Infant Emotional Development

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Dr. David Hill. And today we're going to talking about your infant’s emotional development. That first year of life is a profound time for infant emotional development. You start with someone who just came out of the womb and has no knowledge of emotions or speech or human faces. At the end of 12 month you have someone who's laughing and playing, and waving bye bye. And maybe even calling you mama or dada and using another word. What's going to happen in between there depends a tremendous amount on how you relate to your baby. Now starting to birth to age 2 months the most important thing to do is at birth get that baby on your chest as soon as possible. Sometimes medical issues intervene but if you can encourage the nurses to bring the baby to you as soon as he or she is born. That babies likely to regulate his breathing, heart rate, temperature and other physiological functions better if his skin is on yours. Likewise initiating nursing as soon as possible is also going to help. That's when the bonding starts and a good start is critical. Don't let anybody tell you that you can spoil your infant by holding him or her too much. That's not spoiling. There are ways to spoil babies but not at this point. There's nothing wrong with holding that infant anytime you feel it's appropriate. That doesn't mean that you can't put the baby down sometimes. You're going to have to and babies may need to be put down to sleep. However if you want to hold the baby for gosh sake please hold your baby. That's never the wrong thing to do. By age 2 months some profound changes have already occurred. Your baby is smiling at you. She's really starting to see your face well and she's taking cues even millisecond by millisecond from the cues of your facial expression. She's also attending to your voice. Even your smell to learn to regulate her emotions. Now this is a very stressful time as a new parent but it's important to try not to bring that stress to your baby if you can. Which of course is stressful in and of itself I know but do your best. Try and keep your voice calm. Try and keep your touch gentle and soothing because those things are teaching your baby how to have calm soothing gentle emotions as well. Starting around age 6 months some very exciting new things are happening. You've got a baby who's starting to pay attention to your words. A baby who can sit up, who's reaching and grabbing what they want. Who's playing with you, giggling, laughing at you. By 9 months they're playing games like peek-a-boo. And also at 9 months they understand the meaning of "no". So discipline can start then. They're not always going to obey but you can start teaching a baby what's acceptable and what's not acceptable behavior by telling them no. They're also going to able to wave bye bye which means they no somebody's going. Another thing that happens at 6 to 9 months of age is your baby is starting to recognize strangers. And that is normal. The baby may cry when a sitter, even a grandparent comes in, somebody who's not with them every moment of every day and that's o.k. When that happens just know your baby's development is proceeding normally. By 12 months of age you've got a baby who's interacting with you, imitating you. And remember imitating the bad things as well as the good. So again try and keep your emotions as positive as you can when you're interacting with this baby. To review, baby development emotionally occurs at a profoundly rapid rate in the first year of life. Everything about you from your facial expression, to your voice, to your touch, to even your smell is going to help your baby regulate his or her own emotions. And don't let anybody tell you that you're holding your baby too much. There's no such thing. Discussing baby's emotional development, I'm Dr. David Hill."