GroBrain

It’s only a matter of time before your baby is talking up a storm! Over the past two days we’ve looked at the role that mom’s voice plays in helping to organize newborns’ receptive and expressive language around the native tongue to which they were exposed during the final trimester of pregnancy. And yesterday we focused in on newborns earliest vocalizations: cries, grunts, and squeaks. But it won’t be long before your baby begins making a much happier set of sounds - which also mark a first verbal milestone: cooing. Coos tend to be a combination of vowel sounds and laughter, which make them a true delight. They are not only an expression of contentedness but an early form of socialization. Listen here as baby Millie (shown at 4 months of age) experiments with her voice. Could there be a better sound than a happy baby? If you hadn’t/haven’t started already, the cooing phase is a perfect time to really get focused on serve and return interactions. When your baby coos, coo right back, taking turns as you go! (Don’t forget to give your baby wait time to respond.) And get all the cooing video you can as well, because your little one is on the march to full blown speech - and this adorable phase won’t last long. Tomorrow we’ll look at the next developmental progression here: Babbling. This darling little one was shared to TT by megz.brooke.

I couldn’t love this game any more if I tried. Watch how mom engages baby in a two step process here. There’s the gentle head tilt and the “ahhh” sound. Initially baby manages the tilt, but not the sound. So what does mom do? She adds it for her and keeps the game going. And next time around baby gets both parts! My favorite part might be the third attempt, when baby clearly attempts to vocalize the “ahhh” but nothing comes out. (There’s a lot of complexity here for such a little one.) Just fantastic. Way to build that brain, Mom! 🧠

There is nothing babies love more than faces. And this is doubly true for those of their most significant caregivers. Watch how mesmerized this little one is by her mother - and how carefully she studies the shape and movement of Mom’s face as she serenades her. Turns out, babies have very specific preferences here. Research suggests that newborns prefer looking at faces that are: - socially relevant to them (faces with direct gaze compared to faces with averted gaze), - happy faces compared to neutral facial expressions, - and, even shortly after birth, already strongly favor their mother’s face to that of a stranger. So always look for opportunities to sit face-to-face. There’s nothing your baby would rather look at than YOU. Film miravideo via TT.