Child development depends on motor and environmental stimuli that can be experienced during play activities. Parents' virtual access to information on how to stimulate their babies through play has been frequent, but the quality of this information should be investigated.

To verify the type of information available on internet sources about play activities for children up to 1 year of age.

Content analysis study, which is part of a collaborative study between the University of Brasília (UnB) and the University of Delaware (UD). The same coding protocol developed by a team of specialists in child development and early intervention at the UD was used. This study is a sub-analysis in which only Brazilian sources related to play activities available on the internet for children under 1 year old were included. A search was carried out through the Google site, using the terms: “play activities for babies”, “how to play with babies”, “play activities” and “babies”. The inclusion criteria of the analyzed sources were a) any sources on websites that contained information about play activities for children younger than 1 year of age; b) sources available on the internet. Information regarding the type of source, details of the authors, child's development process and the role of parents in development were extracted and individually coded using Excel by two coders (inter-rater reliability: M=87.98%, SD= 6.2).

One hundred and fifteen sources were identified, and 100 sources were included. Most sources included were popular websites (52%), followed by professional organization websites (24%). Among the sources included, only 9% mentioned the authors' credentials, 5% mentioned information about the child development process, and 5% about the role of parents in the developmental process.

Most of the sources were from popular websites, and in general, those provided a few or no information related to the authors' credentials (e.g., authors' education and expertise). Content and information about how child development occurs and the importance of parents in child development were found on the minority of websites.

Parental knowledge can directly impact their children's development. Play websites can be a valuable source of information for parents, but it is extremely important that the information provided is accurate, up-to-date and evidence based. Health and early childhood education professionals can play an important role in directing parents to reliable sources about play for children under one year old.