If you want to offer your baby a secure play environment that can keep them occupied around the clock, you might need the help of one of the most practical baby items on the market, an activity play gym. Baby playmats and gyms provide a clean and safe surface for infants and toddlers to play with their favourite toys. It works in a way that you place your baby on the special mat and have them do activities that will help in the development of different cognitive and fine motor skills. You could, for example, hang a soft toy in front of them to reach for it or kick it, such as a doll or a plushie.
Why an Activity Play Gym Is a Must?
If you choose to purchase an activity play gym, you should definitely select one with many different toys attached to promote grasping and diverse learning stimuli for your baby. There are several advantages to having such a playmat.
Improves the Visual Perception
Playmats assist babies in developing visual perception abilities through hand-eye coordination. Because toddlers can only detect things near to their faces, hanging toys and contrasting colours on playmats can aid to enhance sight development. When the infant concentrates on contrasted art, forms, or light-triggered on the play mat, he or she develops more accurate vision.
Only items within 30 cm of a newborn baby’s face may be perceived. They are, in a word, nearsighted. They can only perceive toys with high contrast colours, such as black and white. That is why newborns like these instructive play mats. They come with hanging toys in brightly coloured contrasting colours. Their goal is not just to entertain newborns, but also to enhance their viability.
Babies acquire depth perception skills as they get older, and they may modify the way they play and interact with their objects. To prevent additional visual perception, it is critical to ensure that the baby play gym is updated as the child develops.
Builds Hand-Eye Coordination and Motor Skills
During the first year of your baby’s life, they will learn a lot of new things, but you can help them by giving opportunities for them to grow. A baby play gym is one approach to help your child’s growth. The infant-specific play mats and play gyms have objects and designs that your baby will reach for. From the time they are born, babies can wrap their little fingers around their parents’ fingers. But this is only a reflex. Babies have no control over it.
They can grab anything that comes into contact with their palm. If you often place your child in a baby play mat, he or she will learn to grab objects that ring. They teach newborns how to regulate their arm movement and enhance their reflexes.
Boosts Cognitive Development
Play gyms aid a baby’s cerebral development as well as their senses and motor abilities. They demonstrate cause and effect and help children learn about patterns, colours, forms, noises, imagination, and self-discovery. These are essential for your child’s cognitive development. When parents and caregivers utilise the gym to stimulate language and communication, brain capacity benefits as well.
Babies that are barely a few weeks old are unaware of their surroundings. They will perform ‘primary circular reactions’ at this period. That’s when they unintentionally strike a toy. Babies about 4 months of age begin to have higher awareness and begin to repeat behaviours just for the sake of repetition. They will begin to pull and kick the toys that dangle above the play mat, and they will comprehend
Promotes Tummy Time
Tummy Time is the time when your baby is awake and on their tummy during the day. It is an important activity for the motor, visual, and sensory development of your infant. Tummy time can begin as soon as the baby is born. They can be allowed to have tummy time for the rest of their first year.
Tummy time also enables your child to practise reaching and turning, which are typically prerequisites for crawling. Furthermore, research indicates that a lack of stomach time might cause your baby to miss out on physical development milestones such as lifting their head, rolling over, sitting up, and more.
As your baby develops, aim for 15-30 minutes of tummy time every day, while encouraging them to play for extended periods of time. You may discontinue devoted tummy time once your kid is rolling over and independently spending time on their stomach, which is generally about 6 months of age.
Your baby should be able to lift their torso off the floor and lean on the elbows with the head erect by 3 or 4 months. They might be able to lift the arms off the ground, arch the back, and kick the feet. After 4 months, your baby may be strong enough to begin rolling over during tummy time, which will delight and amaze them constantly.
To aid in early growth and enjoyment, parents should enable their newborns to spend daily playing periods on a play mat. The quality of a child’s development, on the other hand, will be totally dependent on the toy items displayed on the play mat. Parents should use recommended toys for kids to assist newborns to attain considerable stimulation, activity, and learning at the appropriate age.
Keep an eye on the infant and stay nearby to keep them safe from potentially dangerous objects and poisonous chemicals on the play mat. Parents should choose play mats that are fully adaptable to allow for all-around baby development and to gain unique advantages at each developmental milestone.
