Get your baby laughing
Sociable, optimistic, healthier and more self-confident... If you want your baby to grow into a happy person, work your own sense of humour and get him laughing as often as possible!
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Popular legend has it that one should laugh at least 30 times a day to ensure good health. Several studies suggest that young infants laugh an average 200 times a day, some of them up to 300 times daily, while adults have been found to laugh a little under 15 times a day!
If you find it difficult to smile at life, then perhaps you should know about the health benefits of smiling. Studies have found that laughing eliminates tension, serves as a form of catharsis1,2 in that it helps blot out painful memories you may have unconsciously repressed) and accelerates the production of immune cells3.
Laughter is contagious
If laughing is so good for you, it’s because bursting out laughing (peals of laughter) stimulates blood circulation and increases oxygenation of all body organs, including the brain. Laughing also brings many muscles into action while raising the production of well-being enhancing hormones called endorphins.
Laughing is also a great disease prevention therapy: by accelerating the production of certain immune cells, it improves the body’s ability to fight off virus and bacteria.
Making your baby laugh is doubtless the most gratifying parental task: whoever hasn’t eagerly looked on his or her baby and felt a surge of happiness upon seeing their child’s first smile?
Your baby: from smiling to laughing out loud
After 2 or 3 weeks comes the anxiously awaited day when parents see a faint smile play on their babies’ lips. These automatic mouth movements are common during sleep and upon waking. Your child doesn’t smile as a response to external stimulation but as part of innate movements naturally associated with pleasure or satisfaction.
At the end of the first month, you’ll see that your child now smiles in response to more direct stimulations, such as caresses, gentle talk and so on.
Between the 5th and 8th week, your baby’s smiles are mainly caused by movements coming from a source of light, a human face or bright objects with highly contrasted colours.
Your baby has now reached its active smiling phase and is just about to enter into the world of “social smiling”.
Toward the 10th week, your baby undergoes a major change associated with the development of his perception and comprehension abilities. He becomes increasingly sensitive to his environment, which brings broader, more frequent and obvious smiles to his face. From now on, he visibly responds to familiar faces. Your baby’s smiles are a means of communication and a way for him to establish contact with the people and objects he likes.
Around 6 months, throat sounds add to the smiles, then real peals of laughter when you tickle your baby’s tummy, hold him up at arm’s length or pull funny faces. Just a few weeks ago, such
Copyright © 2010 Doctissimo
Posted 04.10.2010
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