Baby concerns

Your baby is already into his/her second month and if you are still worried whether why your baby is not smiling or cooing around, its time that you understand that each baby is a marvel in its own right and you cannot forcibly make them do something only because other babies of the same age are doing. Some babies are fast to learn and grow while others are not, that does not mean they are lesser in any stance. Like we have different programming languages that give us the same output at the end, similar is the case with babies, they are different in their own unique ways but at the end everyone will grow to almost similar capabilities. Below are some very common concerns parents are worried about:

The smile of your baby

Not all babies have smiling faces when they are born, some develop their skills as they mentally grow, don’t expect your baby to smile back at you when he is just 5 weeks old. Even the happiest of babies start smiling when they are truly seven weeks old, some babies seem to have natural smile on their faces that makes them look as if they are smiling. By 7th week, you would be able to make out the real smile in your baby with the way the whole face is expressed and not just mouth. Your babies tend to start smiling when they ready and they get ready faster when talked to, cuddled and played with them often. Take maximum time out to talk to your baby and smile at them often.

Baby cooing

The younger babies happen to make vowel sounds more; so don’t get worried if they are not using any consonants while they are cooing around. They start making vowel sounds between the first few weeks or the end of second month. For the starters, they will start with melodic sounds and throaty gurgles, which seems to be rare. After few weeks, they will make sounds, which are directed, to you while you talk to them. They will start noticing objects more keenly and feel communicating with stuffed toys or their own reflections in the mirror. They feel truly pleasurable when they make such sounds; they are at ease listening to their own sounds. Babies are actually experimenting different vocal nodes, which demands more attention from the people around them.

Babies start communicating within two to three weeks and also start realizing what they need. Cooing is good, it’s the sign that they are trying to communicate and within weeks they will start laughing out loud i.e., by three and half months, squealing when they are four and half months. Once they start performing these actions, possibly they will start making use of few consonants having a broader vocalization. Some babies start making consonant sounds while they are 3 months, some start by 5 to 6 months but the average is 4 months. The babies do not start using all the consonants at once, its only two or three they start experimenting with. They keep experimenting with those two consonants over and over again like ba, ga, da and the next week you might see them using different consonants having forgotten the earlier ones. In real terms they have not forgotten but they have lesser capacity to concentrate and so limited power. They are better able to do one thing at a time, the two syllable sounds like a-ga, a-ba, a-da comes with a string of consonants like ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba termed as babbles at six months and start producing double consonants like da-da, ba-ba, ma-ma when they are eight months. Fathers would be more than happy as da-da comes before ma-ma. The mastery of all the consonants will only come to them until they are four to five years old and in some cases even later.

Comparison to older siblings

Some parents worry that their older kids started cooing as early as they were six months old so why not this baby? All babies are born different, so its normal for any baby to start cooing early or later. Some babies start cooing by the end of first month itself while others might not start even if they complete three months. The babies who start verbalizing early develop good language skills as per the research and those who lag far behind may have some kind of developmental or physical problem.

At any given point of time, if you feel that your strong efforts are not yielding any results even after six months of encouraging your baby to start cooing, then you should talk to doctor. The doctor may suggest you a hearing evaluation test to check on the development of the baby.

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