When babies are born, interactions with parents are few. Many are barely able to even look at you much, and it comes down to being calm if everything is okay or crying if they feel they need something.
It is like this until one fine day the baby begins to smile at us when we are in front of us, starting a relationship with us that we must reciprocate: when does that first smile arrive and why is it important to respond in some way to that gesture? .
Babies already smile in the womb
If we talk about the first smile gesture, we have to go to some point in pregnancy when the fetus is already capable of making that smile, so that when they are born they are also capable of making it. We have all seen a newborn smile while sleeping, as if he were dreaming of something funny.
However, it is not quite clear why they do it, because a baby who has just been born has not had any experience that can make him laugh (or the reasoning necessary for a memory to make him funny); so it is considered that it could be because the baby is comfortable, perhaps excited by some internal sensation, or it could even be that it was simply a nervous reflex.
What matters is your first social smile
So what we are really interested in is not that smile that a few days old baby makes while sleeping, but the one that a baby makes when he is awake more or less when he is one month old , because he is happy to see an adult, or he’s trying to be nice.
That he doesn’t think of it that way, he doesn’t say to himself “I’m going to see if these people like me”; it is just that as a social being, it reacts as the evolution establishes that it must do. In the same way that when you notice that you are alone you have the ability to cry, when you notice that you are accompanied, you have the ability to smile .
It is as if you are educating us through your responses. “Dad, mom, if you can make me happy, content and satisfied, I’ll smile at you. If you don’t, I’ll cry.” And so parents know when we are doing well and when we could improve.
Your first “communication”
The first smile, called the social smile , is considered to be the first time the baby communicates, socializes, and sends a message. And when someone broadcasts a message to someone else, they expect a response.
That is why parents have to be close to babies when they are awake, do things to them, talk to them, touch them, smile at them, sing to them, look at them, … in short, emit responses to their smile, and be aware of their gestures, noises, looks , etc., because little by little they will incorporate new ways of telling us how they feel about our way of doing things.
These interactions between parents and children make the two get to know each other better and better , and that we can go from “look, I don’t know what happens to the child”, to “I think he is tired and wants to sleep” or “me He gives the feeling that he wants you to listen to him and say things to him. “
In this way, the relationship becomes closer and sometimes the child “listens” to mom and dad, watching and learning from what they do to him, while other times we are the parents who “listen” to the baby, waiting to see what we do. he has to say with his gestures, moans, smiles and moans. An alternation in communication that is still very basic, but that can be very useful for the baby and that strengthens the bonds between parents and children .
In addition, the fact that his social actions, such as laughter, get a response, help him to feel that he is capable of influencing his surroundings, and in a way to connect with the environment and know that he has the ability to make it change if necessary. This way you can feel that what you do and what you say is important to your parents, that you are listened to and taken into account, and this helps you develop your self-esteem better.
Yes, he is very small, but since his first act with social intentions arrives after a month of life, the normal and logical thing is that we begin to correspond with him so that he advances in his desire to tell us things and we relate more and better with the baby . This is how parents and babies advance in this motherhood with more security and can even better handle those moments when the baby says the opposite, that it is not okay, with its crying.
Photo | iStock
In Babies and more | Baby’s first smile, Your baby’s first look of love, What do babies laugh at?
