Experimenting with Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid

by Shaun Gallagher

Babies can be a joy—and hard work. Now, they can also be a 50-in-1 science project kit!

This fascinating and hands-on guide shows you how to re-create landmark scientific studies on cognitive, motor, language, and behavioral development—using your own bundle of joy as the research subject. Simple, engaging, and fun for both baby and parent, each project sheds light on how your baby is acquiring new skills—everything from recognizing faces, voices, and shapes to understanding new words, learning to walk, and even distinguishing between right and wrong.

Whether your little research subject is a newborn, a few months old, or a toddler, these simple, surprising projects will help you see the world through your baby’s eyes—and discover ways to strengthen newly acquired skills during your everyday interactions.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Science, Reference, Education, Family, Psychology

226 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I was disappointed that this book did not contain experiments that would imbue my child with super-powers, I did enjoy it thoroughly.

[Shazma Khan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the experiments mentioned here are things your kid will naturally experience growing up, so they aren't very special.

However, I did like this one point the book made: "Your baby will occasionally experience setbacks in certain developmental areas, but take heart. Sometimes an apparent regression is not a regression at all, but a side effect of growth in other areas."

[Michal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. (said rubbing my hands, with lab coat and a writing board in hand)

[Erika RS · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a series of do-it-yourself versions of developmental experiments that have been done with children. The early experiments are mostly reflex based (look what happens when you press on the soles of baby's feet!), the early ones are more social and learning based (does whether you are being positive, negative, or neutral when describing something make a difference to baby?).

It's not a very good book to read. Each experiment is described in 2-3 pages with a formulaic structure. However, this isn't a book to read. It's a book to do. And finding the age appropriate experiments and watching your baby grow and develop is great fun!

[gone-plaid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was given to me by a friend at my baby shower, and from the cover, I had thought it was going to be more things like, "Make your kids believe in Santa Clause until they're 30."

This book should be more accurately named, "Exercises with Babies." Though each experiment is set up like a true experiment, each one is more of an activity that you can do with you spawn (ranging ages from 0-24 months) to better understand their developing mind and body. They are in no way meant to test their proficiency or development level, and actively steer away from anything that would make you question whether or not you child is performing at the same speed as "normal" children.

It has a suggested age range for each experiment, a level of difficulty, and what type of exercise it touches on (motor or social skills, etc).
Each one also has a description of how to perform the experiment, a description of what the results would be, a section describing the actual scientific research and findings behind your dumbed down version, and a "Take Away" section that basically sums up what this all means to you and your little one.

I really liked this book as it was easy to read while pumping at work, interesting to learn about certain reflexes and methods as to how my daughter is growing and learning, and other insights about general development in humans.

For example, in the book they mention a "fencing reflex" in which an infant laying on their back will extend one arm out in front of them, and hold the other up as if in a fencing stance. With my daughter, we also noticed that she will kick whichever leg is "in front of her." Hour of head turning, leg kicking entertainment followed.

It's a good book for anyone interested in human development, or anyone who wants to try some exercises on their (or other peoples) children.

[Shaun Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm quite biased, since I'm the author, so I'll let you know what a few others have said:

"Experimenting With Babies offers insights on infant development and parenting with a humorous twist. ... The heart of the book is not the experiments themselves, but takeaways that provide the new parent with developmental clues and suggestions for age-appropriate activities. Parents will appreciate these tips and Gallagher's whimsical tone, whether or not they experiment on their own tykes."
— Publishers Weekly review, Sept. 16, 2013

"Experimenting With Babies is a wonderful book, giving parents a hands-on way to understand their baby's emerging mind. The experiments are easy, fun, and nicely annotated with the real science behind them. What a fabulous way for parents to get to know their new child!"
— Lise Eliot, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University and author of What's Going On in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life

"With the marketplace urging parents to buy all manner of things to make their babies 'smart,' Gallagher's book offers parents a view based in science on how much babies really know and figure out on their own. Parents will have fun with this book and gain new respect and awe for their babies' amazing capabilities."
— Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., H. Rodney Sharp Professor at the University of Delaware and author of How Babies Talk, Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, and A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool

[Jillian (Peapod Historical Bookery) · Rating 4 out of 5]

{ I won a copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads. }

I'm into science, and my sister-in-law just had a baby, so when I won this book I was pretty excited. It was an interesting read - it sets up the chapters nicely, first with a description of the experiment you can do on your baby, sometimes with ways it can be adjusted (for example, if you have twins or friends with babies willing to assist), and ending with an explanation of the experiment and notes on the original studies. The "Don't Try This At Home" and "Tools of the Trade" sections that followed some experiments were quite interesting. It's also reader-friendly; it's written in more of a conversational way, as if a friend were telling you about the studies rather than being lectured at by a scientist, so readers who don't have a background in science can enjoy it just as much. My nephew is only a few months old so I haven't had a chance to try out many of the experiments on an actual baby. But I am finding his fascination with high contrast images pretty entertaining right now (his eyes practically bug out of his head), and I'm looking forward to trying some of the language acquisition experiments on him when he gets a little older. Overall, it's quite an interesting book; the only thing I felt that was missing was some sort of closing note. There was a nice introduction before the experiments, so I kind of expected a similar wrap-up at the end, maybe something sweet and cheesy about how you can keep experimenting with your kids and learning together as they get older and whatever.

[Gregory Eakins · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the premise seems exciting, the actual experiments and information in this book are quite the opposite.

The majority of the experiments are replications of modern child development experiments. They are presented as a simple experiment you can do, the hypothesis, the research, and a takeaway.

Due to the limitations of ethically working with infants, the experiments are severely limited in depth and variety. Almost all of them boil down to observing how long the baby looks at something. It turns out that there aren't very many responses you can measure with a baby.

I tried just a couple of the experiments. Due to the sample size of one, I was unable to reliably replicate any results. It turns out that babies are hard to work with. Add to that the complexity of the setup and the uninteresting result, and you'll find that most of them aren't worth doing.

[Vannessa Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Experimenting with Babies is an amazing book that helps parents experience babies development at each stage of growth. Experimenting with Babies firmly encourages parents not to access their child’s growth in relation to another child of the same age because not all children are suitable for the experiments and not because there is something wrong with them but because not all babies advance at the same rate. Each experiment includes a hypothesis, research, and the takeaway.

Experimenting with Babies was a fun and exhilarating read!

Parents who take on the experiments must keep in mind sometimes an apparent regression is not a regression at all, but a side effect of growth in other areas.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the book brands itself as a way to run experiments on your baby to determine what they know and how they're learning, I did not have any energy to go through with them myself. :) So I basically considered it a really interesting little summary of all the recent (and some classic) research on babies, and it did in fact help me understand my baby even more. I'd definitely recommend reading it in that sense as well, and it makes a great bathroom reader!

[Katherine Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the experiments and the layout of the book. Each experiment lets you test a developmental stage or determine reactions to stimuli. Certainly they are fascinating creatures and fun to get some insight into how they experience the world.

[Ines]

Скажем прямо, эксперименты не то чтобы именно веселые и интересные, но полистать под укладывание ребенка забавно. Для совсем малышей главным образом проверка рефлексов, а для малышей постарше - создание разных ситуаций на "что мой ребенок уже может/понимает".

[Stef · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this when our daughter had her firstborn. It’s a fun book to read but because they don’t live with us we didn’t get to try out the experiments as much as we wanted to, so I’ve given the book to our daughter, so they can experiment on their kids. 😁

[Shannon Hedges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well formatted, entertaining read.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun experiments that one can try on their children to see their different developmental stages.

[Seamusin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended by Rachel

[Nina CHS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a fun and wholesome book! Although I only felt like conducting a handful of the experiments on my own son (because, well, I found that many of the experiments demanded more work from me than it provided funny or interesting results that I wanted to observe firsthand), I love that the book sheds light on how complex and clever these small, loveable beings actually are. And I absolutely adore the concept of the book, and how it encourages curiosity and quality time with the sweet snugglebugs.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an enjoyable read, but I'm glad I borrowed it from the local library and didn't buy it (which I was considering).

Each experiment (50) is broken down into the home test, expected result, historical research, and ends with a blurb about takeaways or caveats. the experiments are organized by age, but appendices also sort them by complexity and field of study.

The best part about this book was reading how incredibly interesting infant development can be!

[Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a fun way to engage with the baby. The initial experiments are mostly about baby reflexes that go away as they grow up. The ones towards the end are on mental development and are a lot of fun. My favorite one is where a baby can respond favorably to someone who has shown the intention of being helpful vs one who was visibly unhelpful. Social tactics come in so early!

[Danielle Robertson Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! It's not one you read cover to cover since the experiments are by age from 0 weeks to 12+ months. Each experiment has a brief explanation of what to do, why it works, and a bit of science background. Parenthood is not easy but this book can help you think of every day as a new adventure and a chance to learn new things. What a great mindset.

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was sort of silly but mildly entertaining. I'd probably rather read a book that goes into more detail about the developmental experiments that have been done on babies (this stays fairly superficial) but this could be fun if you actually HAVE a newborn and want to do some little "experiments" with them to see how they illustrate the developmental level they're at.

[Sandy Reenders · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got halfway through. Interesting idea, I would have preferred a series of study summaries rather than having you do the experiments at home. Some of the conclusions were also puzzling- studies with the same result making opposite conclusions, showing it’s all just as guess as to the “why” behind baby behavior

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty entertaining and informative. It's fun to use your own child as a way to learn about these interesting developmental stages. The only drawback was that many of the experiments rely on noting how long your baby looks at one object or another. I get that this is really the only way to gauge the interest of an infant, but it makes the experiments feel repetitive. I generally lost interest in actually performing the experiments half way through because of this.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book certainly does have some fun things in it, and some interesting insights into my boys' development. That said, the "clickbait" title way oversells the experiments which are mostly "do a thing and watch your baby look at it..."

[Dan Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the experiments are fun and interesting and others are boring or difficult to perform. Overall the experiments really are just ways to notice the development of your child, many of which you might miss altogether while not realizing it was something they were developing.

[Jennifer Darwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was pregnant, I wanted to read every book about babies basically ever reading. I'm also a chemist, so a science book about babies?? Sign me up. It's a cute quick read. I did not actually perform most of the experiments on my baby. I loved the research and reasoning behind the experiments.

[Ashley]

ISBN: 978-0-399-16246-6
List Price: 16.00

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book contains a bunch of developmental experiments (facial recognition, spacial relations, etc.) that show how babies develop. Nice idea, deadly dull in presentation.

[Ian Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun little experiments to try out with a new little one.

[Jessie Filer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun book for parents to read. I learned some cool things about child development that I plant to implement.