As a parent, you have many hopes and dreams for your baby. You want them to grow up healthy, happy, and intelligent. The good news is that there are steps you can take from day one to help boost your baby’s intelligence.
Every moment between the womb and toddlerhood is laying down the foundation for brain development, and you, as the parent, play a crucial role in taking action. If you want to make sure your baby is developing their intelligence, check out these 12 ways to help your baby grow their IQ in this article.
12 Ways To Boost Your Baby’s Intelligence Level
1. Start Talking from Day One
Your baby begins developing language skills from the moment they are born, if not before. The sounds and speech patterns they hear in the womb begin to imprint even before they can start talking.
So, from day one, when you look into your baby’s eyes, start talking to them. We don’t mean just baby talk— the more you speak to your child, the better. Talk to your child, narrate your day, and let them know what you are doing, reading, cooking, cleaning, and talking about.
This will help them get acclimated to the concept of language, and you’ll already be starting them down the path of learning how to read and write.
Related: 10 Healthy Meal Ideas for 9-Month-Old Babies
2. Stimulate Your Baby
The best way to help boost your baby’s intelligence is to provide them with a world full of stimuli. Their brain is like a sponge, soaking up every bit of information around them. Stimulate your child with various toys, colorful books, and objects.
You can even play classical music or other soothing sounds to promote brain activity in your baby. Providing your baby with a wide range of visual, auditory, and tactile experiences will help encourage and facilitate cognitive growth.
3. Look Your Baby in the Eyes
Eye contact is a great way to show your love to your baby, but it’s also important for their intelligence. When you look into their eyes, your baby starts learning facial recognition skills.
While it will take time for them to understand more complex emotions, mimicking and smiling at their expressions will help them learn these patterns. Looking into your baby’s eyes helps stimulate their cognitive development, and it’s one of the easiest things you can do to boost their IQ.
Related: How to Teach Kids to Write
4. Read Together Daily
Reading to your child is an excellent way to help them learn language skills, improve their attention span, and enhance their cognitive development. Reading with your baby is beneficial even from infancy.
Simply hold up books, point at pictures, or mimic animal sounds. The more you use a range of inflections and expressions while reading, the more your baby will learn. As your child gets older, you can encourage their imagination and curiosity with age-appropriate books. This is a great way to show your child that books are valuable resources for learning.
5. Give Your Baby Tummy Time
A critical part of your baby’s intelligence development is their physical development, as both are connected in complex ways. One of the most important activities you can provide for your baby is tummy time.
Laying your baby on their tummy will help them strengthen their muscles and improve coordination, which is key to enhancing brain function. It will also help your child lift their head, develop visual tracking, and interact with the world around them.
All of these are key components of brain development and important milestones in helping your baby develop essential motor skills.
Related: 15 Fun Things To Do With Your New Born Baby
6. Sing to Your Baby
Singing to your baby is an excellent way to provide auditory stimulation. The cadence of your voice and the rhythm of your song will help them tune into patterns and build their auditory skills. It doesn’t matter if you’re a great singer or not—your voice is music to their ears.
Sing simple lullabies, nursery rhymes, or just make up your own little songs. This is an excellent way to provide both emotional and intellectual stimulation for your baby, as it will help foster their language development, listening skills, and strengthen your bond.
7. Expose Your Baby to New Experiences
New and exciting experiences are a great way to help your baby build cognitive skills. Visiting new places, going for walks in nature, and meeting new people all help your child’s brain form new neural connections.
The new sights, sounds, and information they receive from novel experiences will encourage curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving. While it is important to keep a routine for your baby, they also need novelty to help stimulate brain growth.
8. Play Interactive Games
Playing interactive games is one of the most fun and effective ways to boost your baby’s IQ. Simple games like peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, or stacking blocks will help your baby understand cause and effect.
As your baby grows, interactive games will help them hone their problem-solving, memory, and creativity through fun activities like matching games, puzzles, or shape sorting. Interactive play is excellent for helping your baby build their attention span, memory, and critical thinking skills.
Related: 10 Benefits of Co-Sleeping with Your Baby
9. Encourage Independent Play
One of the most important steps in building your child’s intelligence is allowing them to have a sense of independence and play by themselves.
Providing your baby with a safe environment where they can explore on their own is one of the best ways to help them develop their intelligence.
Allow them the time to explore and play independently, so they can solve problems and use their critical thinking skills to entertain themselves. Your baby is naturally curious, so allow them to reach, roll, crawl, and eventually walk over to the toys they want to play with.
10. Provide Nutritious Food
Ensuring your baby is provided with a healthy, nutritious diet is also crucial for proper brain development. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in foods like fish, are proven to help with cognitive function and memory.
A diet rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and proteins will provide your baby with the essential vitamins and nutrients they need for a healthy brain.
Breastfeeding is also encouraged during the first year, as breast milk contains important fats, proteins, and antibodies that help your baby’s brain develop. As your baby begins eating solids, offer a variety of healthy, nutritious foods.
Related: Nutrikids Food Nutrition DHA+ Orange
11. Keep Screen Time to a Minimum
As easy as it may be to put your baby in front of the TV or let them play with a tablet, this is one of the worst things you can do for their developing brain.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends not allowing babies under 18 months to have screen time, except for video chatting.
Instead, focus on face-to-face interactions, physical play, and hands-on learning and games to help your baby develop. Excessive screen time can interfere with developmental milestones such as language acquisition and social interaction.
12. Provide Your Baby with Love and Attention
Finally, one of the most important ways you can help boost your baby’s intelligence is to love and care for them.
Babies need love and attention from their parents in order to feel safe and secure. Responsive parenting, where you respond to their cries and provide lots of hugs and kisses, will help them build emotional intelligence and cognitive skills.
Babies who receive love and nurturing from their parents have a higher propensity to develop social and cognitive skills as they grow.
Conclusion
Boosting your baby’s IQ is not about pushing them to reach milestones or giving them the latest expensive toys.
It’s about creating a stimulating environment and surrounding them with love and care to nurture their natural curiosity and allow them to develop at their own pace.
Talk to your baby, read with them, sing and play with them, and provide a healthy environment, and they will begin to lay the foundation for intelligence that will lead to future success.
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