Before they can support their weight in standing or begin to walk, babies need a great deal of preparation. They need to be comfortable being on their back and on their belly, on all fours, and in the many varieties of sitting and kneeling. They need to be free to use their arms so that they can hold a toy and play in many different positions.
Child’Space helps babies master these important skills at an appropriate time and pace, ready to develop into toddlers that can stand, walk, run, jump rope and play with a ball.
Today we often see babies who are late to roll or crawl or skip these steps entirely. Special needs are also more common. Research shows that earlier parental involvement makes it easier to overcome the various difficulties that all babies encounter as they grow.
Through Child’Space babies develop a rich variety of activities in all variations of lying, sitting, kneeling and standing, as well as learning transitions among positions. In particular, mastering the transitions gives babies the ability to choose their environment and to direct their own learning. This opens the door to future explorations and discoveries.
In order to build a foundation of confidence for new learning, a Child’Space session usually begins with activities around what the baby already knows how to do. The baby recognizes that she’s being offered familiar form of play and can accept the teacher as playmate.
A unique part of a Child’Space session is the special quality of touch used to help babies be aware of their limbs, to know where they are in space and to introduce them to new movements and situations. By practicing this touch, parents can help their babies to better orient themselves to their world and to their own possibilities for movement. This touch also helps babies adjust their muscle tone to suit the activity at hand, which can be important for new learning.