pulling in our interest to look longer. Interestingly, nature has helped us get to get to know the faces of our primary carers – usually our mothers, really well because in the first three months of life, the visual system has a period of ‘sticky fixation’. This means that it is quite hard for us, as babies, to move our eyes to look at something at the ‘edge’ of our vision. Consequently, we spend a long time just looking. This means that there is lots of time for mutual gazing, opportunities for being talked to and learning about mouth movements and linking them with sounds. This last point also brings in the patterns of speech that adults use when talking to babies – ‘motherese’ (or Infant Directed Speech). The musicality of this kind of speech is also very attractive and ‘pulls in’ a baby’s attention even more. Of course, during this time, babies are presented with a wide range of objects such as soft toys and mobiles, but the first focus for their profound attention is the face of their carer(s).
If we think back to the previous article on the brain, we will remember that experience helps those cells in the brain (neurons) ‘talk’ to each other and so gradually the experiences that the baby has become ‘wired up’. An example is how a baby can begin to be soothed or more energised (depending on the baby!) by the sounds of a bottle being prepared or greet the appearance of their parent with a huge smile.

Every day, a baby’s body is explored both by the parents and the baby themselves as they gaze at their hands, suck their fingers and later on their toes. A baby’s knowledge and understanding – awareness of themselves and their environment is enabled in the first place by information from their senses. The smell, taste, sound and look of their Mum and Dad, any siblings and other carers, (plus any pets!) plus the taste and feel of their own bodies as they mouth and suck or are massaged, stroked, cuddled, wiped down, bathed etc all pull together to help the beginnings of recognition and familiarity. The road to awareness is through the senses – which is why, of course, that learning through experience, e.g. play is so important. In addition, as said in the introductory paragraph, all this sensory information will be coloured by the emotional atmosphere in which all these experiences take place. Gradually all these experiences merge into coherent ‘shapes’ so that the baby has a growing awareness of the links between their sensory (including movement) information, emotional reactions and their personal and physical environment.