Your baby's growth
Your baby's development
During your baby's first year, they will learn more than at any other time in their lives. Watching your child learn and interact with you is a truly remarkable experience. At times they will move you to catch your breath, unwittingly smile at their expressions, draw unlimited admiration for their achievements and bring forth a trickle of happy tears! As one grandmother said....
"Babies are 'time consuming'....you can sit and stare at your baby all day....their gorgeous expressions and movements are just mesmerising."
Your baby is born with many innate genetic characteristics (passed onto them by you and the many generations before you). They are also an 'open book', waiting to learn about their new environment and about you. They have natural abilities to communicate by crying, looking, listening and moving. They can grasp a finger placed into their hand, wriggle around and suckle to sustain their life. As their body becomes stronger, they learn how to hold up their own head, sit, talk, crawl, and eventually walk.
Many of the things babies learn are instinctual, given to them as a member of the human race through nature (as a baby deer instinctively knows run within minutes of being born). However, other learning is taught to our children through their environment (especially by their parents and those around them). How much of your child's learning can be attributed to your involvement and how much is nature's doing is still unclear. An issue that perpetuates the evolving 'nature vs. nuture' argument. Although, we do know that babies learn much quicker and more readily, if they are frequently loved, cuddled and interacted with.