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  • Published: 2 November 2015
  • ISBN: 9781583949573
  • Imprint: North Atlantic
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 200
  • RRP: $49.99

Your Self-Motivated Baby

Enhance Your Baby's Social and Cognitive Development in the First Six Months through Movement





While we all know that babies respond to loving, playful interaction, it is not commonly understood how much they communicate and relate to us and to each other with their movements. Educators and teachers in early childhood development will refer to this book often; parents and carers of small infants will find this book a rich source of information about the ways in which babies from birth to six months move, develop, and express their needs.

A hands-on guide for communicating with babies in their first six months and nurturing their physical, social, and cognitive development, Your Self-Motivated Baby shows parents and other caregivers how to interact with very young infants and understand what they are expressing in their movements. Color photographs throughout the book show babies' motivation in play and how subtle interactions build bonding and encourage development. Following advice from author Beverly Stokes, a seasoned developmental movement educator, adults learn how to relate to babies and communicate effectively with them. Beverly Stokes makes it clear that preverbal babies are giving cues for caregiver participation very early on; it's up to us to try to understand them better. By communicating with babies sensitively in the first six months of their lives, we help them to establish the foundation for a healthy, confident, and joyful life.

Beverly Stokes is a leader in developmental movement education whose book Amazing Babies Moving has been translated into five languages and is used together with its companion video series in university graduate and undergraduate programs in early childhood education, somatic psychology, and parenting programs internationally. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner, Dr. Louis Stokes.

  • Published: 2 November 2015
  • ISBN: 9781583949573
  • Imprint: North Atlantic
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 200
  • RRP: $49.99

Praise for Your Self-Motivated Baby

"This parent-friendly book orchestrates the power of play and movement into up-to-date neurophysical exercises that will build the brain, body, and joy of your baby." --Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect
"Parents who take this book to heart will emjoy their baby more, learn a lot about themselves, and improve their abilities to nurture their baby's body and mind, passions and character toward health and wellness." --Thomas R. Verny, MD, author of The Secret Life of the Unborn Child
"The best book on infant development showing the baby's movements as they naturally occur and how spontaneous play emerges from the baby's own motivation." --Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, author of Sensing, Feeling, and Action

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