5 Toys To Accelerate Fine Motor Skill Development

0:00 - At around six months of age, your baby's fine motor development should have reached the point where they can hold and play with toys independently. But in order to get to that point, they need to develop a series of other foundational skills along the way. By choosing the right toys, you can actually accelerate the development of each of these core skills to help your little one reach those more advanced fine motor skills. Let's start with the toys you need for the first three months.

0:26 The goal at three months of age is for your baby to be purposefully reaching out and hitting toys. But before they can do that, there are two important skills that they need to develop. These include their visual skills so that they can actually visually fixate and then follow a moving toy. And their arm and hand strength so that they're able to actively reach out and hit that toy. At three months of age, what you'll notice is that, your baby will be able to combine these two skills together so that they can visually follow a moving target and then reach out and hit it.

1:00 So let's start with developing visual skills. The perfect toy to develop visual skills are high contrast cards. And this is because newborns find it easier to firstly notice and then focus on high contrast objects. Simply placing these high contrast cards, which are usually black and white images, beside your baby when they're lying on their back, on their tummy, or on their side for them just to look at will help to develop their ability to visually fixate on an object.

1:29 And then once they've got that visually fixating skill down pat, you can help your baby develop the ability to follow a moving object by simply moving those cards around your baby when they're lying on their back, on their tummy, or on their side, or using those cards to make a mobile, which your baby will lie under and look at. Another great toy which will help develop a newborn's visual skills, as well as their arm and hand strength is a baby gym.

1:55 The enticing toys that dangle from the arches of a baby gym will help to develop your baby's ability to visually fixate on that toy and then visually follow that toy as it moves around. And those dangling toys will also encourage your baby to lift their arms up against gravity, which helps to strengthen their arm, trunk, and neck muscles, and enable them to be reaching out to grab toys. And what you'll soon notice is, as your little one's muscles become stronger and their visual skills improve, they will start to reach out and bat or hit that dangling toy at around three months of age.

2:29 Now at this point, when you notice your baby has the ability to lift their arms and reach out to hit that toy, they can move on to developing the next skill, which is the ability to actually hold a toy and interact with it. And there are three toys which will help your baby master this skill. But before we cover what those three toys are, if you'd like to learn what to expect in terms of your baby's development in the first year of life, make sure you click on the link in the description box below to get my free Developmental Milestone Chart.

2:58 Now the first toy that's going to help develop your baby's ability to actually hold and grasp toys is the Oball. Now I'm not going to lie, the Oball is my all-time favorite baby toy. In fact, my husband always laughs because this is the toy I give to all my friends without fail whenever I'm buying them a baby shower gift. The Oball itself is the perfect toy for fine motor development. And this is because the multiple finger holes make it extremely easy for a baby to grab.

3:28 In fact, this is the only toy that I can honestly say all three month olds are able to grip onto with ease. Also, the lightweight feature of the Oball means that your baby is going to be able to hold that toy independently and bring it to their mouth. And this is the start of them being able to play and explore with toys. And most importantly, when your little one does accidentally drop the Oball on their face, which is going to happen a lot, it is so lightweight that it doesn't actually hurt.

3:58 And at five months of age, when they start to develop the skill to transfer a toy from one hand to the other, which they do simply by yanking the toy out of their hand, the Oball, having the many holes, makes it really easy for them to do this. The second toy which is going to help develop your baby's ability to grasp and play with toys is soft cylindrical rattles. Now rattles themselves are great toys for babies.

4:20 However, under six months of age, soft cylindrical rattles are best. And this is because a number of reasons. Firstly, the cylindrical handle will easily fit in your baby's small hands. And because these rattles are often made from soft material, the handle easily changes shape. So if your baby is using that palmar grasp or they're using a radial palmar grasp, they're still going to be able to grab that rattle and shake it. These rattles are also lightweight, which is important, because your little one is going to drop that rattle a lot.

4:49 And the lightweight feature means that your baby won't hurt themselves. And the third toy are fabric or cloth books. So not only are these toys great for introducing your baby to books and reading in general, which helps to develop their language skills, they're also the perfect fine motor toy for a baby under six months of age. And this is because the fabric book itself are often lightweight and flexible. So your four-month old is going to be able to lift that book in the first place and then hold it using that palmar grasp or that radial palmar grasp.

5:22 And while they're holding this book, they'll be able to feel the different textures of the book and change their grip when they're needing to remove those 3D components, which are often inside these fabric books. And most importantly, your baby is not going to be able to destroy fabric books. Babies under six months of age are unable to release items and tend to pull the toy out of their hand instead of dropping it. Their grip is also not that precise, and they mouth everything.

5:51 So if you were to give them a paper book or a board book at this age, they would likely end up ripping those pages or mouthing the pages until they're no longer pages themselves. So to ensure that you still have some books around the house when your baby is under six months of age, definitely use the fabric books. While we are on the topic of toys, the next thing you want to do is check out this video to find out which four common baby toys provide babies with no developmental benefits and may even lead to developmental delays when they're overused.

6:23 Thanks for watching, and I will see you next week where I'll share more parenting tips and tricks.