a safe and stimulating haven for babies
...d dad. There are many important things to think about when deciding how to decorate your baby’s room. To make it a stimulating place for baby there needs to be certain characteristics that the room posses. These characteristics Stimulating Haven 10 should include color, preferably black and white, sound, something that will mimic the noises of the womb, and love, this must come from the parents or primary caregivers. Creating the nursery is a time to let your creativity flow. There are no precise rules that you must follow, just suggestions on what baby’s prefer. When it seems like your spending too much money or it’s too much hard work, step back a minute and think of the bigger picture: Your baby will not care if the paint is patchy, if the furniture are hand-me-downs, or even if he or she arrives before the room is finished. Decorating the nursery should be an enjoyable project, a way you and your partner can share the excitement about the upcoming event. Let all of your love shine through as you create this safe and stimulating haven for your baby-to-be. Stimulating Haven A Safe and Stimulating Haven for the Baby Making a nursery for the baby-to-be is one of the first ways to make him or her seem real, months before the actual arrival (Price, 2001). But before going out and buying everything in site, remember there are certain colors and patterns that baby will prefer. Many, many studies have been preformed to show what babies like and dislike. The experiments have proven over and over that babies like contrasting colors over pastels, they like music with a soothing, natural rhythm, and they like to investigate their environment. So, as we travel on this journey to create a loving nursery, we will learn about all the things you’re soon to be baby will undoubtedly enjoy! First, the location of the room will mean everything in the future. Parents should take a lot of time considering where to put the new babies room because there will be many hours spent there in the days to come. Whether it be in a corner of you’re room or in a room entirely by itself, parents will need to decide where the baby will stay along with all it’s paraphernalia. Think about all the influencing factors the room can have on your baby in the early morning and late at night when he or she is trying Stimulating Haven to sleep. A street close to the window may create a problem with baby during naps and nighttime. Streetlights, horns, tires squealing, and headlights could all propose a threat to the rest and temperament of your baby and any experienced parent knows that baby’s rest comes first. A way to check out the room is to stay in there over night or go in the room at different times of the day. If there does seem to be a problem with distractions from the window, blinds or curtains can be the solution. Window coverings can make or break a room. Choose something that will allow sunlight but avoid a glare, give you privacy but allow your baby to see the outside world. The best choice is probably curtains because they do not have the pull cord, which the baby could chew on and harm itself. Lighting in the nursery is also very important. There should be at least one main source of lighting in the room, whether it is an overhead light or a few recessed one. There are a lot of new different styles of low voltage halogen lights available now. You can probably find a style to coordinate with the nurseries theme such as animals, flowers, or primary colors. But before you can pick out matching lights or curtains, the nursery has to have a theme. There are hundreds of different themes out there to choice from, everything from fluffy bunnies to plaid primary colors. Stimulating Haven We might need to keep in mind while deciding on a theme what babies prefer. Newborns can’t appreciate soft colors, like pastels, because they have limited color vision (Whitbourne, 2001). Everyone’s has heard of how studies show that infants love contrasting colors, like black and white, well the studies are correct. Babies prefer bold, linear patterns with sharply contrasting colors, such as black and white chessboard designs. They are so intrigued with contrasting colors that they will often stare into the parent’s eyes, drawn to the darkness of the irises against the white background (Van de Carr & Lehrer, 1997). In one study, researchers used cameras to take pictures of exactly which aspect of an object infants paid the most attention to. The results showed that they would look at the outline of an object most often, like the edge of a coffee table or where the wall meets the ceiling-anyplace where light and dark come together. There is no proven explanation as to why infant love contrast, but there are several theories. One theory is that there are more neurons being fired inside a baby’s brain when he or she’s looking at things that are distinct from each other, which indicates increased stimulation, says David Moore, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Pitzer College in Claremont, California (2001). Another is that since babies can’t focus clearly on things that are farther than Stimulating Haven twelve inches from their face, when their looking in the distance, their eyes will tend to move toward the objects that they can see better, such as contrasting colors. The nursery is the one room in the house that parents can have fun with decorating. Consider painting the room, instead of wallpapering it. This will save money and time in the future if you want to change the colors and theme of the room. A great idea for painting is to paint two of the walls in one and the other two in a contrasting color. Latex based paints are best because they’re easy to use, they wear well, and are often washable and less toxic than other oil-based paints. Although mothers to be are so excited about getting the nursery perfect, they should never paint while pregnant, this can be a job for daddy. But moms, don’t fret, if your devastated because your baby would prefer his or her room black and white rather than covered in pink, by the time their four months old they will be able to recognize a full range of color and appreciate your fine pastel passion. Now that we have the nursery painted and ready to move in, we need to know what to stock it with. First of all let’s start with the crib. Whether it’s a hand-me-down or a brand new crib, make sure it meets all safety standards before your baby arrives. Since the crib is the only place parents are allowed to leave their child unattended, there have been certain Stimulating Haven precautions taken to make sure cribs are baby safe. Parents can check out these requirements by looking at crib guidelines on the Danny Foundation website. Some of the requirements are that the corner post should be the same height as the end panels, the slants must be less than 2-3/8” apart and cribs cannot have cutouts in the end panels. To add some personal touches to the nursery, get creative by placing furniture and toys in some interesting places. Go to a local home improvement store and buy a tension rod. Wrap the rod in Velcro and then place it in a corner and stick furry toys to the Velcro. This will help bring height to the room and it will also be a way to keep toys off the floor. Not to mention baby will enjoy lying in the crib and staring up at the pole of fuzzy friends. For storing all the toys that moms receive at the baby shower, think about this idea. Get a few brightly colored plastic boxes, cut out the bottom and hang them on the wall. This will allow you to showcase the toys in a neat and unique way. A nursery is just not complete if it doesn’t have a mobile. Mobiles are multifunctional, they help baby learn to focus and they also are a way to entertain fussy little ones. If it moves, you can bet your babies eyes will be drawn it, especially if it also happens to make a noise. The best bet for a mobile, would be a black and white one that faces down toward the crib Stimulating Haven so it’s visible from the babies perspective. There are also mobiles with interchangeable pieces to give baby a variety of things to look at. Since babies are continuously trying to figure out how things work, anything that reacts to them will hold their attention, such as a mobile that plays music. Even if your mobile doesn’t have sound, you can always buy a stereo to put in the nursery. Almost all babies love a good beat, whether it’s a favorite lullaby, a Bach prelude, or their own hand pounding on the crib. Lullabies often provide a joyful, soul-soothing way to calm down the baby and, even mom. This is also a good time for mom to nurture the infant and for connections between the two to be made. Babies also like rhythmic, repetitive sounds that remind them of things they heard in the womb: a ticking clock, a whirring fan and sounds of the ocean. “The uterus is a noisy environment-blood coursing through a mom’s vein, the sound of her heartbeat, her breathing and her stomach gurgling,” says David Moore, Ph.D, director of the Claremont Infant Study Center at Pitzer College in California. “It makes sense that sounds that mimic the womb would be soothing” (Martin, 1998). From birth, babies crave sensory experiences, whether they involve touching, tasting, or hearing music. Stimulating the senses sets the stage for Stimulating Haven learning and physical, emotional, and social development, so it’s vital that the parents satisfy that need. Research on early brain development shows that babies have a critical need for direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional and cognitive skills (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1997). Holding and cuddling your infant is crucial to help the baby feel safe and secure. This is because touch is one of a baby’s most highly developed senses at birth. Research has also shown that touch may be as important to a baby’s physical, emotional, and cognitive development as eating and sleeping. In a recent Harvard Medical School study of an overcrowded, understaffed orphanage in Romania, researchers found that babies who lay for hours without physical human contact suffered stunted physical and developmental growth and babies who are touched and held frequently fuss less, sleep better, and even have stronger immune systems. This is proof for new parents that the interactions between you and your child are essential for proper growth. Infants need to be stimulated not only by their surroundings, like the nursery and toys, but also by the people in their lives like mom and dad. Stimulating Haven There are many important things to think about when deciding how to decorate your baby’s room. To make it a stimulating place for baby there needs to be certain characteristics that the room posses. These characteristics should include color, preferably black and white, sound, something that will mimic the noises of the womb, and love, this must come from the parents or primary caregivers. Creating the nursery is a time to let your creativity flow. There are no presise rules that you must follow, just suggestions on what baby’s prefer. When it seems like your spending too much money or it’s too much hard work, step back a minute and think of the bigger picture: Your baby will not care if the paint is patchy, if the furniture are hand-me-downs, or even if he or she arrives before the room is finished. Decorating the nursery should be an enjoyable project, a way you and your partner can share the excitement about the upcoming event. Let all of your love shine through as you create this safe and stimulating haven for your baby-to-be. Stimulating Haven A Safe and Stimulating Haven for the Baby Making a nursery for the baby-to-be is one of the first ways to make him or her seem real, months before the actual arrival (Price, 2001). But before going out and buying everything in site, remember there are certain colors and patterns that baby will prefer. Many, many studies have been preformed to show what babies like and dislike. The experiments have proven over and over that babies like contrasting colors over pastels, they like music with a soothing, natural rhythm, and they like to investigate their environment. So, as we travel on this journey to create a loving nursery, we will learn about all the things you’re soon to be baby will undoubtedly enjoy! First, the location of the room will mean everything in the future. Parents should take a lot of time considering where to put the new babies room because there will be many hours spent there in the days to come. Whether it be in a corner of you’re room or in a room entirely by itself, parents will need to decide where the baby will stay along with all it’s paraphernalia. Think about all the influencing factors the room can have on your baby in the early morning and late at night when he or she is trying Stimulating Haven to sleep. A street close to the window may create a problem with baby during naps and nighttime. Streetlights, horns, tires squealing, and headlights could all propose a threat to the rest and temperament of your baby and any experienced parent knows that baby’s rest comes first. A way to check out the room is to stay in there over night or go in the room at different times of the day. If there does seem to be a problem with distractions from the window, blinds or curtains can be the solution. Window coverings can make or break a room. Choose something that will allow sunlight but avoid a glare, give you privacy but allow your baby to see the outside world. The best choice is probably curtains because they do not have the pull cord, which the baby could chew on and harm itself. Lighting in the nursery is also very important. There should be at least one main source of lighting in the room, whether it is an overhead light or a few recessed one. There are a lot of new different styles of low voltage halogen lights available now. You can probably find a style to coordinate with the nurseries theme such as animals, flowers, or primary colors. But before you can pick out matching lights or curtains, the nursery has to have a theme. There are hundreds of different themes out there to choice from, everything from fluffy bunnies to plaid primary colors. Stimulating Haven We might need to keep in mind while deciding on a theme what babies prefer. Newborns can’t appreciate soft colors, like pastels, because they have limited color vision (Whitbourne, 2001). Everyone’s has heard of how studies show that infants love contrasting colors, like black and white, well the studies are correct. Babies prefer bold, linear patterns with sharply contrasting colors, such as black and white chessboard designs. They are so intrigued with contrasting colors that they will often stare into the parent’s eyes, drawn to the darkness of the irises against the white...