Tips on How & Where To Use Your Sensory Cards

Our Sensory Flashcards have proven to be a hit with thousands of new parents and newborns, helping to entertain and encourage the development of their vision and brain through play and bonding with your little human.

So, to help you get started, here’s a quick guide filled with tips and tricks helping you to understand how to get the most out of your Newborn Sensory Flashcards and where you can use them in and out of the house.

In this post, we're going to help understand:

• When you can use your sensory flashcards
• How to use them with your baby
• 4 tips on where to use them
• And other ways you can use them too

When Can I Show My Baby Their Sensory Flash Cards?

You can begin using your sensory flashcards with your newborn almost instantly after birth! We personally found (and many other new parents have mentioned) that newborns even a few days old absolutely love the flashcards, and here's why...

Research suggests that babies can only see high contrast black and white images for the first 3-4 months after birth, so providing your newborn baby with black and white sensory cards really optimises the opportunity to develop their vision.

Crazy right!

Research also shows that that babies vision from birth is actually their least developed sense, only being able to see around 8-12 inches away and having quite blurry, faded vision, hence why black & white imagery stands out. If you haven’t already read it, we highly recommend having a peek at our other post - Why your Newborn Loves Black and White Images.

How To Use Your Sensory Cards

• Pick 1 of your sensory flashcards.
• Hold around 8-12 inches away from your baby's face.
• Keep switching flashcards every 10-20 seconds and continue whilst your baby enjoys playing.
• Repeat daily (or multiple times per day) and watch your Baby’s vision, distance, attention span and fixation develop rapidly.
• Combine with our Baby Flashcard Sleeve to take your sensory flashcards out with you without damaging them, or stand up to encourage tummy time play.

4 Tips On Where To Use Your Sensory Cards

To encourage & make tummy time play easier

So, you may have already heard how important tummy time play for your baby is. Tummy time helps babies to build their neck strength and gross motor skills, which helps your baby to hit future developmental milestones, like sitting up and crawling over the coming months.

If you've already practiced tummy time, you will know it's not always the easiest. Your baby may squirm, wiggle and cry.

If they do so, now is the perfect time to bring in our sensory flashcards. The high contrast black & white flashcards distracts your baby by grabbing their attention, which makes tummy time play a little bit more enjoyable. Simply lay your flashcards on the floor, or slot in our flashcard sleeve and go! 

Make changing your baby far easier

Just like during tummy time, our sensory flashcards are the perfect distraction technique, as your baby just loves to look at them.

So, you can use the sensory cards as a visual distraction when changing your baby, this will keep them interested and focused! Stick them up on the wall or pop them in our sleeve at a height or distance that they can easily see.

Encourage sitting up

Prop your little one up with the cards in front of them, your baby will be delighted to see these images from a whole new perspective. You can also show them the cards whilst they’re on. Your lap, like a book, or whilst lying on your knees during tummy time.

Whilst in the crib/cot and carrycot

Using the flashcards along the sides of a crib, cot or carrycot is also a great way to provide your little on with entertaining, stimulative sensory play.

Simply prop the cards up along the sides of the cot or place inside the flashcard sleeve and let you baby view them in a safe space! This also gives you a few moments spare to have a cuppa or get some washing done, yay!

Other Tips On How To Use Our Sensory Cards

• Pinning, or sticking them to the nursery wall.
• Clipping them to a hanging mobile or a baby gym.
• Sticking them to the car seat whilst travelling.
• To bond over by introducing first fruits, animals and objects your your child.

Put simply, there is just SO much you can do with a pack of our 0+ Month Sensory Cards right? They make the perfect toy for all newborns, as they help to entertain, stimulate and develop your baby's eye and brain through play.

If you have any other fun, quirky and exciting ways you use yours, we would love to know!

For more sensory and baby play ideas, please check out other articles here and our range of Newborn sensory toys!