroyed. He is learning more about cause and effect and will lovesplashing his arms and legs to enjoy the movement of the water.
Motor Skills : Month 3
Gross Motor Skills
Your baby’s movements are now more controlled and he can perform many actions. He can turn his head around whether he is seated or lying down.
When lying on his back he may move his head forward to look at his hands playing with his feet, which he has recently discovered. He can cross his feet and move one foot to touch his other leg, and he moves his hands and feet in unison.
He can hold himself up when on his tummy by placing his weight on his forearms, and now keeps his head at a 90-degree angle with the ground.
He can roll from his tummy to his back but can’t yet roll from his back to his tummy. When he is pulled up on to his feet he will extend his legs and hold his body in a vertical position, in the same plane as his hands and feet. Your baby loves sitting up but he requires some support so you need to watch him as he can quickly roll over. His muscles continue to strengthen and he will keep practicing new skills as they appear. He is beginning to distinguish his body and his actions as separate from the outside world.
Fine Motor Skills
Your baby can use his hands with more precision but he has not yet learned how to use his fingers separately or grasp objects properly. He can hold on to small objects without dropping them, and can pull dangling objects towards himself. He is still inaccurate in his judgments of distance and location when he reaches out to take an object, however his vision is improving. He continues to place objects in his mouth like his hands, fingers, toys and clothing.
Language : Month 3
Your baby will continue to form new sounds such as “da”, “ba”, “ma”, “pa”, and “ga” and he begins to understand that objects, including people, havedifferent names. Although his communication at this point may seem tobe random, he is experimenting with his voice. It won’t be until around 6 to 8 months that he can combine vocal sounds to make simple words like “ma-ma”, da-da” and “bye-bye” and understand their meaning.
He communicates using facial expressions such as smiling when he is happy and scrunching up his face when he doesn’t like something. He recognizes tones and becomes upset when he hears an angry, startling or loud voice even though he can’t yet understand the words spoken. He can laugh and expresses happiness with sounds like giggles, squeals and gurgles. Your baby will be able to locate the direction of a sound and imitates noises that he hears frequently.
Emotion : Month 3
Your baby will show a range of moods through his sounds and facial expressions. He responds positively to beingtouched and carried and prefers to be held rather than to lie down. He tries to gain and hold the attention of people and will make sounds to help him. He is more interested in socializing and may start to cry if playtime is disrupted. He can wait to be fed and will entertain and sooth himself.
What Your Baby Enjoys : Month 3
Games
Play lots of games with your child. He loves to express emotions like happiness and excitement and will delight in jokes and games that are humorous. He enjoys handling toys that make noise and objects that he can manipulate – even the pages of a storybook. He likes being the centre of attention so have several people play games with him. Bath time is now more fun because he is learning that his actions cause things to happen and he will move his arms and legs vigorously to splash the water.
How Can You Help : Month 3
- Use activity boards to help your child manipulate objects of different shapes and sizes.
- Tie a rattle to his wrist and show him how to move his wrist and body to make the rattle shake.
- Play hiding games where he has to “discover” you by covering your head with a handkerchief and let him pull it off. Do the same with his favorite toys.
- Give him objects to grasp and then take them away to encourage him to open and close his hands.
- Speak in tones that are appropriate to the emotion you are feeling, but avoid using an angry or overly loud voice.
- Explain everything that you do, and tell him the names and labels of the objects he encounters.
- Touch each part of his body and tell him the name of the body part and then help him to touch you while you repeat the names so he learns what they feel like.
- Show him picture books and say the sound that the object makes, as well as its name, like saying, “moo” when you point to a picture of a cow.
- Consciously use all the different sensory forms of communication – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic - even if you may have a preference for one of them.
