Sunny Gault
If you're planning to raise a Montessori child, you may have some questions about your home and how things should be set up. So let's go ahead and talk about that. today. I'm Sunny with New Mommy Media and I'm joined by Simone Davies. She's a best-selling author. She's also a Montessori educator. So Simone, thanks so much for being with us today.

Simone Davies
Thank you Sunny for having me. I'm looking forward to talking to you.

Sunny Gault
Well, in your books, because I know you've actually released a couple of different books. This is your latest one's called the Montessori baby. You talk about spaces. So for someone that's not familiar with the Montessori methods, what is the space?

Simone Davies
Yeah, so a space can be any room in your home, it can also be the outside space, it can be the bedroom, but everyone's spaces look different. Depending on where you are any Montessori, we actually officially use the term environment, but it's not something that you will relate to. So it might be a classroom in a Montessori educational setting, but at home, it's just a space will probably be like a living area, or a kitchen or a bathroom, that kind of thing.

Sunny Gault
Okay, so can be a room is that like a good synonym for people that aren't as familiar with? Okay. Okay, and then what's the idea behind creating this space?

Simone Davies
So with Montessori, we're creating intentional spaces, because often you walk into a home, and it's either overflowing with toys everywhere, or the toys are stuffed in a toy box, and the children can't see anything. Or they're put into cupboards that the children can't access. And they always say, I'm bored, you know, they can't find anything to do. But in Montessori, we try and make the space is attractive, so that the children are engaged by what they see, there's a few things available out not too much. And it really fits in with a modern home, because you don't really want to have your house taken over by children's things everywhere. So it can just be a small shelf on the side where the children can choose what they'd like, maybe six toys, but for a child, and then we make them attractive so that they got everything at the ready that they need. We make it beautiful, because, you know, we want them to feel comfortable in our homes as well. So you can have low artwork down even at like a baby's height, just to show respect to them. Like why are all the paintings up higher the adult height and you're also a member of the family and we treat you that way. And then as the child starts to get older, we're also setting it up for independence. So we have a low shelf, even before the baby can crawl. So they learned that this is where my activities are. And I can eventually crawl over and choose one for myself. And then as they become a little bit more motoric, like with their gross motor movements, they'll pull up and stand on those show, I can pull up to stand and practice walking along those. So you can use the furniture in many different ways as well.

Sunny Gault
Oh, I love that that makes so much sense. Like, you know, even in my own house, like when my kids were little I would actually do this. It sounds really silly. But I would get down on my hands and knees and look at things from their perspective because it is way different. Now, most of the time I was cleaning and stuff. I'm like, Where did their little hand turds go? I got to see what they did. But that's such an interesting way of learning too. And I'm assuming that there are like different types of furniture and things like that that would accommodate that, or are we just talking about? I don't know, would there be Montessori-type furniture that you would put in to this space or just something that fits the size of your child?

Simone Davies
Yeah, so you don't need to go out and buy a lot. But you could already repurpose what you have. But we like to have like a low shelf so that they could access some of their things you could have for a young baby a movement mat. So it can be any type of method that feels comfortable for the baby to lie on. And then horizontal mirror, because then they can actually see themselves reflected and their body schema. What do I look like as I'm making these movements? And then you could have a simple mobile hanger so that when they're in the visual development stage, you could have these beautiful monitoring mobiles above that area. So you don't need to do any of those things. You can have a picnic blanket and lie outside under a tree and you're still doing Montessori if you're giving your child the chance to discover the world for themselves and their to be their guide, like, you know, did you see that bird and just make observations with them, but also just have time for silence as well.

Sunny Gault
Okay, so within the house, though, because I yeah, there's a lot of stuff that you can do on the outside. I'm thinking within, and I'm thinking for brand new parents that might be interested in this. How many spaces Do you think that they need? Well, let's talk about for babies, right? babies aren't going to go very far. Let's say they're not even walking yet. Do they really just need just a little space of their own and you just start with one space and then maybe it kind of grows from there?

Simone Davies
Yeah, so if they've got their own bedroom, then you can set up their bedroom so that they can access everything themselves and like the learn that that's where my wardrobe is and even if you give them simple choices like would you like to wear the red t-shirt today or the blue t-shirt today you can even start to introduce that at a very young age with babies in the bathroom where they used to bathing, we always try and set up the bath area in the same way because that gives a lot of consistency and reassurance and security for the child in the living area. Yeah, having a movement area that might be in the bedroom if you don't have a very big living area so it can be very flexible and then in Kitchen, they're not doing so much until they start solid. And then I'd love to actually to include the children in our meals rather than feeding the baby and then having a meal separately actually involving them in the mealtime like I have my meal, and the baby has theirs. And we're more kind of baby led weaning style where the baby is more in charge of putting things into their mouth, because we like the baby, that baby is the only one who knows when they fall, not because I put this amount of food in front of you. I can't tell if you're full or not that way. So we're teaching them for a very young age to listen to their own bodies as well.

Sunny Gault
I think that's right, we have a tendency with our kids to kind of keep them separate. You know, like you said, they'll eat first or whatever. And then we feed ourselves. And really, when you think about it doesn't make a lot of sense. If we're trying to integrate them into society or whatever we would be doing this together, it would be more communal, right? Doing things together. Yeah. Yeah. makes sense to me. All right. Thank you so much, Simone. Of course, Simone has this book, The Montessori baby. If you want to check it out. It's available on Amazon or your bookstore, whichever one you want to check out. And we would love for you to check out New Mommy Media, you can head on over to our website. It's newmommymedia.com. We've got various podcasts for you to listen to more great videos like this one, and blog posts as well. It's where real moms talk about real life.