Stimulating Your Baby's Senses - How Parents Can Stimulate Baby's Five Senses - What to Expect

Your baby has been flexing those five fabulous senses since the day she was born, and even in the months before she was born.
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Transcript:
Have a sense you should be doing more to stimulate your baby's senses? Actually, your baby has been flexing those five fabulous senses since the day she was born, even in the months before she was born. All you have to do is nurture what comes naturally, opening up her growing world to the even wider world of sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures around her, and letting your little sponge, and her quickly-developing senses soak it all up.
Let's start with taste, a sense you definitely won't have to go out of your way to stimulate. Your little one's taste buds get a buzz at every meal, on the breast or bottle. And if you're breastfeeding, baby gets a sample of the tastes to come, too, since every food you eat adds even more flavor to your milk.
Is everything already ending up in your baby's mouth? That's because tasting is a favorite form of exploration. Open mouth, insert anything. It's enough to make you gag, but unless those chubby fingers have reached for something toxic, super dirty, or chokeable, let him taste the world around him.
Next up, smell. That sweet little button nose already gets plenty of workout by sniffing what's around her: Mom's shampoo, dad's aftershave, garlic sauteing, bread toasting, the freshly cut grass in the park, the lavender lotion you're rubbing into her skin, the contents of her diaper. Remember, her sniffer's probably not particularly discerning at this point, so what's stinky to you may not be to her. Go ahead and expose her nose to all sorts of safe smells. Sight is a sense that has definitely come into sharper focus.
Baby still loves gazing at your smiling face, but he also has his sights set on the world beyond. So give him lots to look at, books to finger puppets, mirrors to mobiles, paintings in a museum, groceries on the supermarket shelves. Let him people-watch from a front-facing carrier, watch cars zoom by from the stroller. Dogs romping, birds flying. Remember, too, he'll learn volumes just by watching you, your body language, your facial expressions, all the nonverbal cues he'll pick up.
Now listen up: it's through your baby's sense of hearing that she will learn about language, the cadence, and rhythm and diction of her mother and father tongue. About feelings, including excitement, happiness, empathy, even danger. So talk, read, and sing to your baby. Imitate nature sounds, animal sounds, and her sounds. You'll be fine-tuning her hearing and getting her talking.
Give him your voice, but don't stop there. Let him listen to the hum of the vacuum, the whirl of the dryer, the splash of running water. Add background music, tot tunes to pop, classical to classic rock, rap to reggae. Toys add listening pleasure too. A squeak, a rattle, a ring. Just protect baby's hearing from very loud noises. Anything you can't speak comfortably over is too loud.
Finally, the sense of touch. From your first snuggle, touch has been one of baby's most indispensable senses. So get touchy with cuddles, massages, gentle tickles and belly razzes. Let him stroke a variety of textures, a plush teddy bear and the dog's fur, hard wooden blocks and soft foam cubes. Switch up surfaces when practicing tummy time. The carpet, a towel, dad's shirt, mom's sweater, a yoga mat, a play mat. Here's to those five sensational senses.

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Front facing carriers are bad for the hip development! No go!