Although playing is considered entertaining it is also an important aspect that is crucial for your toddler. Holding, waving, or playing peekaboo is known to improve your baby’s sensing ability as well as make him interact appropriately. Parents may think that a toddler does not require play at all especially because they are too small, however there are numerous activities that will be appropriate for a toddler.

Below are some fun ideas that children find interesting during their playtime particularly at early stages of their life.

Engaging Playtime Activities for Toddler

Here are some engaging playtime activities for a toddler. 

Soft Music and Lullabies

It is nice to expose your toddler to soft music and melodies as this will be more soothing and interesting to the baby. With soothing lyrics or tunes, you can calm your baby down and also stimulate the listening pattern of your baby. To calm the baby, you can sing different types of music, hum or even sing to the baby while rocking the child. It will have rhythm and melody that will engage the toddler, help create a feel of calmness while at the same time enhancing bonding between you and your child.

High-Contrast Visuals

To attract the attention of the babies, new-borns are provided with black and white patterns since their vision is still under development. Holding your baby’s attention means giving him her contrasting images, such as black-and-white toys, cards, or books to sharpen their visual focus. They can be hand held right before the face of the baby and then, slowly, the objects could be swung from side to side to capture the baby’s attention. This activity effectively contributes to improving your toddler babies’ vision and also can be interesting during play.

Gentle Massage

Babies benefit from gentle massaging to the extent that it is also a form of physical affection that helps in their development especially when exercised on new born babies. Employ tendering baby-safe oil or lotion and gliding your hands in clockwise and anti-clockwise circular motions on the baby’s arms, legs, his back and tummy respectively. It helps your baby to be more touch-aware, improve on their sleeping habits and helps to calm your baby/child whenever they are cranky or uncomfortable. Besides, the moments spent massaging helps to build up an emotional bond between you and the kid.

Interactive Talking and Cooing

Babbling and making baby-like sounds or vocal expressions with the baby is one of the most recommended ways to support language development in a toddler. Although, you will not be holding a one-word conversation with your baby, it will be much amused by volume and changing tune of the voice. Interact with your baby through smiling at them, gazing at their eyes and ensuring that they give them verbal stimuli in the form of baby talk. To help your baby start speaking, Pause occasionally and wait for your baby to answer with coos and babbles; the interaction is a fun way of developing this skill.

Simple Finger Games

At this age, parents can perform basic finger actions like singing ‘It's a big spider’ or ‘Shaking Hands’ to the baby so that they can learn how to move along with the tune of the song. You can play this at the same time while singing or reciting the words, using the fingers put in imitation to the actions to see how the baby brightens up. It is besides these that entertain your baby and at the same time help in the early development of the perception of pattern and sequences. Eventually the baby will attempt to mimic in order to engage with it which helps with their dexterity.

Mirroring Your Baby’s Movements

Imitating the gestures your baby makes is therefore a good way of play with the baby while at the same time aiding in the process of body awareness. :If your baby moves legs or flails arms , let yourself imitate the action amazingly – be silly and have fun. As they play this back and forth mimicking game, your baby will also learn cause and effect and will go on to explore more movements. It also helps in improving the bonding as your baby is the one to see that you are involved in the play sessions.

These are some of the basic fun activities that any parent can carry out in a day so as to ensure that their baby gets the necessary skills while at the same time strengthening the bond between the parent and the child. So, persistent, soft, and communicative: these are the pieces of advice to follow during playtime. The mere act of being with your baby and watching, listening, and responding in those fleeting moments are the best things that can happen to your little one during his young age.