Play provides opportunities for newborns to use their five senses – tasting, touching, seeing, hearing and smelling to take in stimuli from the environment and respond through reflexes and motor activities.

Researchers have found that infants can control their leg movements more easily than their hands.

When holding toys with sounds alternately in front of infants’ hands and feet, researchers observed that infants as young as 8 weeks of age showed interest in the object by reaching with their feet until they could engage in well-coordinated reaching and grasping using their hands.

Pre-reaching takes place when newborns (usually from birth to three months) make poorly coordinated swipes toward an object in front of them. This is due to the lack of muscular control and visual acuity, which means the ability to see fine details.