Traveling & Backpacking with a Baby or Infant: Top 10 Reasons for your Baby to Play with the Locals (Part 2 – Physical Benefits for Baby)

Traveling & Backpacking with a Baby or Infant: Top 10 Reasons for your Baby to Play with the Locals (Part 2 – Physical Benefits for Baby)

As I mentioned yesterday, allowing your baby to play with locals (including adults, but especially children) as you travel had many benefits as you travel or backpack around. Yesterday I mentioned the first 3 reasons why allowing your child to play with locals is a benefit.  As I explained, not only does your baby benefit, but so do you, as the parent!

So here are my top ten reasons to allow your traveling or backpacking baby or infant to play with local children:

7. Play makes your baby stronger and aids in physical development

Babies at play are always moving. Even stuck in a high chair, Akiva finds a way to move around - by giving repeated high fives to an Israeli friend.

Playing requires movement.  Unlike sitting in front of the television, playing with other children can take on many forms, but they all require movement.  Even a tea party will get your child moving.  And movement has a lot of benefits.  It makes your little one physically stronger, as he uses his muscles repeatedly and in new ways, but it also lowers the risk of obesity and all its related diseases.

6. Play reduces stress

Akiva takes some time out to de-stress with an Israeli friend. Note that anything can become a good plaything - Akiva and his friend were playing with his bottle, having discarded his other, more "conventional" toys.

Travel can be stressful, not only for you, but for your baby as well.  Young babies don’t have long enough term memory to be bothered by the change of scenery, but older toddlers may experience some stress at the change in location.  This is especially true with things like sleeping arrangements.  And babies of any age are liable to suffer from overstimulation.  Even babies and toddlers who are not traveling experience stress as they learn to navigate social rules, follow adult instructions, control their impulses, and cope with separations. To make matters worse, babies pick up on their parents’ and others’ emotional states and reflect them back like little mirrors.  If you’re feeling tired, stressed, or overwhelmed, your baby is going to feel the same.  So what to do?

How you deal with stress may vary, but the best, cheapest, fastest, and easiest stress buster for your baby is play.  Play enables your baby to “escape” from the stressful situation by focusing in on something different and enjoyable. By concentrating her attention, it can also reduce the risk of overstimulation.  Plus, all that moving around burns off the cortisol that stress produces and replaces it with endorphins and other feel-good hormones.  If your baby seems out-of-sorts, take some time out of your day’s travel to play with her… or, better yet, to find her a little friend to play with!

5. Play is good for your baby’s health

Akiva plays with a Thai girl. By allowing him to sit and play on the floor with local kids, we expose him to plenty of germs, I'm sure... and yet, he almost never gets sick. Baruch Hashem, so far he has exhibit no allergies, either.

Ok, all your paranoid parents: This one’s for you. Yes, playing while you travel will actually make your baby healthier.  In fact, eating dirt, germs, bacteria, viruses, and even worms are vital to the development of a healthy immune system in your baby.  Scientists now believe that the widespread rise of diseases like multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, and allergies in Western countries are because we are too clean.  A baby’s body does not come pre-programmed with appropriate immune responses. Like almost everything else, from palate to preferences, your baby’s immune system needs to learn what to respond to – and what not to.  When small doses of toxins and disease agents enter your baby’s system, her body learns that these are invaders that must be attacked.  When there is nothing to attack, your baby’s immune system may in fact turn on itself and begin attacking things that are beneficial to it – such as peanuts, eggs, or its own insulin.  So let your baby get down and dirty with the local kids!

Read more in the New York Times.

The best is yet to come – tomorrow I’ll post my top 4 reasons to let your baby play with the locals! Watch this space!