Why does newborn baby smiles

Emotional and Social Development, Ages 1 to 12 Months. Topic Overview Emotional and social growth during the first year of life can be both fascinating and exciting. At 1 month of age, infants express their feelings with alert, widened eyes and a rounded mouth.

The bond grows between parents and their baby during this stage. Around 2 months of age, your baby will have a "social" smile. That is a smile made with purpose as a way to engage others. Around this same time to about 4 months of age, babies develop an attachment to their caregivers. They more readily stop crying for familiar caregivers than for strangers.

They draw people to them by making and keeping eye contact, moving their arms, and smiling. My own research has replicated these observations. When we asked parents to observe and record smiling in their children for a study, they reported the first "social smiles" of their babies just after four weeks on average. When researchers started observing infants, most of their initial results were not that different from the parental reports. A study from , which defined "social smiles" as seeking eye-contact before smiling , found that none of the babies in the study smiled during the first week.

Only 11 percent showed a social smile by two weeks of age. About 60 percent had socially smiled by three weeks, and almost all of them had socially smiled within the first month.

Some researchers still fail to register smiles early on, and many smiles occur during sleep—unrelated to the social world. Indeed, even foetuses, observed within the womb with a 4D ultrasonographic method, smile from at least the 23rd week of gestation.

But other studies show that newborns do smile on rare occasions—at most once in every four minutes for some one-day-olds. And the question now is what those smiles mean. There have long been signs that newborn smiles could signal positive emotions to some extent.

Smiles have been noted in the first few days of life as a response to stroking of the cheek or the belly. Newborns also smile in response to sweet tastes and smells. These findings were published decades ago when smiles were considered purely as innate reflexes. At around the three-month mark, you may notice a change in the way your child picks and chooses moments to smile.

By this time, they have been given the opportunity to interact with their environment. Babies may have learned some social cues. Social smiles appear around this time as a sign of attentive engagement with an interactive caregiver. Regardless of whether or not it is reflex, social, or in reaction to passing gas, you can choose to interpret your child's smile the best way you see fit.

The important thing is that they are healthy and engaging with their environment. It may look peaceful on the outside, but a lot goes on in our bodies as we sleep. We'll be taking a sneak peek into our heads to understand how the kinds of sleep we experience help to put smiles on our faces as we snooze. Your body will typically go through two basic types of sleep: rapid eye movement REM and non-rapid eye movement non-REM sleep. You go through all stages of each type of sleep several times a night.

We'll be taking special notice of REM sleep, which is where smiling during sleep is most likely to occur. There are 3 stages of non-REM sleep:. This occurs after about 90 minutes of sleep. In this phase, your eyes will move rapidly about behind your eyelids, and you start to get closer to waking. Your breathing gets quicker and irregular, while your heart rate and blood levels increase to around the points experienced during waking hours. In this phase of sleep, you'll experience some temporary paralysis in your leg and arm muscles to prevent you from getting a little too enthusiastic and acting out your dreams.

If you notice your baby smiling or laughing while asleep, it is probably happening during this phase, although it is more accurately known as "active sleep" in children. Studies have shown that babies may experience smiles, grimaces, body twitches, and sucking in this phase.

Babies smile on reflex without exactly meaning to, or without it being in reaction to a person or thing. As time goes on, you may notice your little one smile when passing gas or stool, perhaps in response to the enjoyable feeling.

There are also instances where babies have sensory responses to taste or smell. It isn't unheard of for babies to stretch out a smile when they come in contact with a smell or taste they find pleasant. As children become more familiar with their environment, you may notice your baby start to smile when they see a familiar face, or perhaps because they are aware it will produce a reaction from you. When it comes to babies smiling in their sleep, however, there's still some grey area.

Since we have no way of knowing if babies dream, or what they dream about, it may be a safe assumption that their smiling which typically occurs during active sleep is a reflex action, and is most likely involuntary. Your little one's first baby grin will melt your heart sooner than you think — and soon come accompanied with a just-as-sweet laugh. Back to Top. In This Article. Baby's First Year - Month 2. Continue Reading Below. Read This Next. When Do Babies Start Laughing? Developmental Milestones: Your Baby by 4 Months.

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