BABY SENSE

Ninety percent of our sensory connection to the world is through our eyes and ears. The eyes and ears are used for building the foundations of language, connection to one another, and making sense of the world. Your baby is in a peak period of firing and wiring for vision and hearing for the next couple months – so it’s all about variety and repetition.

ENGAGING THE EARS

Sounds from Dad aren’t just another form of communication – they create feelings of physical connection in the brain from afar! When you can’t be there – be it due to travel, or just across the room, your voice and sounds can create comfort.

Throwing it back to FD01 and FD02 – time to progress, from simply talking, to drawing attention to the sounds of the world. But when it comes to exploring sound with a baby, try to do it in a focused manner – turn down the background noise and focus on the interaction – babies learn better this way. Here are some ways to stimulate the ears:

When reading aloud, talking, warming a bottle, or narrating life – add in a beat box, sound effect, sing song, or funny voice. Explore the range of your own voice and speech patterns to mix it up.

Connect sounds to visual stimulation. Using the high contrast cards from FD04, or other objects – add in motion and sounds like a zoom or pop sound or airplane swoosh or hum.

Explore sound everywhere – rattles, bells, shakers, dangling keys, clanking kitchen items (wood vs metal), paper ripping/crinkling, the blender, dishwater, running water, toilets flushing, door bells, birds chirping… there is no shortage of things to listen for with intention and excitement. Just be aware that if the sound is loud or annoying to you, it might be the same for the baby.

Connect sounds to words through actions. “Listen (point to ear)… pause… do you hear that (pointing to ears). That’s a…” dog barking, firetruck siren, motorcycle sound, airplane, etc. “We hear things with our ears” (pointing to ears). This also helps connect vision to objects with sound.

Theme it out – “Seeing Saturday” or “Sound Sunday”. Use the theme concept to guide your own “Dad Lab” experiments to explore what your child enjoys.

ENGAGING THE EYES

Over the next couple weeks, your babies eyes will develop to see about 3 feet away, but still with a flatter 2D understanding of the world. More colors can start to be seen, such as red, orange, yellow, green but still with a preference for high contrast. Quick overview here [PDF].

FD04 covered the importance of and the role of the eyes in development. Building on that, try adding these in:

Eye Contact Galore – and your baby loves your face. When they make eye contact with you, try to hold that eye contact as long as they can or you can (if you find eye contact challenging, this is a great time to work through that – your child thinks you are perfect, no judgement there).

Remember to switch it up visually for them from time to time. For bottle-feeding Dads, alternate the arm in which you cradle your baby so that they learn to use both eyes to make eye contact. Switch up head and toe direction on the changing table, crib, play mat, etc. Swap out things they see during the tummy time, back time, side time, rocker time. Incorporate a mirror so they can see a changing image as they move. Note: they won’t “recognize” themselves until around 15months old – more on that later.

You can also use light to attract their attention. A lightly glowing ball or a lit object moving around provides something very interesting to look at. Try red, orange, yellow, and/or green lights if possible. And if it’s uncomfortable for you to look at (brightness), take that as a cue for what to expose your baby to.

For the crafty or tinkerer types – build your own mobile or “baby gym” and dangle streamers, neck ties, ribbons or balloons above your baby as they lay on their back, or in front of them for tummy time. Make sure these things are out of their reach unless supervised. This can be as simple as dangling things from a hangar to making a wooden structure like this or this, or buying one.

These are nice because they are more modular, can be used for a lot of other things, and can be used for longer – especially if you have a smaller space. Expensive singular use toys are not needed to form meaningful connections and help babies develop.

FD05 covered the concept of “windows for motor development”. Essentially that large (gross) muscles and small (fine) muscles have “windows of opportunity” for foundational development from birth to age 5 and just after birth to age 9, respectively.

Windows of opportunity, or sensitive periods (a way better term), exist for many aspects of human development. The chart below is from the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child and shows general timing, in year one specifically, of some peak opportunities for brain development. In these sensitive periods, the brain is wiring at a rapid pace and building new circuits – often specific kinds of circuits.

Right now your baby is in a Sensory Pathways window, and will soon be in a Language window. This information is useful because it gives guidance to when a brain might be sufficiently “wired” to support learning the next thing (humans develop from head to toe, near to far, and simple to complex). The type and amount of wiring in the brain also helps guide us to what types of vivid experiences might be more beneficial at any given time – especially if we are pressed for time. That said, while there is a lot of science that addresses what happens when kids lack rich early life experiences, there is less science that explores the other end – if excessive enrichment leads to enhanced brain development vs a more balanced approach. It’s possible there could be a point of diminishing returns, so being attentive, nurturing, and invested as a Dad is a solid foundation to build from.

Eye contact is one of the key ways we communicate non-verbally and is now thought to be an early predictor of aspects of language skills.

In recent years, the ability to look inside the brain for answers has propelled scientific understanding of human development. It turns out that good face to face communication isn’t just about wordplay, it’s also about mirroring each other’s brain waves, and the eyes play a large role in this.

In 2017, a study from the University of Cambridge looked at how the brain waves of parent and child change during communication (back and forth listening, talking, and non-verbal “serve and return”). The key finding was that brain waves in babies seem to synchronize with a parents brain waves as eye contact is made and then as communication begins and progresses. As eye contact was made, and brain waves aligned, the baby made more effort to try to “communicate” and also made more vocalizations than if eye contact was not present. Looking into your kids eyes as you interact with them helps to set foundations for social communication cues.

As for hearing, we start with either being born with normal hearing or with a difficulty in hearing. From there, your hearing stays somewhat stable or your hearing declines later in life due to infection, injury, or age. Either way, hearing at birth is very functional with sensitivity to sound improving rapidly in these first few months alongside the eyes.

Taking a step back, the world can be a rather noisy place. How many sounds do you hear right now? It takes a lot of brain power to filter out the sound of a clap from the sound that makes a word – and this ability develops over time, thought to be from birth through age 10. A study in 2001 found that while babies can hear similarly to the way adults do, their brains haven’t yet figured out what all the sounds mean. The key implication of their research was that when helping a baby intentionally explore the world of sound, it appears to be useful to turn down the background noise and focus on that singular sound.

The overall concept here, with both vision and sound (and movement too), is that it can be useful to have an awareness of what your baby sees and hears and find balance behind what might be too much or too little. We don’t have to be perfect, that’s not the point, just be aware of their experience in the world. That will give you clues as to how you might help them explore in an attentive and supportive way.

This section has tidbits from around the web that are typically on Dads minds.

Baby Eyes Concerns?

For more information on infant vision development, and signs of eye or vision problems, the American Optometric Association (AOA) is a good resource. If you suspect vision problems at any time, trust your gut, please see a professional.

Dad Eyes – How Are Yours?

People blink 66% less while working at a computer. This means your eyes are not staying as lubricated with the oils spread during blinking. Using eyes drops can help, as well as a small desktop humidifier. Doctors recommend following the 20/20/20 approach. For every block of 20 minutes at a computer, take a 20 second break, and look at something more than 20 feet away. Your eyes will thank you.

Genie: A Scientific Tragedy

If you are at all curious about an extreme example of what happens when a child is not stimulated in early life – the book, Genie: A Scientific Tragedy, tells the story of a young woman’s emergence into the world after spending her first 13 years of life in isolation. It’s a hard read that is both shockingly terrible and equally fascinating. A very sad story, but an extreme one that shows the power of rich experiences in the early years of life. [Amazon]