How Smart Is Your Baby?

Develop and Nurture Your Newborn's Full Potential
By Glenn Doman and Janet Doman
324 pages, full-color

How Smart Is Your Baby? provides parents with all the information they need to help their baby achieve his or her full potential. The authors first explain the newborn's growth and development, including all of the critical stages involved. They then guide the parents in creating a home environment that enhances and enriches brain development. A Developmental Profile, which parents complete, allows Mom and Dad to track the progress of their child, to determine the baby's strengths, and to recognize where additional stimulation and opportunity are needed. Most important, parents learn how to design an effective and balanced daily program for physical and intellectual growth.

When parents understand how their child develops, they can become the best teachers their babies will ever have. Best of all, this joyous program brings parents and babies closer together, establishing a life-long bond of learning and love.

This book explains exactly how to evaluate the sensory and motor pathways of the baby and exactly how to design a program that will enhance the growth and development of these pathways. It is an inspired guided tour of the first twelve months of brain growth and development.

All of the information in this book is presented so that any mother and father, without a medical background, can benefit from it. In it we gain a sense of what the world may look like and feel like to our newborns. We acquire a better understanding of the challenges and frustrations the newborn experiences. Armed with this knowledge, we know what our baby needs and wants and we can have the great joy of creating an ideal environment for him.

Every day is precious, and your baby is hungry for knowledge about the world around him, starting from the moment of birth. To feed your child's brain is as important as feeding his stomach.

The goal of this book is to help parents understand the brain and nervous system. Parents may then follow a clear pathway to enhance the abilities of their child. This is not only an extremely important process, but it is also a very joyous one for mother and baby.

Denise Malkowicz, M.D.

From the Introduction to How Smart Is Your Baby?

Copyright 2006 by Janet Doman

 

In a comprehensive and exhaustive study of thousands of babies in all kinds of cultures and societies, and through a half-century of experience in their Institutes, the authors have derived a compelling story of why babies soak up information like sponges, and how they develop the way they do. The authors then proceed to explain how to take advantage of the newborn's remarkable abilities to begin teaching your baby from birth onward in a loving and enjoyable setting. Teaching your baby when he or she is the most receptive to learning, able to acquire knowledge without effort, and enjoying every moment of learning gives your baby the very best opportunity to develop the physiological constitution, the fitness, and the intellectual skills to excel in our highly competitive world. Never again in life will your baby's brain have the learning capacity that it enjoys in its first three years after birth.

 

Mihai Dimancescu, M.D.

From the Foreword to How Smart Is Your Baby?

Copyright 2006 by Janet Doman

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments, ix
Foreword, xiii
Introduction, 1
1. What Mothers Know, 5
2. The Search for Wellness, 9
3. A New Kind of Kid, 15
4. About the Brain, 21
5. The Newborn Baby, 25
6. Making the Alarm Clock Go Off, 31
7. The Institutes Developmental Profile, 39
8. Evaluating Your Newborn Baby, 47
9. The Sensory Program for Your Newborn, 57
10. The Motor Opportunity Program for Your Newborn, 65
11. Your Baby's Second Evaluation, 83
12. Expanding Your Sensory Program, 95
13. Expanding Your Motor Opportunity Program, 109
14. The Language Development Program from Birth to 12 Months, 117
15. The Third Evaluation: Meaningful Appreciation and Response, 135
16. The Sensory Stimulation Program for Stage III, 145
17. The Motor Opportunity Program for Stage III, 167
18. The Fourth Evaluation, 181
19. The Sensory Stimulation Program for Stage IV, 193
20. The Motor Opportunity Program for Stage IV, 205
21. What To Do and What Not To Do, 219
22. The Gentle Revolution, 229
Afterword, 233
About Our Babies, 235
About The Institutes, 237
About the Authors, 239
Appendix A: Resources, 241
Appendix B: A Reassessment of the SIDS Back to Sleep Campaign, 245
Appendix C: Equipment You Can Build and Make for Your Baby, 253
Index, 263