I want to tell you how to use the outdoors as a free and effective way to make your baby smarter! Neurodevelopment is the brain’s development of neurological pathways, which essentially make your baby smarter. I’m going to give you several ways to be working on intentionally creating more of those pathways for your baby. This is very important to her being a successful learner a few years down the road. With this information, you’ll have the power to make learning easier for her!
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How to development a baby’s brain and make your baby smarter.
Neurodevelopment happens within your baby’s six senses. The six senses are touch, balance, taste, smell, hearing, and vision. Touch is the only general sense because your entire body is capable of sensing it.
The others are specific senses because only one body part can accomplish it.
So guess which of the 6 senses is the most important for making your baby smarter? Yes… touch! While you can stimulate your baby’s brain by reading, singing, and playing with her, those activities are only able to process through a single location.
However, your baby can create many more neural pathways using her sense of touch, because it is ALL over her body. So that is the one I’m going to tell you about right now. (get my favorite baby DVDs here)
A Sandy Discovery
First, a quick story. When my daughter was 9 months old, we lived in an apartment with a volleyball court next to the pool. We took the children there to play one summer day.
As I sat her down in the sand by the volleyball court, she began to gag. Yes… gag! I thought the same thing you just did… “well, that’s weird!”
I picked her up and dusted her off. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until she was around 6 years old that I learned why she did that, and how I should have responded rather than taking her out of the sand.
Her skin was sensing the sand but in a different sort of way. What she actually needed was more exposure to the sand and other touches. Keeping her in it would have built more neural pathways for her and allowed her to better feel the sensation.
When I discovered this about her, we began working on creating new pathways through touch. All the new pathways she has created since have helped her tremendously!
Thankfully, you don’t have to wait until your baby gags at the sand, or does some other odd thing you can’t explain. You don’t have to wait for anything at all, because even if she doesn’t gag at the sand, creating more pathways in her brain will improve brain function, and I know you want that.
You will start boosting her brain and her smarts right now, using the simple following steps.
11 Ways To Use The Outdoors To Make Your Baby Smarter
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- #1. Go outside, no matter what the temperature is. Bundle her up for the cold and take her out to experience small amounts of cold on (just a little) exposed skin, such as her face. (get affordable cold weather baby clothes here)
- #2. Go outside when there is a cool breeze. Let the cool breeze blow on her skin.
- #3. Set her in a sandbox. Cleaning up a sandy baby is worth the brain-boosting benefit!
- #4. Set her on the grass with bare legs. Encourage her to play with it with her hands, pull it, and move her legs around on it.
- #5. Set her on the rocks. While it is tempting to ONLY set her in the soft grass, her brain needs the stimulation of the hard scratchy rocks.
- #6. Make a corn crib and put her in it. Like a sandbox, a corn crib contains whole corn (like they have at a pumpkin-patch play area) for a child to play in. (Keeping close watch that she doesn’t try to eat it.)
- #7. Touch her skin with a leaf, using a little bit of pressure, so she can feel the texture of the leaf.
- #8. Touch her skin with a seed or nut, using a little bit of pressure so she can feel the texture.
- #9. Let her play with a stick! Find a stick just the right size and let her hold it, touch it, and play with it.
- #10. Play in the warm rain with her. Let the raindrops fall on her face and arms for a few minutes.
- #11. Put all the objects you have touched her skin with, in front of her. Encourage her to play with each one. Take turns touching her skin with each one and talking to her about it.
***A word of caution… DO NOT allow yourself to think these steps are too simple to make an impact! The opposite is true.
Rapid Recap
It is important to use a variety of objects and textures. Bare legs on rocks are going to create a different pathway than bare legs on grass. And the more pathways developed the greater the intelligence.
More experiences (skin touches) =more pathways = greater memory= greater intelligence. All 11 are may be used for your baby once she is sitting independently. Before that, try starting with #’s 2, 4, 7, 8, and 10. **Sleep is VITALLY important for brain development. If your baby isn’t sleeping well, click here.
The outdoors offers so much more than the indoors for baby brain stimulation. Since your baby sees and touches all the inside things every day. And let’s face it, most of them are soft and safe, as in… you baby-proofed your house to make sure of that!
She needs all the other “rougher” sensations for proper brain development. (get all your baby proofing supplies here)
Finally, I’ve given you 11 ways to use the free, no-cost outdoors to make your baby smarter. Cold weather, breezes, sand, grass, rocks, corn, leaves, nuts, sticks, and rain! All splendid ways to increase brain power.
I’m sure you could find even more. Take her outside, no matter the weather. Be wise, and bundle her up if necessary, and remember you don’t have to keep her out long. Even just a few minutes of these activities will greatly benefit her. You’re going to love how fun and easy it is to make your baby smarter! CLICK HERE TO READ ANOTHER POST LIKE THIS ONE
Sierrah says
May 25, 2019 at 7:54 amI love how you threw in the word of caution! For people who know a lot about children and how they develop, for us it’s just common sense. For new parent who haven’t had a lot of experience with children, they really just don’t know how important all of those little sensory activities are. This is a great post, very informative! Thank you for sharing 😊
Shelley says
May 25, 2019 at 8:35 amHi Sierrah!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this post. As I’ve researched and studied how a little one’s brain develops over the last 13 years, I’ve regularly felt compelled to shout it from the rooftop. The amount of influence a mother has over her child’s development, training, growth, and overall well-being are typically not fully understood!
Thanks for the kind words and for saying hello!
Sabra Casey says
October 22, 2018 at 9:14 pmGreat tips! Thank you for sharing!