From the minute that your newborn arrives into this world, their memory begins to develop. Memory is the process of retaining, collecting and recalling certain events that have happened. It is never too early to begin mentally stimulating exercises for your baby. A babys memory develops in different stages:

0 6 Months
It is in the third trimester that your unborn baby first starts generating nerve cells for their memory. In this stage your baby will remember your voice, but he or she will not remember the first time that they heard your voice.

It is around two months of age that your baby will begin recognizing your face and other things that are seen daily, like his/her crib. This phase is also identified as recognition memory.

6 12 Months
At 6 months your baby will start becoming more aware of whats going to happen next. In other words, at bedtime, your baby will recall that it is time for sleep and what will happen next. This stage is identified as the Recall Memory.

12 18 Months
This is one of the most fun and gratifying stages to experience with your child. They will start speaking words and associating them with objects or things. Your childs memory is beginning to enter the next phase of development, and will begin to understand what is wrong and what is right.

It is also important to remember though that their memory is not as good as ours yet, so they may not remember that what they did before was wrong, and therefore they may repeat bad behavior simply because they dont remember differently.

While research tends to lean towards the findings that children grow to be better students when these memory boosting exercises are used, it is not scientifically proven, but is still a positive tool that should be used as your baby begins development.

Below are some of the best tips to boost your babys memory:

Create Routines It is important to create a daily routine so your baby can anticipate and remember different parts of the day. For instance, if you bathe your baby every morning and evening, he/she will begin to remember early on that before bedtime they will have a bath, etc.

Sing the same tunes If you sing songs to your baby, try and sing the same handful of songs. Doing this will help develop their memory skills by recalling the song every time you sing it.

Play games with your baby that involve your handspeek- a-boo, patty-cake, and games like that.

Read Babys love when you read them books. Make it a routine to read your baby a book before bedtime every night. This will foster their memory development, and they will understand that it is time to go to sleep after the book is read.

As you can see, there are many different exercises that can be used to begin enhancing your babys memory. While some people may have a negative outlook on this practice, there is nothing bad that could come from these exercises, so have fun and boost your babys memory at the same time!