Laurie Hollman - Playing with Baby: Researched-Based Play to Bond with Your Baby from Birth to Year One

Praise for Playing with Baby

Laurie Hollman, PhD, knows very well the needs of parents and babies and the intensity of their relationships. She captures the essence of the complex and stimulating playfulness that is essential for a good connection with a very young child.

She restores play to a central position and offers rich examples and guidance on pleasurable communication with an infantso vital now that neuroscience research in infants has demonstrated that emotional attunement is essential for good development.

This is a brilliant book, exciting and very accessiblea good combination of education, emotional support, and psychoanalytic thinking.

Christine Anzieu-Premmereur, MD, director of Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Training at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center

Laurie Hollman captures the magic of play for both parents and babies during the first year of life.

In this original book, specific month-by-month play suggestions are linked to validating state-of-the-art research. Understanding the science behind parent-baby play enriches parents experience of the babys developing brain and the deepening parent-baby relationship.

A babys contagious joy while playing peek-a-boo, sense of wonder shaking a rattle and making it jingle, and power to knock down a tower of blocks and rebuild it together delight parents and babies and evoke parents embodied memories. All this and more to be discovered in Playing with Baby!

Ilene S. Lefcourt, author of Parenting and Childhood Memories: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Reverberating Ghosts and Magic and faculty at Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research Parent-Infant Program

Dr. Laurie Hollmans high regard for her audience, parents of babies, is demonstrated by how clearly she communicates useful information previously only accessible to developmental psychologists and infancy researchers. She illustrates in her book how helpful it is to parents and caregivers of babies to be informed of all the wonderful information revealed by years of research. It is implied over and over that the emotional and physical wellbe-ing of infants is enhanced when parents know in a thorough way what is going on developmentally in a growing infants life, step by step, month by month. Furthermore, she provides all sorts of practical ways to implement and further strengthen babys development through play and care. I would recommend this book to any young parent embarking on the great adventure of being with baby. With Laurie Hollmans book as a guide, the journey will be that much more fulfilling and secure.

Andrea Remez, PhD, clinical psychologist and parent-infant therapist; faculty, National Institute of Psychoanalysis, New York

Dr. Hollman has done it againwritten an invaluable book for parents and caregivers, this time of babies. How does one have a play date with a one-month-old or five-month-old? Here you have it. Dr. Hollman distils decades of research and hands-on experience into month-by-month insights, knowledge, and play time, designed to strengthen your bonds with baby in the first year.

Marcelle Soviero, director of Marcelle Ink, author of An Iridescent Life: Essays on Motherhood, and former editor-in-chief and publisher of Brain Child Magazine and Teen Magazine

An excellent resource for new parents to create a loving relationship with their baby while examining her charming personality during the first year of life. Dr. Laurie Hollman effectively presents how to intensify your babys social and cognitive development through knowledge-based play techniques. Common questions such as bonding, emotional response, and communication are addressed, providing peace of mind that what you are doing for your baby bestows long-term benefits. Playing with Baby provides a clear message: engaging with your baby may just be your most fulfilling job.

Lisa Lewis, MD, pediatrician and author of Feed the Baby Hummus: Pediatrician-Backed Secrets from Cultures Around the World

Copyright 2021 by Laurie Hollman, PhD

All rights reserved.

Published by Familius LLC, www.familius.com

PO Box 1249, Reedley, CA 93654

Familius books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases, whether for sales promotions or for family or corporate use. For more information, contact Familius Sales at .

Reproduction of this book in any manner, in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher is prohibited.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021933763

Print ISBN 9781641704663

Ebook ISBN 9781641704878

Printed in the United States of America

Edited by Kaylee Mason, Michele Robbins, and Alison Strobel

Cover and book design by Mara Harris

Illustrations by Mara Harris

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

To Jeff, my husband, with whom Ive raised two sons, David and Rich, our enchanting babies who have grown to be fine men.

To David and Claire, who are raising two of our grandchildren, Zander and Eddie, who are growing to be exciting children.

To Rich and Shelley, who are raising our third grandchild, infant Hazel, who is beginning her first year with such a lively spirit and joy.

Acknowledgments

A s always in my parenting books, I first thank my husband, Jeff, for his tremendous support for the evolution of this book. He enjoys learning about and playing with babies whom weve loved immensely as weve raised them to become fine adults, our sons, David and Rich.

I am grateful to my older son, David, my first wondrous baby, who has grown up to be an industrious and inventive loving man and father with Claire as a superlative mother of their two sons: Zander, age twelve, and Eddie, age nine. They are writing imaginative stories of their own, so we now support each other as authors.

As David and Claire build their own home from the ground up, their sons learn and experience this unfathomable feat that continually churns up their exciting adventures.

My loving appreciation further extends to my younger son, Rich, my second wondrous baby, a hard-working, ingeniously creative, and loving man who is now also a father with Shelley as an endearing mother of their beautiful ten-month-old baby, Hazel. Their deep empathy and love as they communicate together in multiple ways with their growing infant has continued to enrich my always growing knowledge of infancy.

Rich has written the music and lyrics to innumerable songs during these ten months dedicated to Hazel, that he sings with Shelley bringing delight and joy to their growing baby. This wonderful form of communication is enriching for their baby, of course, as well as inspiring for me as a writer about infancy. Rich and Shelley are finding great happiness as parents enjoying playing with little ten-month-old, adorable Hazel, who just began to walk!

It is with these exceptional children and adults that have inspired me, each in their own ways, to write about how babies play that led to my desire to write this book.

These experiences combine with the inspirations of researchers around the world from whom I have learned, many of whom I had the pleasure of studying with in great depth. I am thankful for their outstanding findings that in turn I hope to give to you, my readers, so you, too, have the pleasure of learning about how you and your babies can play happily together with new insights, empathy, and love.

Working with the Familius team as always is gratifying. Thanks to the publisher, Christopher Robbins, for his accessibility and encouragement as I write for Familius. I have also been fortunate to work with two fine editors. Kaylee Mason meticulously read each word, gave thought to my concepts, and succeeded in her collaborative way to refine this book before she went on maternity leave to eventually give birth to her third wonderful baby. Michelle Robbins continued to read and explore my concepts with me as the book was brought to fruition.