Blog

When you pick up a new baby or pass them to someone for their first cuddle, you often hear comments about making sure that you support their head! Your baby does not have the strength to control their head when they are born. But the ability to control their bodies starts at their head and moves to their toes so you will notice them holding their head steady and moving it to look at things quite quickly. In this blog, we will look at how your baby develops control of their head and the part that primitive reflexes play in your baby’s early head movements.  

Going outside with your baby or child gives them the chance to explore the world in a different way, they can move more, notice changes in weather and see, hear and touch things that they won’t find inside. Playing on a hill provides a particular challenge and a unique set of experiences, in this blog we will focus on the opportunities presented for supporting sensory development.

If your toddler holds a toy brick to their ear, speaks for a moment, and then hands it to you, you probably hold the brick to your ear and immediately start a conversation with the person on the other end of the ‘phone’. I have lost count of how many imaginary cups of tea I have drunk or pretend cakes I have eaten over the years!  We expect our children to pretend and expect to be brought into their play, pretend play is amazing and supports children’s development in many ways. In this blog, I am going to focus on the role of pretend and fantasy play in supporting cognitive development.  

Sleep takes up a lot of your baby’s time and might feature prominently in your thoughts, as well meaning friends and family offer advice about your sleep and about your baby’s sleep. In this blog, we will explore some of what is known about your newborn baby’s sleep.

At My First Five Years, we know that babies, toddlers and children learn through play, but what does learning through play look like for your baby? In this blog, we will explore play and young babies, thinking about how you can play with your baby and how this play supports their development. 

For the first few weeks of your baby's life, crying is an important way for them to communicate their needs. They will, in the next few weeks, start to smile, look and move as a means of communicating but crying will remain an important part of their communication. In this blog, we will look at what is known about crying and young babies and some of the things that might soothe your newborn baby.

Many of us remember the moment our newborn baby gripped our finger for the first time. Your baby curling their fingers around your finger is one of several primitive reflexes which develop in the womb and are present for weeks or months after birth until your baby develops the strength and control to make voluntary movements. In this blog, we explore three reflexes that could be described as grasp reflexes and consider how these link to your baby’s development. 

At My First Five Years, we spend lots of time talking about babies and children and how they develop and learn. We also talk about how, very often, parents are doing things that support their children’s learning without realising.   

When you become a parent, you often find that everyone wants to give you advice. This advice is often well meant but perhaps one of the first lessons that we learn is to choose which advice we take!  

Young children love to move and soon after taking their first steps they often seem determined to unsteady themselves again. Children seek out opportunities to make themselves dizzy by spinning or tipping upside down, or to challenge their balance with swinging or rocking.