Babies Have People Skills, Too

Provided by Healthy Start, Grow Smart

From her first moments, your baby is intrigued by your face. She notices your expressions and tone of voice. She reacts to your emotions. When you say something in a soft and loving way, she will relax and feel more secure.

Scientists have learned that babies show emotions as early as one-month old. In addition, scientists have also learned that babies' emotional and physical well-being helps them learn better.

Why? Happy babies are more alert, attentive and responsive. Babies remember better when they are happy and comfortable — and remember, the way you hold and talk to your baby can help her feel happy.

Babies who are alert and content are more likely to observe, explore and play. They will pay more attention to their surroundings. For example, they will try new things with their toys or make sounds towards people. This, in turn, helps them learn and remember new things.

Babies will experience brief periods of distress or difficulty. These will not harm a child; in actuality, short periods of negative emotion can be helpful for your baby. When you respond quickly to comfort her, she will learn you care about what she’s trying to express. However, long periods of negative emotion, like crying, can do harm.

In the first month, a baby's negative emotion is distress or pain response. Later, she will show sadness and anger. After that, your baby will exhibit fear. All people develop and retain these emotions to protect themselves. In order to help your baby be at ease with her emotions, respond to her in a warm and loving way.

You can usually tell what your baby is feeling by noticing changes in her facial expressions. You can also see what she is feeling by noting her posture, her movements and the sounds she makes.

Learning to Communicate

It will be months before your baby says her first word, but babies start learning about language much earlier.

Even in its first few weeks, your baby is learning about language. Very young babies can distinguish between speech and other sounds. They can tell the difference between male and female voices. They can even recognize their mothers’ voices among voices of other women. Researchers believe babies can differentiate like this because of the way specific parts of their brains work.

Babies can also communicate long before they speak. They use movement and sound to express what they want or don't want. This is sometimes referred to as a baby’s "signals."

Right now, your baby can convey she needs something by fussing or crying. She can also indicate when she likes something or someone by looking intently at the object or person in question. Babies best learn how to tell parents what they like or don’t like when they see parents’ positive response.

It is important to talk to your baby even before she can speak. Although there are some variances, generally babies whose parents talk to them talk sooner and also have larger vocabularies. Babies also receive language skills that will help them learn more easily in school when spoken to. However, don’t mistake hearing words on the radio or TV as helpful to your baby's language development; your baby benefits from having you up close smiling, talking and singing.

Healthy Start, Grow Smart: U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services