Three Things You Can Do to Support Your Baby’s Health

There is no instruction manual for those of us who become parents, and babies give us very little to work with, primarily because they are not much for conversation, but other things about babies may clue us in on what they need and how they feel.  We can see them cry.  We can watch them turn yellow if they have jaundice.  We can even make sure they are hydrated and fed by monitoring how often they dirty their diapers.  Having a baby can be overwhelming, demolishing sleep schedules and embarrassing parents as well.  Here are a few things you can achieve immediately that will make your baby sob less and be happier, as far as you will be able to tell.

1. Buy a Humidifier

An ultrasonic cool mist humidifier can help your baby to breathe healthier air.  Environmental dryness often exacerbates allergies and benign communicable diseases.  For babies, it is double critical that you ensure a healthy environment.  Of course, babies are going to be more sensitive to illness than older kids, and they are not going to be able to communicate discomfort as well as older kids, making it doubly important that you invest in an ultrasonic cool mist humidifier.  Any home presents lots of expenses, from the maintenance of household appliances to heat and electric bills, but buying a humidifier is not as big a deal as it may sound.  Humidifiers are not nearly as loud as other conventional appliances, like dishwashers, washing machines, or furnaces.  Some humidifiers are entirely silent, and this is why they earn the mantle of, “ultrasonic.” Some kids develop allergies over time, so buying a humidifier could be an effective way of stopping future illness in its tracks.  Also, humidifiers are a great way of dealing with a colicky baby because some allow for you to infuse calming lavender oil into the mist to help any baby fall asleep, against its will or otherwise.

1. Communicate

Again, babies are not much for conversation, but they certainly communicate in other ways.  If you treat a baby to a normal conversation without putting on a cute voice, it will notice!  It will be in shock at such an advance.  Talking to a baby helps it figure out how to babble, and enough babbling will give way to actual speech.  Babbling is one of many reasons for which speaking our native tongue is so easy and learning a new language becomes more difficult as we age.  While many consider the appearance of a baby to be ugly, you may think it is too cute for you to talk to it as if it is anything other than a housecat.  This may not be the worst thing as long as you stick to grammatical conventions that inform language.  

Talking is not the only way to improve babies’ communication.  Essentially, anything that stimulates a baby’s sight and hearing is fair game.  Sing to babies.  Hold them close to you, since you may not be able to resist holding them anyway.  Make sure your baby can see your face.  Not only is it important for your baby to be able to identify you, but it is important for your baby to learn how to read faces when meeting friends or family.

Consider toys that stimulate a baby’s ability to see and hear.  Jigsaw puzzles may not be difficult for you, but a baby may enjoy sticking multi-colored stars, circles, and rectangles into appropriate holes.  Any baby enjoys a good Spin-n’-Say, so considering one of those might be as good an idea as it has been for decades.

As a final touch to a baby’s development, be sure to smile at it a lot so that it may practice empathy by smiling at you.

1. Avoid Screen Time

Extensive screen time among babies has brought about a general decrease in quality of eyesight.  During the first year of life, babies are such simple creatures as to gain nothing from watching television.  Something as innocuous as Sesame Street is not even worth the detriment to their eyes.  If anything, screen time detracts from babies’ social development.  They learn more from interaction with parents and parents’ friends than they do from anything they would see on a screen.  Watching television is entirely passive.  A baby has no sense of what parts of the environment react to it and what parts do not.  Until a child is old enough to understand this dichotomy, its experiences ought to be limited to interactions it has with parents, as far as a parent is concerned with a baby’s communication skills.  Abandoning screen time altogether is an easy hack for ensuring that your baby is able to grow more effectively, so ditch the tablet and turn off the television.