Are you wondering if you should get rattles for your little baby? They may not seem very appealing to you as an adult, but to the kids, they are one of the first toys that any child will love playing with. There is no denying that children will learn a lot during playing. Getting children rattles during the first few years will not only keep them entertained, but it will help develop a range of cognitive and motor skills.
Read on to find out more about the benefits of rattles for your little tots.
Benefits of Rattles
Rattles are fantastic first toys for children. They have a lot to offer to children and have both physical and emotional benefits.
Tactile stimulation
Rattles give tactile stimulation to the mouth. The tactile properties include hard, soft, cold, hot, smooth, rough, and more. They can double as a teething toy (or teether) as well. Regular play with these toys will enable kids to tell the various tactile properties by merely looking and touching. These rattles will soothe your child’s aching gums which in turn will help maintain oral hygiene.
The different textures and shapes of rattles will encourage kids to feel the toys and then figure out the different textures they are made of. Children love to explore and rattles are an awesome first toy for that. It is the sense of awe and discovery that babies get from playing with rattles that help in cognitive development.
Auditory Stimulation
Rattles with unique sounds are the best sort. Playing with rattles aid kids in auditory stimulation. There are so many sounds that can be made with rattles and while all this can be very exciting for your baby, you can encourage your child to shake the rattles so they can hear for themselves what sound it is capable of producing.
Encourage your baby to shake and bang the rattles on various surfaces so they know about what tones, rhythms, and volumes the rattles can produce. Your child will be quick to grasp the concept of cause and effect. If I move the rattle, it produces a certain sound. If I bang it against the crib, it will produce a different sound, etc.
This perception of sight, sound, touch and texture will help them make sense of the world around them.
Cause and Effect
Even a small movement of the rattle will give rise to a sound instantaneously. They will discover that shaking, playing, or banging a rattle will make some sort of sound.
Starting from the age of 4 months, kids will learn about cause and effect. They will begin to recognize that performing an action (moving, playing, banging) the rattle will result in sounds being produced. The cause is banging the rattles against the crib, mantelpiece, table or another toy and the effect is the sound produced.
Kids will experiment as they play with the rattles and learn about cause and effect. This will aid in their cognitive development.
Cognitive Development
Apart from understanding the different textures of the rattles, how they feel to the touch and gaining familiarity of the various textures by sight, all of which help in cognitive development, there are other ways rattles can help with achieving cognitive milestones.
For one, babies learn about object permanence. They will comprehend that just because an object is out of view does not mean it does not exist at all. At this age, babies will not be willing to search for objects that are completely hidden. Sit with them on the floor, hide the rattle under a blanket and then encourage them to find out the rattle you have “hidden”. They will know that just because the object was out of their sight for a few minutes does not mean it has disappeared altogether. It was just waiting under the blanket, waiting for you to discover it.
Children learn by imitation and mirroring those around them. You will see them holding the rattle to their ears to imitate you speaking over the phone, an airplane that they will make fly in the air, a ladle that can be used to scoop food, etc. Further, you can teach them to follow single-step directions such as “hand over the rattle to me”, “drop the rattle on the carpet”, “place the rattle on the sofa” etc.
Tracking
By around 3 months of age, you will notice that your infant will begin to focus and follow moving objects in their range of vision. If you move the rattle too far off their field of vision, the object will begin to get blurry and babies will start losing interest in it.
To hold their attention, play with the rattle right in front of their face. The noise is sure to attract them! Now move the objects from side to side, forward and backwards and see how far they can follow the rattle with their eyes. Tracking rattles will help enhance a kid's focus and attention. Bumpy Ride’s rattles take the shape of dumbbells, tubes, and rolling rattles with subtle colours which will instantly appeal to infants and be a wonderful source of entertainment.
Improves Gross Motor and Fine Motor Skills
Learning to grasp the rattle with their hands and manipulate them to make sounds refine the fine motor skills of children. When they learn to grasp the rattles with their hands, it will help enhance their fine motor skills. But did you know rattles help with enhancing gross motor skills as well?
Dangle the rattle in front of their eyes when they are lying in the crib and encourage them to reach forward with their hands and grab it. Keep the rattle out of reach and encourage the babies to crawl forward and hold the rattle.
Hand-eye Coordination
The development of hand-eye coordination is a critical skill that eventually helps infants develop the skills to grasp and hold objects. These are crucial skills which they will continue to hone all through toddlerhood, preschool and later years when they begin to do activities like holding pencils/colour pencils and crayons and writing/drawing, putting on their shoes, self-feed, playing sports and a whole lot more.
You can help sharpen this skill early on in life by making them play with rattles. When they are infants, make encouraging sounds, smile at them and prompt them till they reach out for rattles and clutch them firmly.
Bet you didn’t know that there was so much to a rattle! There is so much to explore, observe, experiment and learn from them that they can make for a lovely first toy to any baby. Our Bumpy Rides rattles look classy, are designed tastefully and made with the best quality wood keeping your little one’s safety in mind.
Use them for long car journeys, when you want to carry on some uninterrupted conversations as rattles are sure to hold children’s attention, or simply use them when you want a toy that will delight them while also helping to develop some very important physical and cognitive milestones!
