Daddy Magic: Touch Your Baby!!!

Touch your baby! Start from day one. Touch your infant. Touch his hands, his feet, his legs, his arms, his neck, his chest, his stomach, his face, and his head. Touch him gently and playfully.

Touch your infant!

Touch your baby!

Touch your toddler! When you get more toward the toddler age, your touches should be more like tickles on the sides, neck, and feet/toes. Also touch his hands, his arms, his neck, his face, and his head. Give him hugs! Teach him how to hug.

Tickle your toddler! Tickles count.

Why? Why touch your child?


Do it for these reasons:

(1) Teach him how to hug. By getting him comfortable with affection, he will learn how to show affection to others. It starts with physical touch, but it will extend to compassionate acts as he grows.

(2) He will learn that his parents love him. He will learn this much more affectively and quickly than any other method. Do you love him? Tell him.

(3) He will be healthy. That's right. Touching your child stimulates the blood cells so that he is able to fight off sickness and viruses. This is especially vital in the younger stages.


Love your child! Touch your child! That's Daddy Magic.





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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: How to get your toddler to not stuff his face with food

Our toddler doesn't stuff her face with food. All her friends do.

Why is that? I actually stumbled on this one by accident.

I started handing her things (coasters mostly) to teach her how to share. I saw that a friend of mine was doing it, and his daughter knew how to share. So I started doing it when my daughter was younger.

This is what I did:

1. Hold out item #1 for her, "Would you like this?"
2. She takes it. "You're welcome."
3. Hold out item #2 for her, "Would you like this?"
4. She takes it. "You're welcome."
5. Repeat for about 10 items.
6. She now has the items in a pile next to her.
7. I hold out my hand, "May I have one, please?"
8. She didn't give it to me at first. I take one. "Thank you!" I sing-song the phrase and sign it.
9. I hold out my hand, "May I have one, please?"
10. Eventually she gets it and hands one to me. "Thank you!" I sing-song the phrase and use sign language to say "Thank you!" at the same time.
11. Once I have all 10 items, I hand them back to her, one at a time.
12. I did the back and forth process about three times every day. My wife got sick of constantly hearing, "May I have that please?" "Thank you!" "Would you like this?" "You're welcome!"

Eventually, a lot of cool things started happening:

1. My daughter learned how to share, beyond what was normal. When another toddler dropped his hat, she immediately picked it up and handed it to him. She constantly looks for her baby sister's pacifier, burp rag, and bottle, and hands those things to us or to her sister, because she knows those belong to her sister.
2. She learned how to be entertained with us doing a simple game of handing things. Even when she is with herself, she will be entertained by picking things up and making a pile.
3. She learned how to sign Thank You before all her older friends.
4. She learned how to say Thank You before all her older friends. The sing-song tone was catchy.
5. She began eating like this, only taking one thing at a time. All her friends stuff their faces. She eats sequentially. This allows us to give her smaller portions at a time so that we don't waste food.

All of those are very cool effects, but I still get people who are blown away by #5. I trained her on a habit that carried over into her eating habits.

Is it magic? It's Daddy Magic.

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Daddy Magic: The Toddler Tools

You need tools. Tools are good.

Take one of those snack containers with different departments. Not only are they good for portioning dried formula (for infants and babies), but you can bring a variety of easy-to-get-to snacks.

Bring the portable booster seat. That's an amazing tool!

Take an umbrella stroller. They are lighter weight and easy to haul.

Bring a Pack-and-Play. Teach your child to sleep in one so that your child can sleep anywhere!

Use a pacifier to help your child sleep at night.

Children love digital toys, like the cell phone or Mypod toys for toddlers. They have buttons, make noises, and they have visual stuff.




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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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