Baby Sensory | Baby Dribble the Podcast episode: 3

Hello and welcome to Baby Dribble which is brought to you from Sweet Dreamers HQ by the SweetDreamers team. Baby Dribble is a fun, friendly and FREE parenting advice “channel” for new and expectant parents and caregivers. We aim to offer knowledge, support and insight into to the wonderful world of parenthood with industry expert guests and medical professionals.

Lynda & Lucy here again & welcome to this week’s podcast. Today we are discussing the world of baby sensory and are very privileged to have a special guest here with us in our studio – Emily Bryczkowski. Emily runs a baby sensory group in the Portsmouth area and is a mum of 2, Violet and Bertie.

So, let’s get started, Emily would you mind explaining a little about your baby sensory classes and how long they’ve been running.

Baby sensory is an international brand, the head office is in Salisbury so not too far from where we are now and now runs as far as Canada and Australia however I run the Portsmouth franchise. It was started by Dr Lin Day, she is a parenting and childcare developmental expert. She has over 35 years of experience and she has developed these classes all focused on helping support and drive baby’s development. Emily found that there was not much out there for younger children. There is certainly is for slightly older babies say at sitting age however from birth, not so much. The baby sensory classes run from birth up until 13 months and some parents sign their babies up before they’ve been born. It is important as in the first year of a baby’s life their brain doubles in size therefore these classes are so key especially in the first 6 months to give that sensory stimulation.
There is a lot you can do at home certainly however I found that socially the classes work well. With the baby sensory classes each activity has a purpose behind it aimed at driving sensory development. Emily has been running the classes since April 2018 and can see the friendships forming between the mums that attend and it’s a nice reason to get up and out after having a new baby to meet new people.
You find a lot of mothers tend to think their baby may be too young for a sensory class and Emily talks about how some babies do fall asleep during the class as this is natural for them however they do say that babies take in around 60% of what is going on around them when they are asleep. The first 6 months are so key in a baby’s brain development and even though say their sight is not as advanced we can focus on a lot of other areas such as on strengthening eye muscles, brain development or sense of smell.

Do you cover taste in your classes?

Yes, we do as the babies get older. Generally, we do sense of smell with the younger babies so everything is covered in the classes. Smell is incredibly important as they say babies can smell from 17 months gestation. When babies are first born one of the first things babies can smell is breast milk and they will often be searching using their sense of smell.

Do you use lots of lights in your classes?

Yes, we use lots of string lights and lights that twinkle as babies tend to like things that move as they find it easier to focus on rather than objects that are straight ahead of them so we use moving lights to help them focus. We use nice soft lights rather than harsh lights in a dark room as this would be too much for them to process.

As mentioned earlier the classes run for children up to 13 months and we also have classes after this age for children up to pre-school age called Toddler sense. The routine is slightly different to the baby classes as the baby classes are centered around a baby’s natural routine.

There are many benefits for mum which include the social side and having that time to be able to bond with your baby. A lot of people are under the impression that when your baby is born there will be a bond there and that is not always the case, it’s like any relationship where it can take a little time for that bond to form and we can help with that bond and strengthen these bonds.

The classes are also open to dads and grandparents. It’s a lovely bonding time for these relationships.

Earlier in the week we conducted a Myth Busting Baby Sensory poll on our Instagram story to see how much our followers knew about baby sensory. We had an overwhelming 3000k entries so thank you to everybody who answered our poll. here are the results

Babies are born with hand/eye co-ordination

Yes 19%
No 81%

The answer is actually no so our followers were very savvy on this one. This coordination doesn’t normally develop until 3 months. Babies before this age are unable to distinguish distance at this age.

A newborn babies sight developments quicker than hearing

True 29%
False 71%

This is false, full hearing develops by one month and full sight takes 6-8 months.

Babies use sight and hearing the most in the first 6 months

True 66%
False 36%

This is false, babies use all their senses. Babies can actually taste and hear in the womb therefore all the senses are important from birth.

Babies can see colour from birth

True 17%
False 83%

We found this one interesting as we were not too sure of the answer so we asked around the office and it actually true, babies can see colour however they cannot distinguish different colours. Research shows that babies will move toward highly saturated colours such as black or yellow as they show a high contrast in colour.

We also wanted to announce the winner of our podcast prize Ewan the Dream Sheep, Louise Chidgey.

Louise Chidgey, congratulations, we will be contacting you shortly to give you your prize.

We also have another giveaway this week of our very own baa baa blankie. Our super soft ewan comforter is soft to the touch and with silky edges he is the perfect companion for bedtime. If you want to be in with a chance to win email the word ‘blankie’ to prizes @sweetdreamers.co.uk, the winner will be announced on our next podcast.

We would like to thank everyone for listening and we hope you enjoyed our Baby Dribble podcast.

Bye for now Lynda, Lucy and Emily