Searches for Baby Gyms and Playmats are Up
A press release by shopping search engine Twenga states that searches for baby gyms are up. Such products, also known activity playmats, have increased 116 to 300 percent. The press release indicates that the coordination features for these products have resulted in increased searches, but increasing a child’s coordination abilities isn’t the only aspect that activity mats and baby gyms hold. While toys geared toward increasing brainpower alone are down (could this be the result of various studies disproving the effects of Baby Einstein on vocabulary building?), those that stimulate the child mentally and physically are up.
Activity sets or baby gyms may be as small as an activity seat for a child. These products under the link, carried by retailer Baby and Me Boutique, include a seat and various toys for the child to grab. Most of these are multicolored to stimulate the child’s visual senses, while others vary in texture and sound to stimulate his or her touch and hearing senses.
On a larger scale are activity playmats, such as these carried by retailer Hunky Dory Online. These traditional activity playmats allow the baby to be placed on his or her back or stomach, if he or she is able to roll. In either position, the child is stimulated by the bright and contrasting colors of the mat and toys and experiences several textures and sounds. The mat, for example, may crinkle when the child moves and it may change textures over various points. The detachable toys, additionally, also have varied sounds and textures.
Having hearing, touch, and sight senses stimulated is the purpose of various educational baby toys. Rather than just seeing colors or touching toys, however, the baby can do all of these in one place with an activity mat. Additionally, the mat can be used up to the toddler years, when the child starts to develop better coordination skills.
What is a Play Mat?
What is a play mat and when do you start to use one with your baby? Often, once a baby has learned to sit up or roll over or can be positioned on his or her stomach, an activity mat, also referred to as a play gym, can be used in place of a mobile for stimulation purposes. While many of the baby toys used during the first six months are used to develop vision and hearing senses, after six months, a baby becomes more aware of his or her hands and begins to want to touch or grab things. Aside from visual stimulation, many baby toys for under one years old have texture and shape components, and this is where a play mat comes in.
Many activity mats are designed like a colorful floor mat with a mobile suspended from above. As the mobile figures are now closer to the baby, he or she, when lying down, can reach up and touch them. Some of these figures make sounds, such as jingling, while others are of different shapes, colors, and textures. When positioning a baby on a play mat, he or she can be on his back or front. For positioning a baby on his or her stomach, many of these play mats have a pillow to put under the baby for him or her to sit up.
An activity mat doesn’t always need to be used in place of a mobile, however, and some play mats are designed to be a large mat with many colors or sounds. In some cases, when a baby is positioned on one of these mats, he or she may move and hear crinkling sounds, like newspaper, in one location and may hear crunching or jingling coming from the mat in another. In addition, accompanying the sounds are various colors, from bright colors to black, white, and red patterns for infants under six months.