"A baby always smiling isn't anything abnormal," says Smerling. "It's a learning process for them and they're really just trying to process exactly what joy is, and how to share that joy with others around them that they're gazing at."
And, of course, seeing your baby smile at you makes you feel good too! Smiles are very important early positive experiences. Smiles teach your child a lot about themselves and their world, when they're too young to understand words.
Your Baby's Development This Week
Often newborns will smile in their sleep. Sometimes a smile in the early weeks of life is simply a sign that your little bundle is passing gas. But starting between 6 and 8 weeks of life, babies develop a "social smile" -- an intentional gesture of warmth meant just for you.
Your baby may smile when they see your face—or another parent or a big sibling's. They're starting to associate your face with feeling good. The bond deepens!
There have long been signs that newborn smiles could signal positive emotions to some extent. Smiles have been noted in the first few days of life as a response to stroking of the cheek or the belly. Newborns also smile in response to sweet tastes and smells.
There's growing evidence that these anticipatory smiles are a crucial moment in infant development—the moment when babies begin to be aware of their social world. They mark a new and unique cognitive step: sharing an emotion with someone else that's about some third thing (a pig-with-wings weathervane, naturally).
When your baby stares at your face or your toddler cries whenever you leave the room, your child is nonverbally telling you that they love you. Little signs like this prove that when it comes to kids and love, even little gestures are big expressions of affection.
They communicate and express themselves by making faces and wiggling around. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, and that's particularly true when it comes to babies. Around 4 to 6 months, your little love bug will start mimicking your facial expressions.
When I'm pulling my lips into a little 'O' shape and widening my eyes, it's playtime. This look, wide open eyes and round little mouth, is a common one for excited babies who want to play with their parents. They might also clap, wave their hands, or even make a sound or two.
It's the smile that your baby gives when you smile at your baby and your baby smiles back at you. It's a sign that the vision and social parts of his brain are developing. Your baby should be smiling by three to four months old. If not, it could be a vision problem or a problem attaching to parent figures.
Those who may be on the autism spectrum will mostly avoid any type of eye contact and will typically not smile or exhibit many facial expressions. Autistic children will also likely not be reactive to loud sounds and noises as neurotypical children would.
This means your baby is making many new eye connections, taking in the environment, and understanding many new things. All of this can be very overwhelming and over stimulating for littles that have just spent 9 months in a dark quiet womb.
Grabbing and squeezing everything is simply a natural response that 2 year olds display towards whatever catches their attention. For some reason, your daughter has latched onto squeezing your face as a particular way of "connecting" with you.
Kissing your baby has a lot of emotional benefits. When a mother shows her baby love by kisses, hugs and the like, it shows the baby that being sensitive to others needs and feelings is important. This in turn can help them relate as well as interact better with those around them.
Babies can tell who has close relationships based on one clue: saliva. Sharing food and kissing are among the signals babies use to interpret their social world, according to a new study.
Babytalk | A baby's bond with its mother may start with the sense of smell. One of my favorite things to do is show mothers how their baby can smell them from as far away as 1 to 2 feet.
Human infants, just a few days of age, are known to prefer attractive human faces.
When toddlers spend lots of quality time with one parent and less time with the other parent, they instinctually gravitate towards the parent they spend more time with. This is not because they love that parent more, but simply because that parent is more familiar and, in turn, more predictable to the toddler.
Babies who are tested at 3 months of age or at 6 months of age show eye tracking consistent with preference for female faces.
General satisfaction with life increased in the first months after birth and peaked when the child reached 6 months old.
You and Your Baby's Emotional Connection
Research has shown that, during pregnancy, your baby feels what you feel—and with the same intensity. That means if you're crying, your baby feels the same emotion, as if it's their own.
although the study did find that happy parents are statistically more likely to have happy children, it couldn't find any genetic component. So what's the first step to being a happier you? Take some time each week to have fun with friends.
The current consensus is that infants are thinking all the time, busy trying to make sense of the world around them from the moment they emerge from the womb. "Babies are little experimenters," says Susan Hespos, Ph. D., a cognitive psychologist at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois.