Pregnancy to six months

Sumber Buku: Victoria Wilson, Teach Yourself; Developing Your Child’s Creativity, US: The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009.

In this chapter you will learn:

·        How to influence your child’s creative talent during pregnancy

·        How the nursery design can promote imaginative behaviour

·        Which toys and games promote creativity in babies aged zero to six months

Many people are sceptical about just how much parents can help their baby’s future development at this early stage in their lives. Yet increasingly, studies show that parents do have a strong influence on their child’s future intellectual and creative abilities from before they are even born. In fact, parents can even begin this process before conception by adapting their diet to give a baby the best nutrition to ensure healthy brain stem development. For example, it is well established that folic acid reduces the risk of brain stem abnormalities during pregnancy. One recent study by dr Emily Oken and colleagues, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2008, revealed that eating a moderate amount of fish during pregnancy was linked to childern scoring better in tests of cognitive abilities at the age of three.

In this chapter, you will discover what the latest studies say about how eating well and changing your lifestyle during pregnancy can affect your child’s abilities in problem solving, learning and creativity as they grow older.

You will also learn how simple things such as the choice of colours in your child’s nursery and the toys and games you play with your newborn can help your baby to become playful, curious and brave enough to try new things- the foundation of a creative and imaginative personality.

During Pregnancy

It might seem improbable that you can influence your baby’s intellectual, emotional and creative IQ before you have even conceived, but science reveals that you can make a difference. In fact, your baby might even have developed his or her brain stem, the foundation for all their thoughts, feelings and senses, before you’re even aware you are pregnant- by week four.

Your Baby is What You Eat

Simply by ensuring your intake of folic acid is 400 micrograms in the weeks and months before conception, and between 600 and 1.000 micrograms during pregnancy, yaou are providing your baby with the building blocks to develop a strong, healthy neural tube, essential in the development of a healthy brain. Fortified breakfast cereals, lentils, beans and chicken are all excellent sources, and there are plenty of suplements available specifically designed for pregnant women.

Other foods are also linked to healthy development of the foetal brain during pregnancy. Recent research, such as that by Joseph Hibbeln of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, reveals that despite warnings about the consumption ot too much seafood during pregnancy, eating fish can improve your child’s abilities to learn to talk, their fine motor skills and their social development. A study of over 10.000 British women revealed that researchers colud measure this impact on childern aged up to seven years old.

The idea that eating seafood can help enchance your unborn baby’s creative talents is supported by other research which shows that an expectant mother’s intake of omega-3 polyunsaaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) is linked to her child’s problem-solving abilities and attention span. Walnuts, flax seeds (and eggs of hens fed on flax seed) and seafood such as salmon, mackerel, tuna and scallops are all good sources of PUFAs.

Eggs can also play a huge part in your baby’s healthy brain development. Studies (by Dr Gary Shaw, a research director of the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program and Dr Steven Zeisel, a recignized expert in choline) reveal that choline, a vitamin B-like coumpound which is also found in beef and chicken liver, wheat germ and soybeans, not only helps prevent neural defects but also has a strong effect on your child’s ability to learn nd remember things.

The Importance of Keeping Calm

As well as what you eat, research also reveals that trying to maintain a relatively stress-free lifestyle can affect your baby’s overall health, intelligence and creative talents when they are older.

Of course, it’s not always possible to avoid stress when your baby is on the way. Aside from anxieties about the health of your unborn baby and concerns about the birth and coping with the responsibility of looking after a new baby, expectant mothers often find themselves anxious about taking maternity leave or involved in stressful house moves or renovations as they try to make room for the new member of the family. However, the science suggests it’s important that we do all we can to maintain calmer lifestyles during pregnancy.

In May 2007, research carried out Professor Vivette Glover at imperial College London and the consultant obstrician Pampa Sarkar form Wexham Park Hospital, Berkshire, found that cortisol, the stress hormone which causes tiredness and depression in the long term, can be measured in the amniotic fluid around an unborn child as early as 17 weeks into the pregnancy of stressed mums-to-be. It seems that when mothers-to-be are anxious, the feeling passes physically do affect your baby’s brain development.

Finding by Professor Vivette Glover found that babies of mothers who had sustained hihg levels of cortisol during pregnancy had an IQ ten points below average as well as higher anxiety levels and attention deficit problems. In terms of creative abilities, it is known that childern who are anxious and who have short attention spans are less likely to be creative or to engage in imaginative play.

It’s important to reduce your stress levels as far as possible. Here are some ways to do this:

a.       Seek support

When you need to take some time out of yourself let family and friends know how they can help you to prepare foor the new baby. Accept offers help after the birth, such as help with cooking and laundry, so there will be less pressure on you in the first few weeks of motherhood.

b.      Take regular rests

Try to wind down once a day. Studies show that ill effects tend to come from long bouts of sustained stress, so talking just short periods of time to relax regularly can have hugely beneficial effects for you and your baby even if you cna’t remove the stress entirely.

c.       Know your rights

Under UK law you are entitled to the right to a reasonable amount of paid time off for atenatal appointments. What is considered ‘reasonable’ is not defined in law, however, the employer has to have a good reason for not giving permission. You are also entitled to special health and safety protection. For example, you should be protected from lifting or hhandling heavy loads, standing or sitting for long periods of time, or working long hours.

d.      Meditate

There are wide ranging studies revealing how beneficial meditation is for you and your baby during pregnancy. As well as reducing anxiety, insomnia and depression, studies have revealed it can reduce blood pressure and heart rate. Psychologists Michael Murphy and Steven Donovan of the Esalen Institute for your cjild’s emotional and psychological development, enchancing perceptual ability, concentration, emphaty and overall creativity.

e.       Talk to your baby

Studies by dr Anthony DeCasper of the University of North Carolina, reveal that from around the third trimester, your baby can tell his or her mother’s voice apart from anyone else’s, and that it often calms the baby’s heart rate. Talking to your baby also helps you to bond with your ‘bump’ and release the ‘love’ hormone oxytocin, helping your baby to associate your calming tones with feelings of well-being and emotional security.

f.        Listen to music

One common percepyion is that classical music can help your baby to become more intelligence and creative. Although there is much debate over whether this is true, a study published in 2008 by Professor Chung-Hey Chen, who led the study at Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan, found that pregnant women who listened to a CD of classical and new age music every day for two weeks were less anxious, stressed and depressed by the end of the study. Whether you switch to classical music in the car, or listen to it before bedtime, it can reduce your stress levels. From around 30 weeks, your baby’s hearing and cognitive skills will allow him or her to listen in too.

However, it’s a popular myth, fuelled by dozens of products available for new parents, that playing classical music to your baby can fuel their intelligence and cognitive available.

The truth is, although there are many benefits to playing all kinds of music to your baby during pregnancy, there’s no evidence at all to support this theory about classical music.

The myth has come about largely from a study carried out 60 years ago in which factory workers were found to have increased spatial-temporal task performance when they listened to Mozart piped into the factory floor. Spatial-temporal ability is the ability to visualize spatial patterns and mentally manipulate them over a time-ordered squuence of spatial transformations. In fact the research showed that this ‘Mozart effect’ was not only limited to this one specific area of intelligence, but that is was temporary.

However, other research does still point to the fact that music played to unborn children can help their development after 30 weeks when most experts agree that babies can recognize patterns that make up music.

Studies such as those carried out by dr Alexandra Lamont of Leicester University and Dr Roberta Polverini-rey at the California School of Profesional Psychology, reveal that babies remember and are soothed by this music up to a year after their birth, even if the music is loud and fast. The fact that babies remember and show reaction to this music suggests ‘increased levels of cognitive development’ resulting from in utero  exposure to music.

Studies also reveal that newborn babies have surprising musical intelligence too. When you sing the lullaby that you sang to your child before birth, ensure that it is in the same tempo and key. It seems that babies can tell the difference and do not show a preference for the same songs if the key is slighty higher than the version they have heard once or twice a week in the womb.

In terms of preparing your child for a life enchanced by their intuitive inventiveness and imagination, you simply need to make sure the music you choose is music which you love too. The feeling of well-being, calm and enjoyment you gain from listening to it, will help your baby connect the music to the same pleasureble feelings when they are born. This not only gives them a way to express and share emotions before they have develop enough to do that verbally, but you are also helping to instil a deep-seated love of music and understanding of the way it can enrich your day-to-day life.

Preparing the Nursery

Most parents put a good deal of time and care into preparing a baby’s new nursery, and with good reason. The room where your baby sleeps will have a marked influence on how they behave. Here are a few tips to make your child’s nursery one that promotes well-being and enchances their natural creativity and playfulness.

Choosing colours

Studies dating back to those of dr l.b. wexner in 1954 have established clear links between colour and mood, but collective research suggest that the general temperature of colours, i.e. warner or cooler, has as much influence as the overall shade.For this reason, it is important to think about how the natural light of the room will affect the particular shades of the colour you choose. Whites and blues are known to be calming and soothing, but in a darker room they can be cold and depressing. If you child’s room is filled with natural light, however, then the colours are ideal. In slighty darker rooms, creams and pale yellows or slighty warmer neutral shades will provide a backdrop that’s calming yet less strark and will help your baby to sleep more easily. If you’re sceptical about the impact bright colours have on mood and behaviour, bear in mind that there’s solid research to back this up.

A series of studies carried out by the Department of Education in Connecticut (1961) found that in schools where colour changes were made, students showed a marked decrease in behavioral problems. A more recent study in 2004 by Dr Naz Kaya and Dr Helen Epps at the University of Georgia was yet another in a long line of studies to reveal strong emotional responses to different colours.

Dr Max Luscher, a psychologist who devised the Luscher colour test in 1969, even claimed that colours induce physical responses, for example red increases blood plessure and respiratory rate. His work, and that of the many other environmental psychologists who have found links between colours and mood, have been used throughout the advertising and commercial world for decades now. Fast food restaurants for example, use vivid red to makr sure costumers eat faster and stay in the premises for shorter periods.

This is not to say children should not be exposed to bright colours. Children do love colours, and it stimulates their creative imagination. But too many bright colours, such as red, orange and yellow are very stimulating and this can be a problem in a nursery for young babies who can so easily be over-stimulated by their new environment.

Top tip:

One way to strike a balance is to scatter a few toys, cushions or throws in bold shades, or to paint the skirting boards and lintels in bright colours to add more interesting shades to the room.

How coloyrs affects mood

The affects of colours vary depending on individual personality, but bellow is a guide to the most common emotional responses related to different shades:

·            Blues: calming and restful

·      Whites: ambiguous responses. Some researches have found white to be associated with calm and hope,  others have found it is linked to negative emotions and depression

·         Creams: calming and restful

·         Yellows: happiness and creativity

·         Oranges: excitement

·         Reds: passion, excitement

·         Greens: restful and strongly associated with peacefulness, nature and imagination

·         Purples: deeper shades are associated with depression

·          Black: anger and fear

·          Browns and neutrals: sadness

·        Pink: paler pinks are calming and can warm a room, brighter pinks are associated with excitement and some studies reveal it has a slightly tranquillizing effect

Lighting

Lighting needs to be soft. Try to avoid having lights that shine down from the ceiling into your baby’s eyes at night. Uplighters, wall lights or shaded lamps creating soft pools of light can help your child to feel more peaceful and can lighten up the room enough for play on a grey day. Moving lanterns that slide patterns across the walls and ceilings can be wonderful mood setters, but avoid playing them just before bedtime as they can be a bit over- stimulating for some babise.

Sounds

Many parents forget to use all five senses when planning a room. This is important because while we tend to focus on colours and decor, the visual sense is relatively alien to a newborn child. So far in their lives, sound has been the main connection to the outside world, and through sound, you can help to make their environment more familiar and calming.

Have a sound system so you can play music at different times of the day for your child. When babies are born, their sleep cycles are very short, and babies need to gradually adjust to the normal 24- hours sleep and wake cycle of the outside world. Playing soothing music or singing lullabies before bedtime, and playing more lively music in the morning as they are being dressed can reinforce this cycle and help them to adjust. As they do, they will begin to sleep less during the day and for longer through the night.

Hanging softly musical chimes is another idea to add gentle stimulation to their room.

Things to touch

From an early age your baby will be learning a good deal through his or her sense of touch, and providing different fabrics and textures in their room will help them to develop this sense and give them more to explore than simply what they see and hear. Fluffly cushions, shiny smooth toys and touch-and-feel books, or perhaps a frieze on the wall decorated with differently textured materials all add an extra dimention to the room and will stimulate your baby’s curiosity and imagination.

Art

Choosing a few intriguing or simply beautiful pictures for the wall will help your baby to understand the value of art from a very early age. You could buy postcards and frame them againts white card in clip frames, or even ask an older sibling to paint some pictures and hang them up in picture frames painted to match the room.

Shapes and animals

Babies are drawn to geometric shapes and animals and constant exposure to these things can help to develop cognitive and language skills. Try to find a place for them in the nursery, for example in a mobile or frieze, or in the patterns on curtains or throws.

Birth to three months

From the moment your baby is born, his or her brain is developing thousands of connnections between brain cells. These connections enable us to think, and the process of building those connections is what happens as we learn. Even before birth your baby will be listening to you and the world around them. Their sense of sight is less well developed as at this stage they can only see things clearly when they are 20 to 25 centimetres away. The sense of touch is immensely important, although for the first few weeks your baby won’t even realize their hands are part of them. Many of the things you can do to help your child begin to start learning and understanding, parents do instinctively. Holding your baby and gazing into his or her eyes from about 20 centimetres as you sing, talk and laugh help them to develop many earli skills. It is also important to nurture their sense of security and routine and not to over-stimulate them. Make use of the brief wakeful times between feeding and sleeping to communicate and play with your baby. As the weeks go by, this time will increase at your baby’s own unique pace.

Here are some games and toys that will help to cultivate your baby’s imagination from these very early stages.

Things to do with books

Act out a story

Find a short strory which involves a few different animals. When your baby is awake, act out the story, doing all the voices and noises, and adding plenty of smiles and laughter in between. Your newborn will learn a lot from you talking animatedly to him or her, and will begin to understand the meaning of different facial expressions if you make them clear in the story. You’re also introducing you baby early to the rhythm and fun of storytelling, and that can never begin too early if you want to encourage a wild imagination.

Make some finger puppets

Buy or make some brightly coloured finger puppets and use them to act out a story. From an early age you are introducting books as something fun and this is also a way for you interact while introducting colourful and textured objects. You can also help your baby’s tracking movements by moving the puppets from to side gradually so they follow and help them to begin to undertand about their own hands.

Things to do with music

Have a daily singing session

Young babies love rhythm and can already recognize patterns of music. Have a daily singing session if you can, roughly at the same time every day, of the same four or five songs they seem to react to the most (you may find these are songs or pieces of musiv you sang or played to them in the womb). The repetition will help them to learn and the routine will help them to feel secure. You’re also helping them to associate music with a sense of belonging, ritual and good feelings.

Dance with yur baby

From birth, babies love rhythm and being held by you. Having a daily dance with them around the living room (singing is optional!) is a good way to help them develop and enjoy that sense rhythm, and again associates music with fun and good feelings. Your baby is also learning a tremendous amount about patterns of sounds.

Games to play

Make up same tickling games

You might like to stick to some old favourites like, ‘This little Piggy went to market’ or ‘Round and round the garden, goes the teddy bear’ where you make a few steps with your fingers up the baby’s arms or legs then tickle them on their tummies. You’re giving them a really basic understanding of narrative and helping them to be aware of their bodies, as well as having a lot of fun, which is the best part.

Spin the mirror game

Unbreakable mirrors sre a useful toy for young babies of this age as they are beginning to respond to faces. Have a child-safe mirror in the nursery and spin it around so your child’s face appears and disappears. This is a good way to introduce the game of peek-a-boo, especially to very anxioous babies, because in this game, the adult who is also a problem-solving the game does not disappear. The game is also a problem-solving excercise for your child. His or her coriosity will be awakened as they wonder where the face goes and why it reappears.

Make a texture box

You can buy touch-and-feel books of coursee, but you might like to make up box of seven or eight different textures, for example feathers, a wooden spoon, a patch of fleece, a square of silk, some shiny cellophane or a piece of bark or wood. When you take out the box, you can give to your baby to examine and play with one at a time.

Things to do with colour

Use colours to reinforce your daily routine

In our adult lives we naturally use decor and colours to set moods and tone for events such as mealytimes or parties. You can also use it to reinforce a sense of routine fpr your child and to make sure colour is a part of your child’s daily world. For example, set down a rainbow throw on your chair or over your shoulders at mealtimes to signal with colour that it’s time to eat.

Three to six months

By this stage, your baby will probably be enormously corious about the world around them. They’ll probably have favourite toys, but enjoy looking at new things. At this age they’ll probably prefer to sit in a chair or be prpped up with cushions so they can see what’s going on. They’ll also probably be laughting now and be experimenting by making lost of different noises on their own. Here are some toys and games to encourage your baby’s natural sense of curiosity and playfilnesss at tjis stage.

Game to plat

Play copycat

Your baby was born with instinct to imitate you, and will probably find it enormously funny if you do the same now. When your baby is making new sounds, get close and copy them. It will encourage them to try all kinds of new noises and eventually they’ll begin to play back, copying you.

Water games

You baby will probably love splashing around in the water at this stage. One thing that fascinates children is simply watchinf water being poured in the light. The way water moves and feels, separates, and forms bubbles and repples can be endlessy fascinating to your baby. Get some clear plastic bowls and measring jugs and play with them during bath time, pouring the water form up high and dripping it onto arms or legs. Help your baby to look at and feel water in lost of different ways.

Have a funny face competition

See how many strange faces you can pull and get your baby to copy you. Try gurning, wiggling your ears and tongue, blowing raspberries. It helps your baby to practise moving different facial muscles, and also to interact in games and play.

Things to do with music

Musical bubbles

Babies of this age are fascinated by the colours and magic of bubbles. Surround them with bubbles and play some classical or bouncy music. This can create a real sense of magic and wonder for your baby.

Mak a baby orchestra

If you have a baby gym, hang some wind chimes, rattles and bells over teh bar, so tour baby can experiment by using their body to knock the toys and enjoy the sounds they make.

Play musicla toys

Have a box with four or five of your baby’s favourite toys inside and play some music. When it stops you reach in, and pull out one of the toys, and give it to your baby to hold and play with for a minute until you repeat the process. You bring a little music, fun and magic into the day and add a bit of creative imagination to the normal business of play.

How to involve older siblings

The arrival of a new baby is often upsetting for an older sibling, who ends up feeling left out and jealous at the attention you have to give to a younger baby. It’s not always easy or possible, but as well as the tried and trusted method of assking your child to help you look after your baby and marking out a space of time each day for one-to-one time with the older child, try to encourge older siblings to get more involved in playing with the baby by asking them to help make and invent new games and entertainment for the new arrival.

Your older sibling can help you make things such as the texture box, or put together a box for musical toys. As well as getting them usefully involved, it also encourages your older child to think creatively with regard to what entertainment and toys they can dream up for the baby, with the added bonus of bringing the two of them closer through play.

Here are some suggetions:

·        Ass older sibling to put together a little zoo of furry animals they can intoduce to the baby, describing the animals and making the noises for them.

·        Suggest your older child makes up a new tickling rhyme.

·        Sing ‘I can sing a rainbow’ to the baby and ask your older child if they could pick out things of each colour in the song so they can show them to the baby as you sing the world.

·        Take the children to the library and ask your older child to pick out four or five books that he or she thinks would be right for the baby as well as choosing their own books.

·        Suggest your older child sets up a tea party and invite the baby along as a guest. You can hold the baby as the older sibling picks out pretend food amd pours pretend drinks for him or her. It’s a good way to encourage your older sibling to think about the need of the new baby.

·        Have a little frame hanging near the cot in the nursery and ask your older child to draw ao make a different picture for their new brother or sister each week.