Building Babies Better

Book excerpt: Building Babies Better By Roxanne Small Building Babies Better presents a framework to aide parents and caregivers in choosing the best activities and environments for their children. The author, a pediatric physical therapist, presents this framework based on prenatal and neonatal concepts learned in her professional and personal experiences with children over the past 30 years. While the main focus of the book is the baby from newborn through the first year of life, sections are included on applying these principles to the toddler/preschool child, adoption and bonding issues, as well as the child with special needs. After presenting an overview of early child development and keys to good sensory-motor development, specific applications are discussed. Each chapter is written with the busy parent in mind, including easy to-follow directions, illustrations and a summary of activities to encourage/avoid at each stage. Whenever possible activities are incorporated into regular daily routines, such as how best to hold your baby, how to make feeding time more effective, and making floor time play more beneficial. This second edition of Building Babies Better includes current research in the field of child development. The extensive notes section at the end of the book allows readers a valuable journey into research that guides good choices in child development. In a world that is exploding with baby gear and items to stimulate baby, Building Babies Better gives parents a tool to evaluate whether these things will have a positive or negative impact on their child. They also learn to evaluate their child's total environment, including vision, hearing, and touch so that they can make their child's environment less stressful. Through Building Babies Better parents discover new ways to interact with their child in a calming, enjoyable way that has a lasting, positive impact. This book is a must read for parents!