Babies' Communication

Jet2 · 01-18-2008

I was on the plane the other day from Hongkong back to Shanghai.
Two seats away sitting a young mother with her months old baby boy.
Not long after taken off, he started crying, not very bad but his mom was a bit nervous for may be she did not want to disturb other passengers.
I turned to look at the baby boy with a gentle smile. He noticed me and stared at me. He is cute. I blinked my eye to tease him. And then he gave me a lovely smile back in return. So I made face to him and he started giggling...

After that during the trip whenever I heard the baby boy started making uneasy noise, I turned to him and doing the same thing. it worked magically.
The young mother was very glad that I could offer this unexpected help.

The reason I point this out is not saying I own special mind power. Instead I have a question. Before learning language and speaking, does baby have communication power? I guess they do. Just like other intelligent animal such as dophins and dogs. Is it a kind of sixth sense? Or just simply body language?
Am I right?

The above mentioned story is not a single experience. I have come accross several similar cases. When I play with some babies, they seems to know what I think and response to me.

Buffy · 01-18-2008

Babies crave input! And visual input is most easily accessible to them.

They get bored with mom after a while, and strangers are a shock to their input stream, so they really respond.

Eye contact is the essential element, because they are aware of self, and crave attention.

They also respond in kind: smile and they'll smile back!

I've spent a *lot* of time on airplanes, and I do what you describe all the time, and it does indeed work!

Babies also have really sensitive ears, so between the noise and the air pressure drop, crying on the airplane is inevitable. I only took a few trips with mine when she was small, mainly because I didn't want to put *her* through it (with all the jerks I meet on planes, I didn't really care much how *they* would react!). And the one long trip we took, I made sure to get first class seats so she had a whole row to crawl around in.

That’s the miracle of babies, their ability to lay bare the tender, beating hearts of raging a**h***s,

Buffy

DougF · 01-18-2008

Quote:

Buffy
Babies crave input! And visual input is most easily accessible to them.

I agree with Buffy 100%, and this will work on almost kids.

For a mother is the only person on earth
Who can divide her love among ten children
And each child still have all her love.

-Anon.

HydrogenBond · 01-18-2008

Babies are sort of like animals in the sense they respond to feelings in the voice instead of words. A good experiment with an animal is saying something nasty but with kindness or enthusiasm in the voice. They hear "blah, blah", but will feel the positive emotional valence and respond to that. Then do the opposite and give them a kind complement, but with anger or contempt. They also hear "blah blah, and will respond to the feelings.

Body language and babies works the same way. Typically, there is an exact association between a smile and a nice feeling. But sometimes babies will see the smile but respond with crying if the feelings are not genuine. Often females are more genuine with their feelings of cuteness such that females are more likely to get the proper reaction. Some males are more awkward around babies. They may smile but the baby feels their strain.