The View From Here: Ivy

I have a nice little corner set up for Ivy and bought her a great little toy arch to hang things on for her.  Guess what?  She hates it.  She doesn't mind a little floor time in the corner now and then, but she has absolutely no interest in that toy arch.  I've tried to hang different things on it to catch her eye, but to no avail.  I made some really neat high contrast thingies out of cardboard for her that I hung on there - she wouldn't even look at them.

I'm still not sure why things on the arch don't interest her, but I did notice something when I was changing her yesterday.  It seemed that she likes looking at the grate on the little metal wipes shelf over her changing table.  So I said to myself, "Self, if the baby won't go to the cute developmental thingies, bring the cute developmental thingies to the baby."

I hug my black and white and red masterpieces from her wipes shelf and bazinga!  She DEFINITELY noticed them at the next diaper change.  Her eyes were open wide and she held very still and just stared.  She was mesmerized.  Here is the view from Ivy's changing table...

Now as you can probably see, she was already getting some interesting patterns and contrast from the stuff that I had placed on the shelf.  But mamas like to feel useful once in a while so i'm going to leave the hanging things up there anyway since she seems to like them even better.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but i've also hung the three objects at three different heights, so there is some depth perception work going on there too.

If you'd like to make something out of these nice high contrast infant patterns, you can print them from here.  Then make them into whatever you want.  I glued them onto cardboard and hung them with curling ribbon (what I had on hand).  You could just tape them up on a wall or car seatback or wherever your baby might want something interesting to look at.  Make a little book out of them for you and baby to sit together and look at?  Be creative!