#112 Transcript-3 Amazing Things About Newborns That Nobody Knows

I remember years ago when I was an adjunct professor at a local college, we received into our home a very, very tiny foster baby. He was actually one of a set of twins, and we only had him for a couple of weeks because they were able to find a home that could accommodate both babies. But anyway, he was just a few weeks old. His name was Desmond, and I was teaching and had this one class I had to teach. It only lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, and Desmond was too little for child care. I needed to give him my full attention, but I didn’t have a sub for my class. So I asked my supervisor, “Can I bring him with me while I teach the class? I’ll just have him in his carrier right beside me, up at the front of the class.” He would pretty much sleep through it, and it was perfectly appropriate because I was teaching a class on child growth and development.

So, I took him in that day, and my boss, who was kind of a loud and boisterous person, held Desmond for a moment. She took him into her arms, sat down in her chair in her office, and just—this quiet came over her, and she said, “He’s just so tiny.” There’s something that happens when you hold a newborn. Somehow it just quiets your spirit and fills you with wonder as you look at those tiny little fingers and fingernails that have wrapped themselves around your finger.

Of all the early childhood education courses I’ve taught over the years, I think prenatal and infant development is my favorite because I never get tired of learning more about babies. So today, I’m going to tell you three amazing things that the general public doesn’t really know about newborns.

The first one is that your baby is born instinctively equipped to make you love them and take care of them. But how is that? How do they do that? How does this tiny little thing control you like that? Well, first of all, it’s the way they smell. We all know about this newborn baby smell, but what is that smell? It’s actually thought to be a mix of amniotic fluid, vernix caseosa, and sweat glands. Vernix is the waxy substance that covers a newborn inside the womb. Sometimes it’s cleaned off when a baby is born, and other times you can see it clearly. I guess it’s the first glimpse of your baby’s unique personal smell, which we all have. But what is it about that smell that makes us want to love them and take care of them?

Well, first of all, this newborn smell triggers emotional responses in us, enhancing feelings of love and protection. It’s really kind of believed to be part of the plan between a newborn baby and their parents to strengthen the bond between them and ensure that the baby gets what they need to survive and thrive. This smell stimulates the release of oxytocin, often referred to as the love hormone or the bonding hormone, in the brain of the parent or primary caregiver. Oxytocin plays a critical role in social bonding, promoting nurturing behavior, and enhancing the emotional connection between you and your baby.

Another thing that this smell does is provoke a sense of protectiveness. This protective instinct is what we all have—if you were walking down the street and saw a newborn baby, you would immediately go over and make sure that baby was okay, because that’s just what we do; we protect babies. But this smell helps ensure that the baby gets all their needs met, from feeding to comfort and safety. Another thing that this smell does is enable you to recognize your baby. Alongside the way that your baby looks and the way they sound, their smell will help you identify your child. In most circumstances, this isn’t necessarily something we need to do, but in a situation like a hospital nursery where there are many newborns, research has shown that parents are able to pick their baby out just from smelling a t-shirt or onesie that’s been on them. There’s some really interesting research about that, so I’d encourage you to Google it.

Finally, this smell helps with emotional regulation for parents. It helps new parents manage their stress and anxiety, especially in those first days when it can be so overwhelming as you’re recovering from labor and delivery, getting used to being a parent, and not getting much rest. So, the newborn smell is one way they get us to love them.

The second one is the way they gaze at your face. A newborn’s gaze is a powerful tool in bonding and connecting with your baby. When your newborn locks eyes with you, it is not random. It is an intentional act—not that the baby is doing it on purpose, but they are born with the ability to catch your eyes and make sure you are looking back at them. This has lots of great benefits. One is that it facilitates bonding and attachment. When we fall in love with someone, we love to stare at them, and that’s what happens with new babies—we stare at them, they stare at us, and it begins the process of attachment and bonding that is so crucial for their social-emotional development for the rest of their lives.

In the first year, this is a critical window for attachment and trust, and this gazing back and forth fosters this bond. Another thing that this gaze does is encourage social interactions. Oftentimes babies will begin to make little faces, and we respond, delighted by their different expressions. The way we respond is part of this social interaction taking place. It doesn’t feel like much is happening because the baby is so drowsy and sleepy all the time, but they are taking it in.

Another thing that gazing does is support your baby’s cognitive development. When they are looking around, they are taking in their environment, looking at your face, and beginning to develop some visual and cognitive skills. Over time, it doesn’t take long, they will begin to recognize familiar faces, which is an important milestone in their cognitive and social development. Gazing can also promote emotional regulation. If your little baby is crying and upset, and you hold them tight and look them in the eye, this gazing will begin to help soothe them, and it will also help soothe you because you don’t like the sound of that cry either. Also, gazing is the foundation for language learning. When your baby looks at you, they will begin to connect facial expressions and the movements of your lips with the sounds your mouth is making and, eventually, the words you are saying. This visual connection is one of the very early building blocks for learning language and how to speak.

This gaze is much more than just looking at your face. It is actually a very important part of their cognitive, social, and emotional development. The attachment and bonding that need to happen in the first year begin at birth, or even before birth, because you become very attached to this little baby inside of you as they grow during pregnancy. But guess what? Of course, you have to be responsive; you have to take care of your newborn’s needs. But they’re pretty good at communicating to you how to give them what they need—through the way they smell, the way they gaze at you, and, of course, through their crying and body movements. You will be able to understand what they’re communicating from day one. So, that’s one of the first amazing things your baby knows how to do.

The second amazing thing that nobody tells you about newborns is that they are fully equipped to learn and respond to language at birth, even though they’re not going to probably say their first word until about 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 months later. This one is really amazing, and so much research has been done on the acquisition of language. First off, you know this already, I’m sure, because it’s common knowledge, but a newborn is able to distinguish their mother’s voice, or their father’s voice, or whoever it is in the family that’s been talking to that belly. They will be able to recognize or distinguish those voices over other voices very early on, but especially the mother’s voice because that’s the voice they hear all the time. Everything that you say, your newborn baby is hearing it, so they are very, very familiar with your voice, the nuances of it, and that’s the one they are going to need the most.

I remember many years ago, I was visiting some friends who had just had a baby. It was their very first baby. And this was back in the day when people stayed a couple of days in the hospital after having a baby. I had gone to visit and wanted to see how they were doing and see the baby. When I got there, we visited a bit, and then they asked if I wanted to hold her. And of course, I said yes. So I took her from her mom, sat down on a chair in the hospital room, and this little baby, who was so content before, just started crying—really crying. I tried to soothe her, but she didn’t want me. I said, “I think she needs to hear you. I think she wants you.” So I handed the baby back to her mom, and she just began to talk a little bit, and that baby immediately stopped crying. They were both amazed because they didn’t really understand this yet. The dad was sitting there and said, “How did that happen? What, what happened?” But that’s what happened—this baby was already attached to and familiar with her mother’s voice, and that’s what gave her comfort and peace, even in those first few days after she was born.

So newborn babies don’t understand specific words the way older kids do, but they’re remarkably attuned to the sounds and patterns of language. So, here’s what we know about newborns and language. One is that they can distinguish between different sounds from a very, very early age. This means that even the difference between the word “bat” and the word “pat,” they would be able to distinguish the first sound of each word. This ability is foundational for language learning. I saw this remarkable research study once where they did this with babies who were just hours old. In infant research, they put this cap on a baby’s head with all these sensors to follow their brain activity, and then they put a pacifier in the baby’s mouth that was sensitized to measure sucking, which is one of the biggest indicators of brain work. They gave them words, and they gave them the words muffled as if they were still in the womb. They gave them words that were action words like verbs and nouns, and then they gave them words that were not important words in a sentence, like “the,” “and,” “them,” and those kinds of words. The babies would respond to the nouns and action words more than they would to the other words, which tells us that they are attuned to even the parts of speech in the very, very first hours of their life.

Another thing that’s really interesting about newborns and language is that they can differentiate between their native language and a foreign language very early on. They’ve been hearing the native language the whole time they’ve been in the womb, and they show a preference for their mother’s language, most likely because they’ve been exposed to the rhythm and sounds of that language in the womb. Even if they’re born into a home where more than one language is spoken, they’ll respond more to the mother’s language because that’s the one they are most familiar with.

Newborns are very sensitive to the rhythm, stress, and intonation patterns of our speech. They can detect in your tone of voice whether it’s soothing, excited, or angry. They will respond to an angry voice by becoming distressed because they don’t like it, but they will respond to a soothing, calm voice in a way that calms them down. This response to the emotional context of our communication, even though they don’t really know the actual words, is really interesting to me.

Another thing newborns can do is recognize repeated words. These are the words that they will begin to understand first and maybe even begin to say first. So from day one, when you talk about what you’re doing as you feed your baby—and you’re going to be feeding your baby all the time because they’re going to eat about every two hours in these first few weeks—just talk about the milk, how you’re getting the milk ready, getting the bottle ready, or getting ready to nurse them. If you consistently say these words, then a little bit later, when they might have to wait a minute for that bottle, and you use those same words, they’ll associate it with feeding. They’ll understand that you’re talking about the fact that you’re getting ready to feed them, and it’ll give them the ability to wait maybe 30 seconds or a minute to get that bottle or whatever. Anyway, it just helps them know what’s coming, and that’s a really important part of cognitive development.

Another really interesting thing about newborns and language acquisition is that they are born with the ability in their little brain to learn any language that is spoken in the whole world. I’ve seen some really interesting research studies on this, but as they don’t need certain sounds that they hear, then those parts of the brain are sloughed off. That’s why, a little bit later on in life, it’s so much harder to learn a language, especially one that’s very different from your native language. This ability to learn any language is open in the first, I think they say, six to eight months of life, and then it begins to decline. By the time you’re five, it becomes much more intensive to learn a different language. Not that all of us can’t learn languages—I’m not saying that at all—but that is how that part of the brain works. It’s set wide open to learn language, the native tongue, and then it begins to really hone in so the baby can begin to learn that language. I think that’s a really interesting thing about the way babies grow in the very first year.

One more amazing thing that nobody tells you about newborns is that they can imitate you. We’re all familiar with older babies or toddlers who imitate because that’s what they begin to do. They’ll imitate the way that you talk on the phone; they’ll imitate the way that you walk. They’ll pick up a baby doll and say the same words to this baby doll that they have been hearing their whole lives. It’s one of the most fun things to watch develop as your child grows. And it can also kind of backfire on you when they imitate behaviors that maybe they shouldn’t be imitating, things they’ve seen you do or words you’ve said.

But anyway, within the first few days of life, newborns can mimic facial expressions. If you stick your tongue out or open your mouth real wide, there’s a good chance that your newborn will begin to imitate you. So just give it a try—it’s really interesting. Another aspect of this imitation is that newborn babies will move their bodies in rhythm and sync with your language. I’ve seen this really interesting research study where a mom and a pretty young baby were in a lab. The baby was laid down on a bed, but their arms and legs were free to move. The mom gets down in the baby’s face, they engage visually, and the mom begins to speak. What we see is that the baby’s movements mirror or synchronize with the rhythm and patterns of the mom’s speech. When they slow down the footage way, way down, you can see that the speech and the baby’s movements almost become like a dance. Of course, in this study, they would have the parents speak very slowly, then speak quickly, and then slow it down again so they could really observe this synchronicity. What this shows is that your baby is not only attuned to your face but also to the nuances of your speech. This begins to help form this deep emotional bond.

Another way that babies imitate us is through smiles. I know you’ve seen pictures of newborn babies smiling—those are the best babies to catch. Usually, it happens in a drowsy state or maybe even like a dream smile. In these very first smiles, their developing nervous system is at work, and it’s not anything they’re intentionally doing. But it’s delightful for us as the adults who get to see it. As they grow, these reflexive smiles will eventually turn into very intentional social smiles as their smart little brain begins to put it together that when they make their face do this, it lights up the people around them, and they begin to repeat that behavior. They’ll smile, you smile, and it begins this back-and-forth communication. What we call it in child development is “serve and return,” when one person throws something out, the other person responds, and it just begins this back-and-forth communication. This reflexive smile starts as a reflex but eventually works almost like an imitation behavior.

So, those are the three amazing things:

1. Your baby is born equipped and ready to make you love them.
2. They are born ready to go with language learning, even though they won’t begin to speak until they’re about a year old.
3. They can imitate you, and this imitation is very much a part of the attachment and bonding process.

As promised, I want to tell you four myths about newborns that are floating around out there that we need to debunk before we conclude this episode.

The first one is that holding a newborn too much will spoil them. Sometimes we worry that if we hold a baby too much, we’re spoiling them or making them too clingy. However, what happens when you hold your baby is that they can feel your body, feel your heartbeat, and it’s very comforting to them. It makes them feel safe, regulates their temperature, and promotes bonding with parents. Responding to their needs promptly, which means picking them up when they cry, fosters healthy development.

The second myth about newborns is that they’re going to sleep through the night anytime soon. They do sleep a lot—newborn babies will sleep anywhere from 18 to 20 to 22 hours a day. They are not awake very much in those first few days or first few weeks, but they’re going to wake up a lot because their stomach is about the size of their fist, and you see how tiny that little fist is. They need a lot of calories in order to grow and develop. Their brain especially needs plenty of calories, and so they have to wake up frequently so that they can eat and get the calories they need. All the while, they’re also learning how to eat, learning this whole process of sucking so that they can get the nourishment they need. Before they were born, they didn’t have to do all that work, so that’s why they wake up often. And that’s why you need to bust that myth that they’re going to sleep through the night until they’re a little bit older.

The third myth is that newborns need to be on a strict schedule. There are different schools of thought on this, but for newborns, particularly in the first three months of life, they will let you know what they need. Their rhythms, their hunger, and their sleep needs are going to change tremendously in the first four months. So for us to say, “Okay, this is our schedule, we’re going to stick with this schedule,” is a little futile because their body is going to determine what the schedule is. It’s best if we can just let go of that and follow their rhythms, and a routine will just naturally develop. That’s how human beings are. We will eventually settle into an eating and sleeping routine that works. They will eventually get their days and nights right side up, and in the early days, it’s really important for us to remain very flexible.

The fourth myth is that newborns need to get a bath every day. I totally understand this one because you’re changing diapers all day, seeing what’s going on, and you think, “Oh gosh, I’ve got to give this baby a bath.” But really, a newborn’s skin is very sensitive, and if we give them too many baths, it can strip them of their natural oils, which leads to dry skin. Instead, a few baths a week with just regular cleaning is quite sufficient and really all your newborn needs. I have a free little mini-course on how to give your newborn a bath and how to give your newborn a top and tail, which is where you just clean their neck, chin, mouth, and head, and also their diaper area. I’m going to put a link for that little resource in the show notes so you can take a look at it.

So that’s it for today. Thank you so much for joining me, and I hope you’ll check out nurturednoggins.com where you can find lots, lots more about that beautiful baby of yours.