Caring For A Baby or Toddler And The First 1,000 Days
When caring for a baby or toddler, the first 1,000 days are a critical developmental window.
To support parents across the early stages, we’ve teamed up with Oliiki, experts in supporting baby and toddler brain development.
The Oliiki App: caring for a baby and brain development
Oliiki is an evidence-based app that helps parents build babies’ brains from day one. Whether you’re changing nappies or on the nursery run, Oliiki enables you to turn everyday activities into powerful developmental opportunities.
Start your seven-day free trial of the Oliiki app.
I’ve heard the first 1000 days matter… but why?
By Clare Stead, Founder of Oliiki – Supporting baby brain building in the first 1000 days of life.
It’s not surprising that the period from conception to two years old can feel exhausting and emotionally draining.
That’s because what’s going on is HUGE!
Your baby’s brain undergoes its fastest and most rapid development.
And whether you’re a new parent muddling through in a sleep-deprived stupor, or a baby room leader in a nursery wondering why your role feels so significant, it’s because it is.
You’re helping babies lay the foundations that everything else in life will be built on!
What we do in the first 1000 days lasts a lifetime.
So what’s going on in the first 1000 days?
From the moment of conception, your baby’s brain is growing at a massive pace, making a million new connections every second by the time they’re born.
These connections aren’t pre-programmed. They’re built through the tiny things you do every day:
- The way you respond
- The tone you use
- The games you play
- The comfort you give
These moments all build the structure of your baby’s unique brain.
Caring for a baby and the importance of play
As you play, and the things you share with your baby, build the foundations for their sense of safety, emotional understanding, language skills, confidence, motor skills, maths, and even how much they will learn and how far they will go in their future!
This feels massive – Brain development happens through the tiny things that happen every day.
It’s so easy to think that until babies can talk, nothing much is going on. But the opposite is true.
When you talk, your baby is learning
They are:
👁️Watching your face to see how the sounds of the word are made through the shape of your mouth,
👄Translating the shapes they see to their mouth patterns,
👂Hearing the sounds and capturing the vowel sounds they hear so that they can become specialists in the language they will go on to use.
🧷 Gaining a sense of safety and learning about relationships from the time they spend with you
👉 And heaps more things.
Yet all you did was chat with your baby. It didn’t seem significant, it didn’t seem complicated, but it built your baby’s brain.
Caring for a baby and the impact of the tiny moments
It’s a real game changer when you understand the impact and power of the tiny things you do every day with your baby. And when you provide them with age-appropriate activities to fill their day, you do even more of them.
And that gives your baby more opportunities to develop their growing brain.
Joining up the moments
Over time, those tiny moments all join together to help them build the biggest, best brain they can – and give them the tools they need to reach their full potential and thrive.
It also helps you understand quite how important you are to your developing baby.
So how are you meant to know what to do with and for your baby every day?
That’s where Oliiki comes in!
What is Oliiki?
Oliiki is an evidence-based app that gives you simple, science-backed activities to help build your baby’s brain from the first day of conception through to age two.
Each activity is matched to your baby’s exact stage of development and takes just a few minutes to do.
You’ll learn what to do, why it matters for your baby’s learning, and how it supports long-term development, and it’s all grounded in research, so if you want to go deeper, you can!
It’s not just about play. It’s about understanding what’s happening through the play and feeling confident that the tiny things you’re doing every day are helping your baby be the best they can be.
Caring for a baby or toddler and using Oliiki
If you’re a parent, you’ll get one tiny playful Oliiki activity every day based on the age and stage of your baby, that’s backed by science and mapped both to the neuroscience and the Early Years Foundation Stage UK Curriculum.
Each activity uses only items from around the home and is simple to set up and perform.
“After doing the Oliiki activities the reaction of my little one was amazing. It gives me sunshine the whole day! Like, oh my God, she loved it and it’s something I can do over and over again. And I do, just to see how happy she is again!”
— Shubhi – Mum of 9-month-old baby Anaisha
Download the Oliiki app today to start your 7-day free trial.
If you’re in a nursery, Oliiki provides a full, searchable library of activities, allowing you to plan by age or subject. It shows you the science behind each activity, maps it to EYFS and Development Matters, and even supports your staff’s CPD as they use it.
And if you are a Nursery team, enjoy a 7-day FREE trial on me!
Oliiki isn’t about adding more to your to-do list.
It’s about turning what you’re already doing into something powerful and brain-building, with confidence, because what we do in the first 1,000 days lasts a lifetime!
