As soon as you hold your little newborn, one of the first things you will notice is their cry. At this stage of life, crying is the only way that a baby can communicate. They cannot tell you that they are hungry or tired. They cannot even smile or laugh.
Crying is the most primal expression of human emotions, and when your little one does not want to stop crying, you can remind yourself that at least they are trying to communicate with you!
Baby communication has become quite a science. Some have developed theories relating to communication through filling nappies, while other theorists will tell you how to communicate with your infant through baby sign language.
However, whether or not any of these theories actually work, you will only learn the exact science of baby communication by getting to know your little one as the individual that they are.
After a while, you will learn the different cries of your baby. For example, a pain cry is sharp and pitiful, while a tired cry is whinier. At the same time, if your baby wants to tell you that they are tired they may rub their eyes. If the baby has a stomach ache, you can often tell by the way that they draw their legs up. If the baby is frightened by a sudden noise or movement, they will throw out their arms suddenly and start to cry noisily. A frightened cry is similar to a pain cry as both emotions are often related. Of course, at this age, nothing is 100% definite, and you won’t always know what your baby wants, but these guidelines do help.
As your baby grows, you will see more signs of communication. From around four to six weeks, your baby will start to smile and then laugh. Over the coming months, they will learn to vocalise and imitate sounds. From around one year (and often older), they will start to speak.
Before the baby actually speaks, they will understand many words. However, to help your baby to learn to communicate even better, you should talk to them all the time. More than the baby baskets, the trendy baby clothes, and baby gift hampers, the greatest present that you can give your child is communication.
When you speak to your baby, even though they won’t understand at first, they will feel that Mummy loves them and is interacting with them. As you chat away while changing their nappy, they will look at you with loving eyes. When they start making noises at you, copy them and babble back to them. This, to a baby, is conversation.
Conversation is communication and this is what you need for a loving relationship. And when your baby grows into a child, you have laid the foundations of a close relationship that should last for life.