Less is More

The Connection Between Holiday Shopping and Baby Development

How many mass emails, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, text messages, posts, banners have you gotten since Black Friday?

How many online websites and / or stores did you visit or do you plan on visiting from now until the holidays are over?
How do you feel when you are overloaded with “all this goodness” on shelves and the flickering pictures on the screen?
Are you one of those people who are afraid of missing out and enthusiastically scroll and jump from one website to another, running between stores to see all the merchandise you just can’t live without?
Or you are you one to get a little panicked, take a step backward and rethink it:
“I’ll buy one or two things” or maybe “,I don’t really need it, so no”?

This is how infants experience, see and feel “s,ensory overload“.
This is exactly what your child is experiencing when you surround him or her and expose him or her to a million visual stimuli and toys (not to mention screens).

As you might react to the goodies on the shelves and on the websites’ pictures promising the best, this exactly your baby’s reaction.

From my experience with babies, here are the 3 different reactions to sensory overload:

1. Babies will start to begin switching from one thing to another, one toy to the next in an attempt to see everything.

2. Babies will take a step backward and maybe pick one toy – but usually, it won’t be a toy of their actual interest. These babies just chose something that was on the side as to not get overwhelmed.

3. And the last group are the babies who will just get scared and even panic from all of the overloadings of the toys and won’t even try to explore anything around them.

Challenge yourself to think which group do you think you belong to? Did you purchase everything you saw? Many of the parents I talk to (myself included) belong to the two later groups. When I make a purchase, I usually think in advance what I need and make sure I get this item only. Websites, loaded stores, and overpacked clothing racks overwhelm me.

This is the same for your child.

When you offer your child all their toys at once, you are creating over-stimulation that might result in the opposite.

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Put all the toys in bins.

2. Take out only a few toys at once.

3. Rotate toys once a week (for example, let it be every Monday or every Tuesday).

4. Ask family and friends to purchase toys that you checked are matching progressively (you can always check with me).

5. During holidays or birthdays, don’t open all gifts at once – open one gift at the time. Give them an entire week before they open the next.

6. Remember – Less is MORE!

Your child’s playtime experience will be different. Calm, relaxed an,d satisfying.
They will actually enjoy the same toys and will benefit from them.  

They will truly play and interact with what interests them without distractions and wasted time and effort.

Are you going to make holiday shopping different this year?