Social Skills

Newborns tend to prefer the sound of the human voice. So your singing, cooing, and talking to them soothes them. They’ve heard mommy’s and daddy’s voices in the last 3 months of pregnancy because their auditory system was already functioning, There are some reports of newborns recognizing their parents’ voices at birth. Newborn babies also smile reflexively. This smile typically occurs when the cheek or lips are touched or in light sleep. You’ll know it’s a reflex because the area around the eyes doesn’t crinkle— a significant difference between social and reflexive smiles. Nonetheless, this reflexive smiling helps to set the stage for face to face connection, attention, and continued learning. These early abilities probably help newborns to “tune in” to their parents and set the stage for parent-child attachment.

Really?

Really? I'll say it again really? People thought that Baby Einstein was going to make their babies smart? Okay, if it didn't work you can go get a refund.

I'm so glad I never was given a set of those things, I know many people who did. My worry was that I couldn't then in good consciousness go and give the things to the Good Will or somthing, it would be perpetuating the notion that sticking babies in front of the television would make them smarter. And, yes it IS television.

But, it's educational!! No, it isn't. What made people go for this drivel in the first place? Well, it turns out that very young children can learn to distinguish different sounds. They can even distinguish sounds in languages that are not in their native language. But, over time, they lose the ability to make the distinctions in the language that they don't hear everyday.

We also know that babies who are exposed to lots of language on average learn more words. But, videos and television-- while they may use language, words, and concepts that babies can learn are not INTERACTIVE. Duh! Here's more on that issue.

Now, I'm not saying that sometimes it isn't convenient to park your baby in front of something like this so that you can take a shower. I'm just saying that you can't count on videos to teach your baby language. Language has give and take, it's responsive-- those are things that only other people in your baby's life can do.