Everything you need to know about your baby’s brain

Have you ever wondered what is going on in your baby’s little head? What makes him to babble and when would he shift from babbling to coherent speech? Here is what you must know about your brain’s health,

Baby’s brain grows rapidly

After birth, the human brain grows rapidly, more than doubling to reach 60 per cent of its adult size by the time the kid is sampling his first birthday cake. By kindergarten, the brain has reached its full size but it may not finish developing until the kid is in his mid-20s.

Lantern vs flashlight

The baby’s perception of reality is less focused than adults. They are vaguely aware of everything, a sensible strategy considering they don’t yet know what’s important. Few likens baby perception to a lantern, scattering light across the room, where adult perception is more like a flashlight, consciously focused on specific things but ignoring background details.

Babbling signals learning

Within their lantern’s light, babies focus momentarily. When they do, they usually make babbling sounds to convey interest. The nonsense syllables babies spout – is the acoustic version of a furrowed brow. Few signal to adults that they are ready to learn. What makes babies smarter is talking to them, dialogue is best, where a parent responds within the pauses of an infants’ vocalizations.

Brains can be overwhelmed

But their need for human interaction doesn’t mean they should be tickled silly day and night. Babies have short attention spans and can easily be over-stimulated. Sometimes, the interaction they need is simply help calming down. This can be provided by rocking, dimming lights or swaddling flailing limbs that babies have yet to figure out how to control.

Educational DVDs are not very effective

Recent research suggests that social responses are fundamental to a child’s ability to fully learn language. Babies divide up the world between things that respond to them and things that don’t. Things that don’t are not worth it. A recording does not follow a baby’s cues, which is why infant DVDs, have been found to be ineffective.

They need more than parents

Researchers theorize that spending time with non-parental caregivers, a doting granny, a daycare teacher, and a family friend, helps infants learn to read different facial expressions and expand their ability to take the perspectives of others. They use adult mental processes for figuring others’ emotions by the time they are seven months old.