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Babies

Babies are born helpless, creating the need for care and social interactions that develop human skills
Researchers have proposed that the helplessness of babies is a key to the development of thinking in humans. It creates the need for constant care, which produces a social context in which complex human skills develop. The baby blogs and articles below are packed with useful advice for new parents.

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Repeated daily social interactions develop intentional communication in babies. Mutual parent-baby sharing develops interaction. Then come language skills.

Responsive early parenting correlates with later social and cognitive skills. Researchers have explored the benefits of many aspects of responsive parenting, such as nurturing curiosity, which is innate, singing familiar songs as a source of comfort, smiling, and using a warm voice.

Support for parents of babies who encounter barriers to early responsive parenting is important. Barriers include genetic defects in the baby, toxic influences during pregnancy, birth complications and premature birth, perceptual problems that remain unnoticed, malnutrition, lack of sleep, and lack of social stimulation.

The role of mothers and fathers in the first 1,000 days is of equal importance and parenting by fathers should also be supported. Parental leave promotes coparenting and the involvement of both parents in interacting with the baby.

Baby development has been divided into eight distinct stages: (1) gross motor functions, (2) fine motor functions, (3) perception, (4) cognition, (5) verbal communication, (6) social relations, (7) self-regulation, and (8) emotions.

Babies

Child Development Research, Insights, and Science Briefs to Your Inbox

Articles 9 of 29