Playing with Baby – Endorsements
Laurie Hollman, PhD, knows very well parents and babies, and the intensity of their relationships; She captures the essence of the complex and stimulating playfulness that is essential for a good connection with a very young child.
She restores the play to a central position and offers rich examples and guidance on pleasurable communication with an infant, now that neuroscience and research on infants demonstrated how interactions in an emotional attunement are essential for a good development.
This is a brilliant book, exciting and very accessible: a good combination of education, emotional support, and psychoanalytic thinking.
—Christine Anzieu-Premmereur, PhD, MD, adult and child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York; Member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris; Faculty, Columbia Psychoanalytic Center and Director, Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Training; Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at Columbia University; Member, New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
Laurie Hollman captures the magic of play for both parents and babies during the first year of life.
In this original book, specific month-by-month play suggestions are linked to validating state-of-the-art research. Understanding the science behind parent-baby play enriches parent’s experience of the baby’s developing brain and the deepening parent-baby relationship.
A baby’s contagious joy while playing peek-a-boo, sense of wonder shaking a rattle and making it jingle, and power to knock down a tower of blocks and rebuild it together delight parents and babies and evoke parents’ embodied memories. All this and more to be discovered in Play with Baby!
—Ilene S. Lefcourt, author Parenting and Childhood Memories: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Reverberating Ghosts and Magic, Faculty Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research Parent-Infant Program
Dr. Hollman has done it again – written an invaluable book for parents and caregivers, this time of babies. How does one have a “play date” with a one-month-old or five-month-old? Here you have it. Dr. Hollman distils decades of research and hands-on experience into month-by-month insights, knowledge, and play time, designed to strengthen your bonds with baby in the first year.
—Marcelle Soviero, Director, Marcelle Ink, classes and community for women who write; Author, An Iridescent Life, Essays on Motherhood; Former Editor-in-Chief and publisher of Brain Child and Teen Magazines
Laurie Hollman’s high regard for her audience, parents of babies, is demonstrated by how clearly she communicates useful information previously only accessible to developmental psychologists and infancy researchers. She illustrates in her book how helpful it is to parents and caregivers of babies to be informed of all the wonderful information revealed by years of research. It is implied over and over that the emotional and physical well-being of infants is enhanced by knowing in a thorough way what is going on developmentally in a growing infant’s life, step by step, month by month. Furthermore, she provides all sorts of practical ways to implement and further strengthen baby’s development through play and care. I would recommend this book to any young parent embarking on the great adventure of being with baby. With Laurie Hollman’s book as a guide the journey will be that much more fulfilling and secure.
—Andrea Remez,PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Parent-Infant therapist, Faculty, National Institute of Psychoanalysis, New York
An excellent resource for new parents to create a loving relationship while examining their baby’s charming personality during the first year of life. Dr. Laurie Hollman effectively presents how to intensify your baby’s social and cognitive development through knowledge-based play techniques. Common questions such as bonding, emotional response, and communication are addressed, providing peace of mind that what you are doing for your baby bestows long term benefits. Many parents come to the clinic feeling awkward not knowing what to do with their baby. Reading this book and following Dr. Hollman’s advice will give parents direction and a feeling of contentment.
Playing with Baby provides a clear message: engaging with your baby may just be your most fulfilling job.
—Lisa Lewis, MD, pediatrician, author of Feed the Baby Hummus, Pediatrician-Backed Secrets from Cultures Around the World