You'll be doing most of the touching when your baby is a newborn, so remember that it's not just hands that can feel things. Sensitivity to touch develops from the top down — your baby's face will be able to distinguish different sensations sooner than his hands will. Use a makeup brush or large paintbrush to pretend-paint your child, talking about the parts of his body as you do it. Or stroke him with a cotton ball or even a cloth diaper or blanket. You can keep a clean feather duster near your changing table, and “dust” your baby when you change him. Blow gently on your baby's stomach, or kiss his toes.

Self-Discovery

By two or three months, your baby will have figured out that his hands belong to him and will watch them as he's playing with them, trying to reach out and touch objects. For a while his hands will be his favorite toy. You can vary this game by putting a brightly colored sock or wrist rattle on one of his hands.

Once he's figured out that he has hands, it's time for batting practice. You can buy an official cradle gym (straps over the crib), baby gym (self-supporting and can be placed over your baby when he's lying on the floor), or a bouncy chair with a toy bar. These toys provide babies good practice in entertaining themselves, and give you a few moments for yourself.

By four months or so your baby will be tired of hitting things and will want to take them in his hands — and bring them to his mouth.

Put a toy in your hand and hold it out to your baby — then be patient. It will take him a while to calculate the path from his hand to the object, and you'll interrupt this process if you rush to put the toy in his hand.

Massage 101

Massage is a great way to relax some babies. (A few just don't like it; don't force it if yours falls in that category.) Luckily it is easy to do — you don't need special classes (although such classes abound).

For your baby's first few massages, just do his arms, hands, legs, and feet (the face and chest are a lot more sensitive). Use a cold-pressed vegetable oil and warm it first by rubbing it between your palms. Avoid baby oil; it's made of petroleum and you don't want your baby sucking it off of his arm.

You might start with your baby's hand, perhaps with a finger-play poem. Then rub his palm gently, starting with your thumbs in the center and moving them out along the fingers. Do both hands and, if he approves, move on to his feet. Remember to stroke very slowly, moving down away from his head.

For his chest, start with your hands in the center, and move them away from each other, down to his sides, following the line of his rib cage. On his stomach, move your hands clockwise around his bellybutton (this is the direction the large intestine turns). (Caution: Don't massage his stomach until his umbilical cord falls off and there is no redness in the area.) You can even do a gentle face massage, making small circles with your fingers around your baby's cheeks, stroking behind the ears, and smoothing his forehead from the center outward.

You don't need to know any fancy massage moves — slow, gentle stroking is really all it takes. If you want a few advanced moves, try:

• Milking — Gently tighten your hand around his leg as you pull down toward his foot.

• Criss-cross — Put one hand on each of his shoulders, stroke one hand down toward his opposite hip, and repeat with the other hand. Then reverse this motion and go back up to the shoulders.

• Rock-a-bye — Put your hands gently on his stomach and rock him from side to side.

• Bread dough — Hold his arm between your two palms and roll it back and forth.

• This little piggy — Rotate each toe on your baby's foot, then gently massage the sole of the foot with your thumbs.

Dexterity Begins

At eight or nine months your baby will begin to use his fingers and thumbs separately, developing the pincer grasp (thumb and forefinger). He can be happily entertained for long stretches (long in baby time, anyway), trying to pick up Cheerios and put them into his mouth. At this stage he'll begin to feel things by rubbing them between his thumb and forefinger. Try making a toy for the car by securely sewing scraps of different types of fabric — silk, velvet, corduroy, lace — together.

He also will want to poke his index finger into things. A set of wooden rings, meant to be stacked on a rod, can be fascinating to a baby — they can hook their fingers through one in each hand and carry them as they crawl.

Soon after this stage your baby will start to learn how to let go of things (“testing gravity”). You'll first notice it in the highchair, as your baby deliberately drops things off the side and expects you to pick them up — again and again and again. He acts like it's a game, and it is. If you don't want him playing it with his food, give him other opportunities to practice with beanbags, balls, or blocks. (Place a basket under his highchair and encourage him to drop the toys in it — it will make cleanup easier.)

By nine months or so, your baby may be ready to start scribbling. Readiness for this game doesn't hinge so much on whether your baby can hold a fat crayon or chalk and use it to make marks on paper, but on whether or not he still insists on eating the crayon or chalk. Try white chalk on black paper; it takes a lot less pressure to get a piece of chalk to make a mark than it does a crayon, and white chalk is about as mess-free as it gets. (If you want to save these first scribbles, spray the paper with hair spray; just don't do the spraying anywhere near your baby.)

Pump It Up

Get double duty from playtime. Your baby should have plenty of opportunities to kick on his back (you can hold a beach ball over him and encourage him to kick it). In fact the more time he has on the floor, in all positions, the better. Unlike car seats, swings, and infant carriers, when he's on the floor he's in charge of how he moves.

Tummy time is important from the beginning. A newborn placed on his stomach will try to lift and turn his head. He'll do little pushups and, as the months go by and his muscles develop, rock up onto his knees. Eventually, tummy time typically turns into crawling.

When your baby is awake and ready to play, you don't always need to recline him in an infant chair or lay him down on his back. The AAP recommends that babies spend some time every day on their tummies, with an adult nearby.

If you have a quilt (not a fluffy comforter, but a cotton quilt that easily lies flat), use it for tummy time. A bare floor is too hard, and a carpet sheds fibers that end up being inhaled and swallowed. Lie down face-to-face with your baby, or put some toys in front of him to encourage him to pick his head up and look around.

Once your baby is crawling, use a bunch of couch cushions to create an obstacle course that he'll crawl around or over. Scatter a few toys around the room a short crawl from your baby. Give him things that scoot out of his reach and beg to be chased — balls or light toys on wheels. Get down on your hands and knees and let him chase you, and then chase him back.

Bicycle your baby's legs from the time he is an infant. Initially, you'll do all the work, but after a few months he'll push against your hands as you move his feet. Eventually, the two of you can bicycle side by side.

Let him jump. Hold him under his arms and with the soles of his feet on your lap, lower him to bend his knees, and then lift him up into the air. Pretty soon he'll bend and straighten his legs himself. He'll technically be jumping, though you'll support much of his weight. When he is four months old or so, he can start jumping in a spring-loaded baby seat that hangs from a doorframe — adjust it so he can touch the floor lightly with his legs. He may just hang there the first few times you try it, but in a few days will push himself up and down.