infant learning

What is your infant learning?
Newborns regularly occupy a state of alert inactivity—they are quiet and alert and will focus on your face or voice.

In the first few weeks of life, babies recognize and prefer familiar faces. If a parent and a stranger talk to a newborn, the baby will turn his or her face toward the parent, not the stranger.
Infants know the smell of their mother’s milk. One researcher placed three-day-old infants on their backs and placed breast pads from their mothers and from other nursing women on either side of their heads. The infants turned toward the smell of their own mothers. Smell is one of the first connections newborns make with their mothers. Within seconds of the time that a newborn smells his or her mother, indelible networks of attachment and recognition are formed in the brain.

Two-day-old infants may imitate an adult who smiles, frowns or shows surprise. Babies have an innate capacity to imitate and do what people around them are doing.

Babies as young as six weeks have learned to respond differently to their mothers and fathers. When the mother approaches, babies tend to relax their bodies, their heart and respiration rate soften. When the father approaches, the babies’ heart and respiration rate go up, their eyes open wide, as if to say: "It’s party time...this is Dad!" In general, mothers’ interactions are calming, while fathers’ are more playful and the babies’ reactions reflect these differences.

Through the experience of being cared for, your baby is beginning to learn how to regulate his emotional state and calm down. Areas of the brain that regulate bodily functions like heart rate, temperature and sleep are developing in these early months. When you hold your crying baby and calm him by talking or rocking, your baby is learning that intense distress can decrease. At first your baby relies on you, and then develops ways to calm himself over time.

learning kids...

Even though I have told my very intelligent 18-month-old daughter 100 times not to climb on the coffee table, she continues to do it, even though she understands when I say “NO!” I am very frustrated--is she being bad or am I expecting too much?

Children can understand "no" from a very early age...often by nine months. They figure it out by the tone of your voice and your facial expressions which essentially tell them, “I am not happy at all about what you are doing.” In general, childrens’ ability to understand what they hear (receptive communication) develops much sooner than their own ability to communicate by talking (expressive communication). However, while babies will often stop dead in their tracks when you tell them “NO!”, they do not yet have the capacity to exercise the self-control necessary to stop themselves from going for a desired object or engaging in an activity (such as climbing tables). Everything is so new and fun to explore! It is actually at your daughter’s age--around 18 months-- that toddlers begin to develop this capacity for self-control; but it is an ongoing process that develops over many months and varies with each child. By 2 ½ years most children can exert some self-control over their impulses. As you think about helping your child develop this capacity for self-control, it is important to be mindful of not just her age and stage of development, but also her temperament.