MommyGarten Redux: Emotional Development
This week, MommyGarten.com is on vacay, yet focused on Mommy’s needs. Flowers and strawberries have their place, but MommyGarten.com gives new moms a gift unlike any other: Sugar-free peace of mind.
We’ll use this week to make sure that all the new mommies who are enrolling at MommyGarten.com every day are caught up on the lessons of parenthood.
So, please enjoy this look back at excerpts from previously published posts on what every Mommy needs to know about her baby’s emotional development.
On what newborns can do (from February 2010)
Within the first moments of life outside the womb, your baby has reflexes that help ensure survival. Some reflexes are strongest in the hours following birth, but subside, then disappear, within days or weeks. Just in time for mother to bounce back from the labor of … well, labor. And delivery. One of the most powerful of these survival tools is the rooting reflex. When a nipple (or even a finger) brushes by his cheek is touched baby’s mouth opens, and his head turns toward the stimulus, as he searches for the breast. What comes next, a strong sucking action, is another survival strategy. Your baby’s perfectly engineered taste bud system and mouth are ready to receive whatever nutrition he manages to extract with all that rooting, hoping, searching, and sucking.
On crying and spoiling (from February 2010):
When you respond to your crying baby, your crying baby learns that:
- It works to use his words (yes, for now, those are his words),
- His needs are valid (worth speaking up about),
- You can be trusted, and
- You are source of comfort in the midst of overwhelm.
Be careful with this process, parents. You would not want baby to get the wrong impression. If you don’t pick him up because you think that a young baby can be spoiled, you’re mistaken. Spoiling and manipulation require a level of brain development and multitasking that your new baby simply does not possess. Yet.
On the developmental purpose of play (from February 2010):
One year-old attention spans are not still waters, nor do they run deep. That is why the simplest of imitative and repetitive actions, like pretending to nod and talk along while mother is on the phone, often emerge around the age of 12 or 13 months. The older infant (second half of first year) has sufficient memory and brain development to keep track of objects and current events. Emphasis on “current.”
Your child’s powers of observation minimally grasp and re-iterate an basic interpretation of feeding a baby: putting a bottle to lips. Once that imitative act is repeated, enjoyed, improved — mastered, the child becomes able to orchestrate several factors (including tone of voice, gestures, and actions – all of which will be repeated, enjoyed, improved, mastered) until a simple feeding becomes a longer sequence of doting on baby — complete with imaginary meal, bath, nap, and storybook. You’ll observe play schemes that used to consist of the simple, repetitive act of placing a doll in a stroller, for example, expand into a pretend journeys to the park or the store.
More recaps tomorrow and every day this week. Check back daily for specific, realistic, age-appropriate child development tips.
Read more Emotional Development posts
Carly Jennings | Emotional Development | 
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