Ensure that your baby's environment and toys are safe. Your baby's toys, materials and space should not pose risks for harm or injury. Toys should be clean and without any sharp edges as your baby may mouth them. Packaging with strings or plastic wrappers that can pose a risk of suffocation and/or strangulation must be removed.
During play and exploration, children should be in a place with minimal distraction. Infants' learning during the early stages of development may not be beneficial if it creates overstimulation. In an experiment, a researcher conditioned infants to turn their heads to the sound of a buzzer. The training for the task began either at birth, 31 or 44 days. He discovered that infants took many more trials and days to learn the task if they learned from birth than the infants who learned later. Infants need stimulation. However, if stimulation is too great, it could distract infants and young children from other tasks and replace other, more crucial activities to their development, such as social interaction.
Toys of contrasting colours fascinate babies and stimulate their developing vision. As they grow, babies use toys to explore object permanence and cause-and effect-relationships.
A safe environment for your baby to move around in and explore objects using their senses, will help your baby build cognitive skills.