Lifting weights

Around 10 or 11 weeks, your baby will be able to lie on his tummy and, supporting his torso on his arms, he will lift his head and look around … However, the head is the heaviest body part, and often a baby will grumble about the strain of holding it up!

It is important that the baby develops strong neck, shoulder and arm muscles in this position – however, do not leave your baby lying in this way for more than 2 minutes at a time. Rather, use a support, like a rolled up towel or a large teddy, which can be placed lengthwise under Baby’s chest, so that the weight of his torso is supported. This will help your baby to live up his upper body and thus prepare him for the initial stages of crawling.

Also, encourage your baby’s awareness of movement in space by using the towel or teddy to gently roll him over. Make exercise enjoyable for your baby by associating it with pleasure and interaction with a parent!

Hi Ho Cherry O sells a wide range of traditional teddybears, as well as inflatable “rollers” to teach your baby to be confident about his abilities.

Newborns are colour-blind!

But they can notice the contrast between BLACK and WHITE! When you feed your newborn, you might notice that he seems fixated on a small detail of the pattern of your clothing – perhaps a dark stripe or a white button on a light background. They don’t find black or white particularly interesting – just the point at which the two shades meet! The contrast is fascinating!

Hi Ho Cherry O stock a range of black and white toys for newborns, to help those new eyes to focus. There are mobiles with geometric shape, ‘clutch’ pandas for perching in the crib next to Baby, as well as black and white beanbags.

Our special item, designed by Cherry for her daughter Jessica (now 25 years!) is the FACE MOBILE, a set of 3 jolly felt faces for suspending 25 cm from a young baby. This is the distance at which a baby naturally focuses at birth (the same distance as between your eyes and those of the baby at the breast when nursing!). They are coloured black and white, with contrasts of red and yellow and blue, and make the perfect “first” toy for the new person in your life.

Why are telephones so exciting?

From around 9 or 10 months, your baby will discover the fascinating world of “cause and effect”. This new skill means that they will explore their environment in a different way – they will see if a certain action produces a reaction. At the same time, the young child is able to use a pincer-grip (forefinger in apposition to the thumb), so holes and buttons are interesting places to poke and pick! Hence the fascination with telephones – the many buttons produce interesting noises, the screen lights up, and – the very best reaction – when Baby grabs your cell phone, you react immediately, in case a number is dialed in error! What a fun toy!

Hi Ho Cherry O stock several toys that allow toddlers to explore nooks and crannies safely, with buttons and bells and chimes to make learning fun.

How to teach your child to use a pair of scissors

Use a proper pair of scissors, with sharp blades. Plastic blades do not cut, and thus will frustrate your child. If you are concerned that your child will cut herself, then wait till you think she is old enough to understand the danger.

Do not start earlier than 2 years 10 months. Your child is highly imitative and even though she seems to be ready physically, she is not responsible, and can play merry havoc with scissors and duvet/library book/dog’s fur, etc.!

Using scissors requires a high degree of eye/hand co-ordination. Place the child’s 2nd and 3rd (index and middle) fingers in the bottom hole of the scissors, with the thumb in the top hole. This is to give the child extra strength to manipulate the blades. The child tends to waggle the thumb, instead of pushing the 2nd/3rd fingers towards the thumb. When she is more adept, use only the 3rd finger, with the 2nd resting under the blade and guiding it.

Do random cutting exercises with stiff paper (ordinary paper is too floppy). Old greetings cards are ideal. Give the child a piece of thin card with thick parallel lines drawn in marker-pen. Use the principle of “cut up once, put down scissors, tear the rest of the way up”. This is so that the hand gets used to gripping the scissors and quick results are achieved. Only then can you start teaching you child to cut out geometric shapes and along curves.