Does your baby like to push and throw things on floors? Are they enjoying pressing noisy toys over again? Do they throw a meal bowl? Don’t worry! You might feel annoyed with tiny hands spilling things, but these types of plays will gradually help them understand the relation between cause and effect. Cause and effect toys are what the name suggests. Your baby will learn that every action they do has an effect.
Cause and effect toys are a very important set of toys that you must introduce to your baby to improve their skills and coordination. For example, shaking a rattle makes a sound, throwing a rubber ball on the ground makes it bounce, and something pushed through a hole makes it go down the hole. These are a few things your baby will learn as they play with cause and effect toys. As your little one turns one year old, they are more coordinated and try to throw, pull, push and drop objects. Do not stop your little ones from doing such things; instead, give them opportunities to play and explore different things. There are many ways to teach cause and effect to your baby.
In This Article
- Why is it Important For Babies to Learn Cause and Effect?
- When Can Babies Understand Cause and Effect?
- Top 5 Developmental Benefits of Cause and Effect Toys For Babies
- List of Best Cause and Effect Toys You Should Consider Buying For Your Baby
- FAQ’s
Why is it Important For Babies to Learn Cause And Effect?
Babies are very notorious and have curious minds. They are very much sensory learners that flourish while engaging with eye-catchy things and surroundings. Understanding these causes and effects is very crucial for language development. Cause and effect help to know words, sounds, actions, and other things. These toys help you baby develop the skills of attention, curiosity and playing with intention.
Young babies and infants learn to predict a sense of control and outcomes. This is an extremely important exercise for the little one to learn about their surroundings and how to interact with you.
When Can Babies Understand Cause and Effect?
Babies start receiving responses from a caregiver at the early age of three months. They start cooing and smiling when you interact with them. Unknowingly parents offer some responses that reinforce babies to understand cause and effects. Your babies start learning that their little movements and actions initiate some reaction.
However, babies start exploring the cause and effect between 6-8 months. At this age, they know that their little actions result in some outcomes. One example of learning cause and effect is when you start giving solid food to your baby. The little angel will splat food on the floor and notice it falling. This quick cause and effect soon turns into joy, and they begin to explore new things, such as verbal instruction and more.
Top 5 Developmental Benefits of Cause and Effect Toys For Babies
Learning case and effect is a developmental milestone, and toys play a very important role in understanding the concept of cause and effect. Their action with toys helps encourage learning and understand those causes and effects.
Here are a few more benefits of cause-and-effect toys.
1. Sensory Development
Cause-and-effect toys help develop senses because babies actively try to pull and push them. When they engage with toys, babies use multiple senses to grab them properly. This, in turn, helps to boost the development of the senses.
2. Language Development
Learning cause and effect is crucial for developing speech and language. The sounds coming from toys and words you speak while they are playing with toys can have a great impact on your babies. Your little one tries to copy these words, initiate different actions, and start cooing or crying to get something.
3. Creativity and Imagination
Babies have curious minds and notice every moment around them. Cause-and-effect toys help develop a curiosity to learn things. They repeat playing with toys multiple times to understand the cause and effects. Babies play with push and pull buttons that help to develop imaginative and creative thinking abilities. Some toys produce sounds that further enhance curiosity to speak different words.
4. Hand-Eye Coordination and Grasping Skills
Introducing cause-and-effect toys helps to encourage your babies to interact actively. This helps to develop coordination between hands and eyes. Some toys like building blocks, knobbed puzzles, stacking toys, and others help to teach coordination between arms, hands, and eyes.
5. Sense of Control
At a very early age, your baby begins to anticipate the consequences of their actions and develops a sense of regulation. Babies get frustrated and cry when they don’t understand why a particular toy works. On the other hand, cause-and-effect toys encourage your baby to attempt and attempt again. This helps to build a sense of control.
For instance, when babies cannot stack blocks accurately, and the tower starts falling, they will learn to balance them properly. This further helps to build a sense of control and a deep understanding of how to finish the task on time.
List of Best Cause and Effect Toys You Should Consider Buying For Your Baby
Now, you know how effective cause-and-effect toys are for your growing babies. The question is which cause-and-effect toys benefit your babies and what toys you should consider. Keeping your concern in mind, here are some of the best cause-and-effect toys you should know.
1. Sensory Toys
Sensory toys entail a sensory reaction. Babies react appropriately to sensations such as textures. They discover new information about their surroundings by using their senses. When the baby compresses a ball, the ball changes shape and size; similarly, their facial movements change when they chow down a lemon. They respond to stimuli and learn that their actions have an effect. You can invest in sensory toys such as rattles, textured balls, squishy balls, musical toys, toys with push buttons, etc.
2. Stacking Toys
Stacking toys such as Rainbow Disc in four different vertical dowels is also beneficial to teach your baby about cause and effects. Babies will repeatedly enjoy stacking that colorful disc and learn to adjust stacking toys.
3. Sound Musical Toys
These kinds of toys let your little one experiment with various kinds of sounds while playing with these kinds of toys. Hitting musical drums and playing the xylophone can develop sensation to produce different sounds.
4. Rolling Toys
Basic balls are the best examples of cause and effects toys. You can also invest in ball trackers, ball drop toys or ball drop rolling and swirling tower ramp toys. They also try to learn to play and roll down balls into the holes.
5. Gravity Toys
Gravity toys teach babies the concepts of drop, push, and pull. The ball hits the ground if they slip it. If they lift a cart, it will move toward them; if they press it, it will move in the opposite direction. They learn the concept of cause and effect.
Cause and effect understanding is a way to develop a sense of control and skills development and to enhance coordination between eyes, hands, and mind. Introducing cause and effect toys immensely helps in enhancing the cause-and-effect understanding and helps your babies learn developmental skills in a better way.
FAQ’s
1. What is Cause and Effect Learning?
Cause and effect learning explains why an event happens and what its consequences are. This learning helps babies develop various cognitive skills.
2. What is the Best Way to Teach Cause and Effect For Babies?
The best way to teach cause and effect is to introduce cause and effect toys like musical drums, stacking toys, gravity toys, and more. Also, encourage free play where your munchkin will experiment with different toys and things around them within safe limits.
3. How Do You Teach Cause and Effect to Babies?
Start interacting with your little ones actively. Engage with conversation and introduce some sensory toys that bring curiosity to learn things in your baby’s mind.
Read Also: Finger Play For Babies – How it Helps in Baby’s Motor Development and Top Finger Play Songs
