Daddy Magic: Chase your child

Nothing is more fun to a baby and toddler than a good chase. As soon as your child can crawl, you should be playing this with her.

Make sounds and slowly crawl toward her. You can growl, bark, hum the Jaws song, or make loud thumping sounds. When you catch her, give her a good tickling and an opportunity to get away.

Keep playing this with your child until you're tired of it. I have some relatives that the dad and mom both chase around their son. I know one guy that uses really deep and scary growls, and his son squeals with delight.

Have fun with it! This is Daddy Magic.




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Daddy Magic: Distract your baby while changing her diaper

If your baby is screaming while you change her diaper, then everyone hears it. It may wake up her siblings, your spouse, it may make you look bad to the guests/neighbors, and it certainly won't be a pleasant experience for your baby.

You need to distract her so that she doesn't dread having her diaper changed. There are several ways to do that:

- Hand her the diaper while you unbutton her clothes and open her diaper. Especially as a toddler, she will love trying to unwrap the edges of the diaper.

- Hand her anything, really. This could even be a shoe or sock. I liked to use a loose Velcro strap because it was attached to her changing table and wasn't going anywhere.

- Tickler her. When you lift up her shirt, poke her belly button and tickle her there, gently run your nails up her sides, gently rub her on the sides of her neck or at the top of her chest. Tickle her feet or her arm pits, or even barrage her with tickles. Always smile and laugh with her. Teach her how to be happy. When it isn't funny to her, stop and move on.

- Use hand motions in anticipation before you tickle. For example, raise your hands high up, make a falling sound, and then collapse your hands in a barrage of tickles on her. Or do the buzzing bee with your finger that attacks her belly button. The hand motion will also teach her how to communicate. My daughter has used the raise hands and a friend's daughter has used the moving finger in order to tell me that they want a barrage of tickles in that particular way. Very cute.

- Blow on her feet. My toddler blows in order to tell me that she wants me to blow on her feet. It's cute.

- Peek-a-boo. Always a classic, even with toddlers.

- Sing and dance. You may laugh at this, but your baby will stop crying and smile. Combine your dance steps with some peek-a-boo, moving your head around in quick movements, and maybe some tickles.

- Use a funny voice.

- Do things with your mouth: a pop, click your tongue, flutter your lips, make kazoo sounds, do the old Indian trick where you repeatedly clap your mouth, cup your hand over your mouth, whistle, smack your lips, etc.

- Snap your fingers or clap.

- Play Music. Sing along.



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Daddy Magic: The Importance of Playing

When my wife and I were taking the pregnancy and birthing class, they showed a video. In the video the dad was playing with his daughter. He was playing the little piggies where he would wiggle her toes. Well, after three rounds of that, he tried to move her on to a different game.

She didn't want to move on. She wanted to keep playing the same game. She wasn't sick of it. He was sick of it. He moved on. He didn't play it with her.

I think as parents we may justify not playing with our children with something like "I don't want to spoil my child," "We can't always play," "She needs to learn that you don't always get what you want," etc.


However, I think we miss the importance of playing:

(1) You are teaching your child how to smile. Notice how she smiles a lot more when you're playing with her? She'll keep that for the rest of her life.

(2) You are telling your child that you love him. A simple lesson, but this is important. He has been shown that somebody loves him and spends time with him. He will learn to do the same to others.



So the next time your child wants to play a game that you are bored with, you should ask yourself, who are you doing this for? For yourself, or for your child? You may even have to play Peek-a-boo for years. =^)



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