Okay, mama, you’re six months into your child’s life. And it’s crazy busy! 

Your baby may soon be on the move, rolling, sitting and even pulling up. Stimulating your now-older baby requires new activities that will help boost large and small motor skills as well as social, intellectual and language skills. 

While your baby is learning every day, there is more for you to discover too! Take the stress out of introducing new activities to your child and keeping your little one engaged  by incorporating our tried and tested ideas into your baby’s schedule. 

When it comes to entertaining a 6-month old baby, sometimes parents find themselves at a loss. Besides, how do babies even play?

Tips for Playing with Your 6-Month Old

You made it to the halfway point of year one. Congratulations! At this stage in development, your baby will be more alert and spend more time awake, which means there is more time in the day to fill with activities. 

Use What You Have

You can encourage your baby’s development through simple, quality activities with items you already have around the house. In fact, fewer toys are often better for baby. When it comes to playing with your baby, quality is more important than quantity.

Keep Your Baby Safe

With every passing day, your baby is getting more curious. They’re going to explore the world around them with their mouth, especially as they start to teethe and become more mobile. It’s natural for them to grab objects that are new to them and put them in their mouth.  Always make sure that objects surrounding your baby are safe for them. 

To prevent choking, keep these common household items out of reach of babies, toddlers, and children aged 4 or younger: 

• Coins
• Buttons
• Batteries
• Small toys, like marbles
• Balloons
• Dice
• Magnets
• Pen caps
• Small hair clips, bows, and hair ties

7 Activities for Entertaining a 6-Month Old

Babies are wonderfully curious by nature, but many parents struggle with how to best support their baby’s development. Happy Little People™ cards solve this problem with researched backed, high-quality intentional play prompts. Use The First Year deck with your baby anytime, anywhere to spark play, gain confidence, and feel inspired. 

Ball in a Box: Cognitive Play 

Put a small ball in a clear plastic container and put the lid on. Hand it over to your little one to explore. They will be fascinated watching the ball move around inside as they turn the box. This is a great way to build their concentration, and fine motor and cognitive skills.

Black and White Sensory Basket: Sensory Play 

The concept of a sensory basket dates back to the early 1900s from Maria Montessori, which provides a child the opportunity to explore, experiment, and make choices on their own.

Gather a mixture of black and white objects from around the house that will be safe for your baby to handle and display them in a shallow basket. Invite your baby to freely explore the open-ended collection of high contrast objects, under your watchful eye.

Circle of Books: Physical Play

Place your baby on their tummy on the floor. Find several board books and stand them up in a circle around them. Encourage (or help) your baby to pivot around to look at the different books. Then, when they grow tired of this tummy time activity, choose one of the books and read it together as you lay on your backs next to each other.

Face-to-Face Playdate: Social Play

Your baby will love having new faces around! Now that your baby is discovering more of the world around them, it’s a good time to introduce playdates into their schedule. Social interaction is essential for babies and toddlers. Children as young as 6-months old can receive the benefits of a playdate, including physical, social, mental, and emotional. 

Tummy Time with a Mirror: Physical Play

Mirrors are inexpensive and non-distracting, and offer great benefits to your babe! At 6-months old, your baby will continue to strengthen their little muscles and grasp at toys during tummy time. By placing a mirror in front of them while they have tummy time, you’re encouraging them to reach, track their own movements visually, vocalize, focus their eyes, and explore faces.

Singing to Baby: Cognitive Play

Singing to your baby encourages bonding, language development, vocabulary, rhythm and rhyme, listening… and besides, it’s fun and a sweet way to connect! After tummy time, help your baby recover from that hard work by laying them on their back, giving their muscles a break, and singing songs so that they have a full view of your face. 

At 6-months old, your baby will love simple, repetitive songs like:

• Baa, Baa Black Sheep
• Row, Row, Row Your Boat
• You Are My Sunshine
• Hush, Little Baby, 
• The Itsy Bitsy Spider
• I’m a Little Teapot
• Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Taking it Outside: Physical Play

Entertain your baby outside! You can have quality time outdoors with your baby, while helping their development and enjoying the benefits of nature, even for little ones! 

Just by virtue of being outdoors, your baby is exposed to new smells, sensations, and things to look at, which promotes early language skills. Time outdoors helps babies’ physical development, as they watch people run, walk, and play around them. Nature lays a foundation for lifelong learning because infant interaction with nature encourages curiosity and forms brain synapses. Even sleep patterns can improve when babies experience natural sunlight, forming their circadian rhythms earlier than their counterparts.

Take any of the above mentioned ideas for entertaining a 6-month old outside to gain the benefits of spending time outdoors with your baby.