Even in the first 6 months of life, there are communicative milestones through which infants move.

This episode of Learn With Less is focused on those wonderful, intense and amazing first 6 months of an infant’s life – and the parts of communicative development about which it helps to become aware! 

Below is the transcript of this episode’s “Developmental Thought,” an excerpt from the full episode.

For additional information, music, play ideas and the complete interactive family experience, please listen to the entire episode. 

Today, I want to talk about a few of the very early parts of communication development – those that typically happen in around the first 6 months of our babies’ lives.

There is so much that happens in that first year of life, in all areas of our infants’ learning.

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From Blob to Bub

Our babies grow from tiny (let’s face it, adorable blob-like) beings to tiny people starting to express their personalities, desires, and interests. In recent years, there’s been a real push to help parents and caregivers become more aware of “developmental milestones” – I very much encourage you to be aware of the basic things to look for, but I want to highlight also that obsessing over each milestone is not necessarily conducive for healthy support of our children’s learning, either!

It’s more about the whole picture. Also, there is always a range of “what’s normal.” If you are the parent of an infant who has come into this world under more challenging circumstances than others, or you are concerned that your child is not communicating the way you see other same-aged children doing, I encourage you to talk to your child’s medical provider or developmental specialist to gather more information.

Knowledge is power, and the more information you can collect – about your child’s hearing ability, about therapeutic techniques you or a specialist can do to help stimulate your child’s communication skills – the more your child can benefit!

Major Changes At 6 Weeks

We touched upon the earliest form of purposeful communication, crying. Interestingly, around 6 weeks is also when we start to see what’s known as a “social smile,” or an intentional smile… yes, grown-ups, sorry to disappoint, but in the early days and weeks after birth, you may have seen your baby turn her mouth upwards, seemingly smiling… though this is beautiful to witness and a nice preview, it is most likely your precious one making a slight effort to pass gas.

I think many of us feel, when that first real interactive smile comes, that this was SO necessary – because up until that point, we’ve essentially been slaves to this beautiful and wondrous tiny being, not sleeping, rarely eating or bathing, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of reciprocation. And then, those lips turn up… and wow. Thank you! 

What’s fascinating is that that 6-8-week mark when you see that first social smile and when your baby realizes that if she cries, you will help her – it comes at around the same time… indicating that around this time, your baby is starting to make connections about human behavior!

She realizes that returning your smile keeps your attention! This is another wonderful early step in back-and-forth communication, and can be a great way to development of her self-esteem,