Parenting Post: Playtime

My first two parenting posts focused on sleep—this one will be about what to do with a baby when they’re awake. I don’t know how true this is for any other men, but back when my wife was pregnant, I remember hearing or reading somewhere that some fathers have difficulty “bonding” with their baby. While I didn’t have this problem I suppose I can see how it might happen, and if you’re happy to have a super-“trad” marriage in which the wife basically handles all interaction with baby, well, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.

For me however, I was excited at the opportunity to interact with my baby and have found joy in the time I get to spend with her. This post will be about some of the ways in which we spent that time. Now, as I think I wrote previously, you can’t really have “playtime” with a newborn. All they can do is cry, sleep, drink milk, and maybe lay there with a blank expression for a little while. Even at this stage, that doesn’t mean you can’t spend time with them—you can still hold them, walk around with them, take naps with them, etc. I have fond memories of just sitting around doing my own thing with the baby in her bassinet right next to me, either snoozing or making weird noises at her mobile.

My first memory of my daughter actually laughing was one day when my wife was holding her and started to gently bounce her up and down. This got a few adorable little baby chuckles out of her and this was probably around the time—4-5 months old—that it became possible to have some actual “playtime.” We started off with two different playmats that had their own widgets and doohickies, pushed together to make a larger play space on the floor.

At this time the baby was still almost completely immobile, so we could toss her a few things to grab and wave around, but left to her own devices she’d get bored and start complaining pretty quickly. I would imagine this is typical for babies and I wouldn’t expect them to be content for very long this way. She’s a year old now and still gets upset pretty quickly if she’s left in a room alone and expected to entertain herself. What she really wants is just to be close to somebody—if one of us gets down on the floor with her and keeps her company, she can easily be content to play with her toys for quite some time. Her timer is much shorter if we’re sitting on the couch away from her, even if the couch is still well within her field of view.

Once I’m down on the floor with baby, I can often get away with looking at my phone or the TV or whatever for most of the time I’m down there, if I want to. Of course, if you’re down there you might as well play with baby, but my point here is that if you’re not feeling it you actually don’t have to constantly engage in direct interaction with your baby. You can do your own thing for a bit to recharge and it’s totally fine. If the baby isn’t actively crying or whining, they’re good.

So, when I did play with my baby, what were some of the things we did? Well, one thing that stands out to me about my baby is that she really did not care about being touched or handled, so long as I didn’t cause her any pain of course. So I would often try to find different ways of interaction that would make her laugh, such as blowing air on her neck unexpectedly or tickling her fat little baby chin. I’ll try and remember some of the ways that my wife and I got her to laugh, and this is definitely not an exhaustive list:

--Imitating musical rhythms with fart sounds
--Zooming my face into hers while making fart sounds (note that the baby has had multiple phases where she likes to constantly blow raspberries herself)
--Tickling her chin and saying “fat chin!” repeatedly
--Lightly grabbing her thighs and exclaiming “fat legs!”
--Making weird faces; this usually works best when I’m trying to imitate her own weird faces
--Holding something in my mouth and shaking it back and forth like a dog
--Laughing a lot while close to her; more than once she’s started smiling and laughing just from watching me do so, which can cause a feedback loop
--Hiding at different angles she can’t see and then popping out suddenly
--Tickling her belly

These little games have led to lots of joy and baby chuckles. As my baby got more mobile and independent, the range of things we could do together also expanded accordingly. One of her favorite activities from very early on has been reading books. She learned to turn the pages in her baby board books almost immediately; she likes being read to but when left to her own devices with her books nearby, she will often grab them and turn through them on her own (holding them upside down more often than not). Some of the other activities she’s developed include:

--Trading her toys and books back and forth; she often likes to take an object and hold it out to me or her mom, expecting us to take it from her, and will sometimes then want us to give it back. If she is feeling especially mischievous, she will play “keep away” and hold the object out, only to yank away if we try to take it.
--Doing crawl-races with us up and down the hall.
--Pinching her forefinger and thumb together as if she’s holding a crumb of something and then trying to “give” it to us, even though there’s nothing actually there.
--Flopping her head back and forth while scrunching her face up, then pausing to see if we’re watching her (she knows we think it’s funny).

And many more, all of this before she’s even said her first word. One of the great things about a baby is how blindingly fast they grow and change; every time I open my eyes she’s developed a new game, behavior, or preference, which makes our domestic life feel like a journey of discovery we’re going on together. It’s touching to watch how things which are utterly mundane to us adults can inspire wonder in a baby. Even the act of putting her hands together mesmerized her when she first figured out she could do it.

Hopefully this post gives you an idea of what it is like, or at least what it can be like, to live with a baby. My first couple parenting posts were about handling baby’s sleep schedule, which I felt and still feel is the area where your interactions need the most structure. Playtime is the opposite—you can just do whatever comes to your (or your baby’s) mind, with whatever’s at hand. Most random household objects can even serve as toys if baby gets her hands on them (mine was particularly fond of keyboards, to the point that we just gave her an old one to have as a permanent toy). Next up in this series of posts will likely be a write-up on baby mealtime.