Hi all, FTM to 6 week old baby girl so am a bit clueless about development & developmental aids aside from my extensive googling. Had booked her in to start baby classes. Was hoping to do baby sensory, baby sign and swimming lessons. However, she's now waiting for major surgery and is spending a lot of her time in hospital so I'm hoping I can recreate some of this stuff at home between hospital visits as we can no longer attend classes. Her medical issues mean she's more prone to developmental delay (as in 30-40% of those with it will develop some issues but some will be fine so it's not a given) so I want to do everything I can to help her as much as possible.
We do the usual talking/singing to her, reading to her & have found she likes watching baby videos on YouTube (black and white moving objects). She has black and white moving/singing toys she'll look at for short periods. We do tummy time on a baby gym which she doesn't enjoy but will tolerate. I've noticed she enjoys looking at our lights, especially when we change the colour (we have those colour changing bulbs) so was thinking of buying her one of the long tube like lamps with the water which bubbles & contains floating plastic fish. I think they're often used in sensory rooms. I've got to be careful about taking her out around people in case she gets an infection which impacts her surgery so we're limited to having close contact with others but I take her to our local shopping centre & she lifts herself off my shoulder to watch people going past if we sit in a seated area. I've seen at sensory classes, they touch textures so I've been trying to get her to touch her toys, dip her hands in water & stroke our (very placid!) cat.
I don't know if any of what I'm doing is in any way useful!
Is there anything else I could do to help her at this stage or that you've done at baby sensory classes?
Development wise she is good at following objects & will look at us if we talk to her/make eye contact for short periods before looking off. She'll follow her black and white baby videos with her eyes very well for about 30 seconds before she loses interest. She can lift her head off the ground for 10-15 seconds or so when on her tummy. We thought she smiled a few times last week after a feed but we've not seen any evidence of this since (I'm now beginning to think they were reflex smiles?! Although at the time we were convinced they were real! But it's been a week with nothing now) ...although her hospital doctor did think she smiled while he was examining her today. We remain unconvinced but wish she would smile to reassure us about her development!
Thanks for any advice anyone can offer! With it being our first, we're basing our expectations of what she should be doing off websites & can find limited information on things we can do to help her development. They just keep referencing going to baby sensory and other classes which we currently can't do!