Infant Behaviors Growth and Development

People often do not realize how significant these early stages of infant behaviors, growth and development from the moment of birth are. A child is described as an infant in the period between its birth and its first year. It is important for you, as a parent, to understand the stages of physical changes and learning, so that you can help your child to naturally progress in their growth.

The Child’s Mind

It is a well known fact that a baby will instinctively have a desire to learn. Its brain is fairly underdeveloped at first, following only its essential desires which are primarily body functions, to eat and to sleep. As soon as the day after birth, the brain starts to pick up on stimuli and uses this to nurture the child’s mental abilities, by naturally taking everything in and processing it. Complex network patterns form as the child’s mind processes all the information, and they learn the vital skills of gaining control of their bodies. This is not only their physical attributes, such as movement, but also thoughts and cognitive processes as well. It is as soon as from the age of two weeks that these infant behaviors have developed to the point where babies are able to express their thoughts through the ability to smile and laugh.

Stimulation

Immediately from the moment of birth, your baby will have the ability to take in stimulation from their surrounding environment. They will be able to see objects through the ability to focus on them. At two months they will be able to distinguish shapes and different sounds and be able to recognize their parents by your voice and appearance. Smells, sounds, different visual stimuli and especially touch all help to further different aspects of infant growth and development. It is the period between three and eight months where they learn to get control over their body and the ability to move and play. One of the big steps in the first year is learning that just because something can no longer be seen or heard, it does not mean that it is not still there.

Parental Assistance

As a parent, you can really help infant behaviors progress in a natural way. You can make sure your child is properly stimulated to allow it to grow mentally and physically. Talking and singing is a good way to get the child used to sounds. Allow interesting and safe objects to always be in reach, as this allows them to fully process the objects through touch. At six months you can read picture books to them and they will be able to associate images with different sounds. In the first year the baby will be able to learn meanings of basic words and will also mentally grow to a level where they will understand and be able to express the difference between ‘yes and ‘no’.

An important stage

Infant behaviors will change dramatically over the first year. Their brain will double in size and through infant growth and development they will create a basic understanding of their world and develop physical control over their body. They will also be able to associate and understand the bond with you as their parent. In a nutshell, that is why knowing infant behavior is necessary.