Thank you so much for posting this.  I had no idea.

Thank you for posting this.  Before our daughter was born, we had planned to make changes regarding our cell phone use. 

The truth is that we haven't changed all that much.  We don't charge them in the same room as her, but have them around all the time. This article reminds me that we really need to get more information and make changes (for ourselves as well). 

Hi all - One of my best friends is interested in starting an early learning/educational toy company.  She graduated from Stanford in '09 and worked at several start ups before attending Business School at NYU, where she is now.  Her husband is in the PhD program at MIT, studying language.  I say all this because I think she actually has a chance of making this work and her background supports that.

Throughout my pregnancy she mailed me several articles on infant development.  To be honest, I was already aware of most of them, but she has an interest in making effective toys and materials for children.

She sent me a quick survey to fill out and share with other parents of children 0-3.  If you want to help her out, the link is below.  It takes less than 5 minutes to fill out.

http://nyustern.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3dTz256D5QYMpGl

Sorry for not responding sooner, I just saw this response.  Once the girl gets a little older, I will probably get her on the LR mandarin. 

Thank you for the articles.  I REALLY enjoyed the memory article, but thought all three included exciting information.  They were also easy to read and digest.  I'll be showing them to my husband too.  We hadn't thought of cognitive reasons as the most motivating for multiple language acquisition.  Spanish is my husband's first language and it is important for him to pass on that identity to her.  Mandarin was simply to give her more means to communicate/more options.  We are not married to Mandarin, but think if we send her to a preschool that speaks mandarin and continue to put her in extracurriculars where it is the language of choice, she'll have an advantage in life.  It is not as important to us that she is fluent in reading and writing mandarin.  I think we will expose it to her when young and see how it goes.

Wonderful!  Spacing out the languages makes sense to me.

It is good to hear that she is still young (which obviously she is!).  We hadn't heard about Doman or early learning in general until she was about 3-4 weeks.  So I feel behind in the learning department.  And in the Doman program, we were already behind in many of the books.  We've wanted her to be a polyglot for awhile and the plan was simply to speak to her in the different languages and then get childcare in the third. 

I looked up Little Pim and it's right up our alley.  Thanks robbyjo!  It sounds like your little one has had a great start to life so far. 

Thank you for responding.  Your experience is really helpful for me.  It is also helpful for me to know that you didn't change anything and she just got it. 

We haven't been working on it everyday (partly because I thought I was doing it wrong), so I'll have to put it in there with the rest of our balancing exercises when we get to do them.  Those aren't every day either, but most days I get them in. 

We want our little girl to know English, Spanish and Mandarin.  I am speaking to my daughter in English and my husband is speaking to her in Spanish. We plan to get daycare in Mandarin and will have her attend Mandarin preschool.

The most important languages to us or English and Spanish, but I'm a little confused how to teach the writing.  Our little girl is 7 weeks old and we are just getting organized with the Doman program.  We have shown her 7 huge flash cards words thus far, but they are all in English.  We are doing the one word 10x a day for weeks 1-3.  Should I be making Spanish flash cards as well?

Did you teach them at the same time or teach one first and then the other?  Also a link or place in one of the books on how to do this is welcome if it exists and you can direct me to it.

Thank you, I've already learned so much through the forums. Keep up the amazing work!   

In How Smart is Your Baby, Glenn Doman gives some exercises to do with the grasp reflex.

One involves the baby grasping onto your thumb and you rolling them over.

The other involves the baby lying on his/her back, grasping onto our thumbs and being pulled into a sitting and then standing position.

Well. . .   I can't seem to figure out how to do these successfully with my 7 week old girl.  Her grasp keeps breaking.  And I don't think it is her.  I remember at her newborn appt. the doctor swung her through the air by her thumbs.  I hadn't heard of Doman at the time and had no idea what he was doing, but my husband and I were both shocked and impressed.  We weren't even confident holding her head and he routinely did this exercise.  He remarked afterwards that she was very strong.  That was at the newborn appt;, at the 1 month appt. he also checked reflexes, but didn't do that one. 

Part of me is worried this is a warning sign (everything else is right on), but the other thinks I'm just having trouble getting the grasp.

Any tips???

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but my guess is that you are going through the words too slowly.  Simply say the word while flashing and flip to the more interesting picture card.

Another option would be to turn it into a game, stretch out the word with anticipation.   "Doooooooooog" PAUSE and wait a second with a sly smile and then with exaggeration quickly flip the card to show the picture of the dog and say the name of the dog in an excited voice - "Dog!!"  Then make a barking noise, make the dog move through the air, act like a doggy, etc. 

Thoughts?

This is such an enriching forum and I am so glad that I found it! 

I am a first time mommy to an almost 5 weeks old.  My background is in Applied Behavior Analysis and I worked with children with Autism for five years before getting my masters and specializing in Dyslexia. 

I had never heard of early learning.  I've now ordered the Doman books and am looking forward to getting How Smart is Your Baby tomorrow.  I feel a bit behind reading all this information (especially in physical stimulation), but also feel good about our first month with the baby. 

So far... we have fallen in love with our little girl.  We read to her all the time in both English and Spanish (well mainly while she's nursing or alert). I can highly highly recommend the book The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease.  We also have planned to teach the little girl Spanish, English and Mandarin.  My husband speaks to her in Spanish and I speak to her in English.  We have played background music and shows on youtube in Mandarin, but haven't taught it in any other way as neither of us know it.  If we do childcare in the future, we want to choose someone to speak to her entirely in Mandarin and we may hire someone to come play with her speaking mandarin.  Any recommendations in this area??  We have a Mandarin/English preschool picked out for her to go to when she gets there developmentally.  We also have black/white infant stimulation cards up by her changing table, crib, etc. and I show her more when she is alert.  She thinks they are the best thing ever and will stare at them and try to grab them.  I plan to do "sticky mittens" sessions with her when she gets a little older.  Oh and we do tummy time when she's alert and awake and also for a couple minutes after changing her.  She's soooo good at holding her little head up already. 

Anyways, I am excited to learn from all of you.  I'm interested in exposing her to music and art as well.  I'm torn on Little Reader so young because our screen is so bright and her eyes are just developing.  Also, I was a very advanced reader at a young age and we never did flash cards as a baby, just lots and lots of exposure to print.  I feel like we have time in that area.  I'm really interested in reading about the physical goals, swimming and math. 

Thank you all! I have already learned a lot through reading past forum posts. 

Thank you.  Baby girl is less tired today.  I like the idea of a wedge.  I've done a bit of research and am looking forward to trying out different ways to make tummy time more interesting and a part of our routine.

oh my goodness.  This is wonderful!  Thank you!

I only found the brillkids forum a few days ago and was immediately swept into this world of early education.  Well, after reading about the importance of tummy time, I decided to put our little girl (4 weeks old) on her tummy for all her waking moments.  Yesterday, she was awake a lot and on her tummy for hours.  We did lots of little play sessions and tons of stimulation.  Well, today... she is absolutely exhausted.  It's 3:30pm and we haven't even had enough alert/awake time for 1 tummy time. 

Did your infants get tired after implementing this stuff? It could also be a growth spurt. 

Thanks all for your contributions to this great community, I've already found this site very educational.

I want to bump this.  These infant stimulation cards are actually what led me to this wonderful forum (I'm glad they did), but it appears that all the old links are broken.

Are there new links or are these flash cards lost to us?