When it comes to buying items that your child is going to positively adore, you might want to take a closer look at buying an activity baby mat. These mats offer the ideal place for the child to lie, interact with the world, and find out a whole lot more about the enjoyment that is modern life. From a baby activity gym mat to a Disney baby play mat, though, you have many, many forms of mat to look for. With that in mind, we recommend that you take a look at our guide to buying this essential home product!
Getting started
Before you go ahead and buy just any old baby activity play mat, you should make sure you know what you are buying. So, the main thing to worry about is the comfort factor – if you buy your child a baby play mat, it should be nice and thick. The padding should be especially focused on if your baby will be lying down on an otherwise hard flooring. This allows the child to enjoy the comfort of lying on the floor for longer.
Also, you should make sure that any baby sensory mat you look at is easy to clean and wipe down. Baby will no doubt enjoy themselves while engaging with the mat, which can lead to dribbling. You want to keep the mat in good condition for longer, so be sure to focus on how easy the mat actually is going to be clean.
What about colours?
Another important factor for any baby gym play mat is making sure that it is colourful enough. At their youngest, our babies tend to only be able to see, maximum, 50cm in front of them – more likely limited to around 35cm. Therefore, using bright, vivid, exciting colours are very important for helping their eyes to develop and really improve their wider vision.
You should therefore look for mats that are using contrasting colours – look for primary colours if you can. If you want something nice and simple, though, look for mats that are a mixture of black and white. These tend to be great for interacting with their eyes and engaging with the sensory side of your little one. Regardless of whether it’s for activities, play, or a baby gym and play mat; you want something that is bright, engaging, and exciting for the child to lounge around on. That’s why many mats that involve cartoon characters can be great; they tend to be friendly, exciting designs that encourage the baby.
Look for diverse texturing
Many baby activity play mat options are made from one single material, but we recommend you look to buy something a bit more diverse in terms of the texture. Many play, gym, and activity mats tend to come with a diverse texture design that adds various textures for them to touch. This could allow your child to get used to feeling different materials, learning about the importance of variable textures.
At the same time, it should also include something that enhances their senses. For example, little border walls that can pop up and around are useful, as are little noises that rattle or squeak. Your child will love seeing the consequence to moving around the mat, and the noises it can make.
Little tip – if your child loves the audio experience, then get them a piano baby play mat. These are extremely fun as they help to create the black and white sensory image whilst making plenty of audio impact, helping them to engage with a more enterprising activity overall quickly and easily.
Should I buy a baby gym play mat?
Many parents hear the word gym and imagine we are talking about putting your kids into a weight lifting regime – we mean nothing of the sort!
The ‘gym’ for most baby activity mats tend to be designed around offering them many little toys to paly with. These should move around as the breeze catches them, or you can move them yourself. Over time, though, your child will want to reach up and touch them on their own – this will make them realise that they have an impact over how the little gym operates and what this means. These toys and little sensations could be just what you want to give a little one even more interaction with various objects from a young age.
If possible, try and find a gym mat that comes with a ‘tummy time’ setting. This should allow them to strengthen their arms and shoulders and work on their little muscles. They will get used to lifting their little head and having some ‘tummy time’ is great for a baby to start working on the kind of movements they enjoy and need. They might struggle to tell you they want to stretch a certain limb; with a ‘tummy time’ feature, they get to do this on their own.
Creating the perfect baby play activity mat
Since you can focus on the above as must-have features, you hopefully now understand the importance of having a little activity baby mat. Any youngster who gets to enjoy this from their earliest days should show notable and meaningful change to their physical and mental stimulation. At the same time, It should give the baby added confidence to move around, to interact with the world, and to touch things they might not normally have had the confidence to do.
In their youngest days, you are often likely to try and police more or less every little aspect of the life that your baby leads. That makes sense, but you should definitely look to come up with a solution that allows for a more open-minded, enjoyable, and self-learning process.
You have many ways to interact with your child, but it is essential they learn about self-education and self-exploration from as young an age as you can. With a little baby play mat, you get a simple solution to adding that entertainment and education into their lives from their first days!