Having a new baby brings all kinds of challenges – dealing with sleepless nights, baby crying, feeding, how to keep your baby stimulated and happy, the list goes on. If you’re looking for ideas, tips or just reliable information it can be hard to know where to start. Everyone has an opinion! We’ve compiled some links to what we think are some of the best resources for parents with young babies.
The Institute of Health Visiting is one of the most respected early years organisations in the UK dedicated to promoting excellent health visitor practice for parents and babies. Their Top Tips for Parents page has a wealth of useful information and advice, based on the Institute’s years of experience and expertise. The pages cover a wide range of issues like nutrition and feeding, health and illnesses, child development, sleep and mental health.
Looking for ideas about how to keep your baby entertained and learning? The NSPCC has a nice set of resources for parents with tips about fun activities that are also good for babies’ learning and development – it’s called Look Play Sing Say. The tips are accompanied by a short explanation of the research behind the different tips. They also have a useful page on parenting tips.
Another great source of inspiration for things that babies enjoy doing that can also help their development is the Department for Education’s Hungry Little Minds website.
AIMH UK is a not-for-profit organisation supporting infant mental health and wellbeing. They have developed a series of very informative videos about a whole range of useful topics, like soothing babies when they cry and bonding. They feature real-life parent volunteers and were designed by experts in early child development.