Enjoyable with Solids! Highchair Video games for You and Your Little Ones
Introducing solids to your child—and placing your baby in a highchair—are vital steps in parenthood, as these of you with toddlers know.
- Some infants love hanging out ‘with the massive youngsters’ of their highchair. Different infants don’t, although. Or perhaps you may have a child like my niece: she beloved her highchair … till she discovered to stroll and now she’s refusing to eat in it!
- There are methods to assist your baby affiliate their highchair with many optimistic issues—tasty consuming, a mealtime routine, bonding and socialization with household, and even playtime.
- And truly, this final level is what we’ll deal with on this submit. Seems, encouraging your baby to play of their highchair helps them be taught essential feeding and socialization expertise—and it helps them be taught that highchair-time could be pleasant!
Listed below are 3 ways to play in a highchair earlier than the infant’s first bites, courtesy of Jordyn Koveleski Gorman, MS, CCC-SLP, a speech language pathologist and feeding specialist. Take a look at her work on IG @eatplaysay!
1. Carry your child’s favourite books and toys to the highchair! Encourage your baby to succeed in out for and contact the toys on the tray to follow reaching and touching meals.
2. Provide spoons and teethers! When your child brings these things to their mouth, they’re practising self-feeding expertise, Jordyn explains. (How cool!)
3. Sit face-to-face along with your child within the chair and play! Feeding is a social exercise, so enjoying with them within the highchair is nice follow for mealtime socialization.
Talking of enjoying, listed here are a number of highchair video games for you and your baby, designed to be enjoyable, straightforward, and secure:
4. Water play! Fill a cake pan or cooking tray with ~1/2” of water and place on high of the highchair. Or when you’ve got a thick-lipped highchair tray, you may put the water straight in it. Put your baby’s favourite (waterproof) toys within the water. Plastic Easter eggs are an excellent possibility, too. (You may also be artistic and use new ‘toys’ like milk jug lids—simply be aware about choking hazards). Your child will love splashing and feeling the water, and by making an attempt to maneuver and catch their toys, they’re engaged on superb motor expertise, hand and eye coordination, sensory expertise, and the flexibility to know objects as they transfer. This sport is a bit of messy nevertheless it’s simply water!
(Picture credit score:ParentHacks; photographs by Emily Moss and Misty Poush)
5. Muffin time! Place your muffin pan on high of the highchair and put small (however secure!) toys in a few of (however not all) the openings in your baby to choose up, really feel, and transfer round/reorganize. Wood blocks and small balls are nice choices. Attempt to choose toys of various shapes and textures to advertise totally different sensory experiences and expertise.
Tip: strive turning the muffin tray the other way up! The sport works utilizing the areas in between the “bump-ups” for muffins.
(Picture Credit score:LaughingKidsLearn)
6. ‘Portray’ with yogurt and purees! You need to use yogurt (Greek is a superb possibility)—or strive certainly one of Amara’s child blends. On the highchair tray, place a number of blobs of various sorts of yogurts/purees—ideally totally different colours—and let your child ‘fingerpaint’ on the tray with them. (You may mannequin it for them to get them began.) They’ll have enjoyable smearing it round and tasting the ‘paint’ with out you having to fret about precise paint. It’ll be messy!—however simpler to wash up than precise paint.
Tip: We advocate Amara child meals blends for this attributable to their vibrant colour and customizable textures.Attempt Kale Potato Veggie mash for an excellent inexperienced ‘paint’ colour’; Tropical Mango for orange; and Applesauce with Maqui Berry for pink/purple.
(Picture Credit score: BabyPlayHacks; Yogurt Portray)
8. Portray mess-free with ‘precise paint’! Put a bit of clean white paper right into a resealable clear bag, squeeze in a number of drops of various paint colours, and seal it up. Tape it to the highchair tray and encourage your child to press on it, mixing the totally different paint colours (with no mess!).
(Picture Credit score: The MumandtheMom)
9. Magnet magic! Place a small steel pan and a handful of magnets in your kid’s highchair. Select bigger magnets to keep away from a choking hazard. By transferring them round and selecting them up, your child shall be exercising extra of these superb motor expertise! And worse case—if the pan falls to the ground, the magnets shouldn’t fly in every single place!
Any highchair video games or tricks to share?
