While Montessori was originally designed for school-aged children, there are lots of advantages to implementing its principles from birth.

The first three years of life have been touted as being the most critical in terms of brain development. Babies are unconscious absorbers of their environment, so it is our role as parents and caregivers to ensure the environment is optimized for their development.

Movement Area

Babies don’t need luxuriously designed, Pinterest-perfect nurseries. Rather, they need a clam, peaceful, orderly environment that has a movement area for them to explore their environment at their own pace.

The purpose of a movement area, as its name suggests, is to give babies freedom of movement so that they can explore their environment and develop confidence to problem solve and become independent.

After the initial few ‘sleepy’ weeks, Dayna has become more awake and aware of her environment. Though her waking periods are short, we try to spend most of her awake time in her movement area.

This area typically comprises a mat or blanket, a low mirror and some visual mobiles. We are currently using an area rug with her topponcino on it, but will likely replace it with a mat once she starts to get more active.

The low mirror provides her with a full view of her environment, which usually includes her older brother playing somewhere and me or Johnny interacting with him. She can also see her own movements in the mirror and learn how to control them.

Visual mobiles provide just the right amount of visual and sensory input and stimulation for newborn babies. There is a recommended progression of Montessori mobiles, which I will do another post on, but the first one we start with is the Munari mobile (as pictured) which includes a variety of shapes and textures in high contrast black and white.

The best location for a movement area is where the family spends the most time during the day. When Ryaan was baby, his movement area was in his bedroom but it didn’t get used very much. We have placed Dayna’s movement area in the living room, where both Ryaan and I spend most of our day. That way, Dayna gets to be in the same space as the rest of us and be a central part of the family.

High Contrast Visuals

Research indicates that the retina of newborn babies isn’t fully developed. They cannot see the full range of colours and hues that adults see, but can only distinguish between stark contrasts like black and white.

Simple, high contrast, black and white images are great to stimulate their vision and develop their eyesight. We got Ryaan to paint some high contrast paintings for Dayna to look at, using painters tape to block out white areas. He loves watching his baby sister look at his creations.

Topponcino

Dayna lies on a topponcino when in her movement area. The topponcino is a small, flat pillow that helps a newborn baby feel secure in her new world. When being held or placed somewhere, the baby lies on the topponcino which makes the transitions smoother. The mother sleeps with the topponcino before the baby is born, so when the baby lies on it, the baby feels secure in her mother’s scent. It gives older siblings confidence when holding a tiny baby, which makes for great sibling bonding.

That sums up how we practice Montessori from the start, for the first month of a baby’s life. All of these things will continue to be used for the next few months, with modifications based on Dayna’s development. More on that next month!