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Welcome to the My First Five Years Blog. Here you will find all sorts of information, ideas and activities that will help you to support your child.

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  • Cognitive,
  • C35.2,
  • Child

Early reminiscing with your child may help them share feelings in the future

6 min read Read Now
  • C8.2_potty learning

Can it really be time to think about a potty? Yes, and it's not as scary as it sounds!

5 min read Read Now
  • FM7.2_potty

Big news in the world of potty training! And you might want to read about it sooner rather than later...

3 min read Read Now
  • GM17.5_potty training

Time for potty training? Here's the latest advice on how to manage it

7 min read Read Now
  • SEN1.4

The importance of touch for your newborn's emotions

3 min read Read Now
  • C2.1

Hands, mouth and brain – why your baby explores their hands with their mouth

1 min read Read Now
  • FM8.2_EC

Have you heard of Elimination Communication toilet training? Here’s a quick explainer...

3 min read Read Now
  • Cognitive,
  • C35.1,
  • Imaginative Play

Let’s pretend – the power of imaginative play

3 min read Read Now

Latest Baby Posts

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  • Sensory,
  • Play Ideas,
  • Baby,
  • FM16.1

Feeling ready for some sand play? Here are our tips

Playing in a sandpit holds fond childhood memories for many of us. Now your baby is slightly less likely to put everything they meet into their mouth, you might be considering introducing them to sand play at home. Here’s our advice for doing it without turning your house into a building site!  

 Sand play can be brilliant for your baby – and for you 

2 min read Read Now
  • Language,
  • Baby,
  • C16.3

Useful tips when giving instructions to your toddler

Being able to follow instructions is a basic life skill, and one that will help your toddler in countless ways throughout their life, in all sorts of places. 

Here are ways you can support your toddler with following instructions: 

1 min read Read Now
  • Baby,
  • walking,
  • SE13.2

What inspires a baby to walk?

An interesting study was carried out in 2021 into what motivates babies to walk. According to most studies, babies walk because they want to reach a destination: a person, a place or an object. But is this actually true? Here we look at this new study, and the conclusion it came to. 

Learning to walk in the home 

2 min read Read Now
  • Language,
  • Baby,
  • S 9.1,
  • S9.1,
  • babble

Chitter chatter: your baby’s voice is ever evolving

It’s likely that your baby will be chatting away to themselves by now: making lots of different noises like squeals, oohs and other vocal sounds.  

These different sounds all mean that your baby wants to chat to you. Chat back by repeating the noises they make, making up your own sounds or using words (or a mixture of all three of these sounds). 

1 min read Read Now
  • Gross Motor,
  • Baby,
  • GM9.5

Making sense of space

Did you know, by moving in a variety of ways your baby is developing their spatial perception? Spatial perception helps us understand our bodies in relation to the environment. 

When babies start to move around, they learn much more about the spaces they are in.  

1 min read Read Now
  • Social & Emotional,
  • Language,
  • Baby,
  • S-E6.1

The still face experiment and what it tells us about talking to your baby

Your baby's smiles and coos probably give you all the encouragement you need to keep chatting. But it's good to know that these conversations support your baby's development. When you smile and talk to them, they learn how to have a chat and make friends. And even if you can't respond straight away every time, waiting for a moment helps them to develop resilience. The still face experiments tell us more about the importance of these early interactions. 

The still face paradigm is an experimental design first developed in the late 1970s to see if babies were active participants in communication. In research using this approach, scientists watch babies during three different interactions with an adult. First, the adult responds as they usually would, then they interrupt the interaction, keeping their face still or neutral, before returning to their usual interaction.  

2 min read Read Now
  • Gross Motor,
  • Baby,
  • GM14.1,
  • walking

Should they be walking now? Things to think about if your child still prefers crawling or shuffling

Even when you know all children develop at their own pace, it can be hard to resist the temptation to compare your baby’s progress with other children. If your friends’ children all seem to be walking, but your little one still likes to crawl you might begin to wonder if you should be worried – so here are a few things to think about.  

 

A broad range of ‘typical’  

2 min read Read Now
  • Sensory,
  • Baby,
  • SEN7.3

Why bouncing, rocking and swinging help to develop more than just balance

As your baby develops more control of their head and body and can hold their head upright, they might enjoy gentle bouncing, rocking and swaying games. As well as being a new way to play together, these movements will support your baby’s developing sensory systems.  

To develop balance, we need to move 

1 min read Read Now
  • Language,
  • S2.2,
  • Baby

All babies make the same first sounds, no matter where they’re born, and have the potential to learn any language in the world

Have you ever wondered how babies learn language? Those little sounds they make right from birth is the start of their linguistic journey. 

Research shows that babies start to make sounds that resemble ‘ooh’, and ‘ahh’ and ‘ee’ first.[1] 

2 min read Read Now
  • Social & Emotional,
  • S-E2.2,
  • Baby

All smiles! Connecting, communicating and feeling good

When you hear your baby's first giggle, it becomes your family’s collective mission to get as many smiles and laughs from them as you can. Smiling and laughter demonstrate an important step in your child’s social and emotional development and becomes part of their toolbox as a way of communicating with you.  

Smiling is a great way of creating social interactions 

1 min read Read Now
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