Every smile on your little one’s face is a moment of joy for you. You can capture these moments by clicking a cute smiling baby picture. Your baby’s first smile may be a reflex (1), but as they grow, babies start understanding happiness and warmth and communicate these emotions through their angelic smiles and laughter. The first gummy smile showing a tooth or two can melt away all your worries instantaneously. As your baby learns to respond to your presence or actions, smiles become their way of communicating their pleasure and help you feel a strong connection with them. Check out some cute smiling baby images here and read on to understand how babies develop their adorable smiles.
75 Cute Smiling Baby Pictures
Check out 75 cute smiling baby images here that will surely make you smile.
How Do Smiles Develop in Babies?
For the initial weeks after the baby is born, you cannot even expect a meaningful eye contact, the baby only will have a laugh or smile. A smile at this age is only mechanical and does not have any expression of joy. After about a month, you can expect your child to start identifying you and have an eye contact with you, which is a pleasing moment all in itself. After five weeks of age, you can identify with your baby’s first smile as a response to you playing with him/her or smiling at him/her or in a reply to another human (1), to a sound or to some motions and signs.
Socialization:
The child first starts to mingle with you. You will be the first companion for your child, and he/she enjoys the sound of your voice, the view of your face and the feeling of your hands. With your help, your baby will become known to others and begins to take the pleasure in others company too. This marks the starting point of the many developments of your child’s social skills.
Reflexive Smile:
You will spot your newborn baby’s first smile when he/she is asleep. At this stage of 6 weeks, it’s probably just a natural response. Generally, a baby’s body goes through changes in the part of the body that activate automatically and one of those is a smile. Almost the reflexive smile occurs early in the newborn baby. After the birth your baby develops some muscle movements during the first few weeks, along with the muscles in the face and reflexive smiling is part of that muscle. You can observe this smile while your child is sleeping.
Responsive Smile:
As the baby starts to grow, the baby starts to smile at the thing she finds pleasing like voices, faces and the close touch. The baby’s smile to a reaction is sensible experience, not a social response. The baby doesn’t have a clear feeling about who are you. Till now you must have noticed what noises and language the baby would respond. Give your baby plenty of space to study your face while you talk softly to her. Try to connect with her through expressions and she may start to open up to you slowly. The responsive smile would be during 6 to 8 week period of the new born baby.
Social Smile:
During the 2 to 3 months stage, your baby’s smile starts responding to the internal things that catch the baby’s attention. At this stage, the baby wants to connect with others. Your baby will smile when he/she sees you and will respond when you make silly sounds like oinking, beeping and mooing. Your baby also will learn that he/she can get a response from you with just a smile. The baby will express himself by giggling, squeaking and humming funnily. Your baby starts responding to your by moving his arms and legs for attention. You cannot expect your baby to smile when you want the baby to smile. Your child learns to identify your face and smile when you feed him, give him hugs and change his diapers. You would understand by his smile that how he likes to be held, treated and comforted. In between the 2 to 3 months the baby starts developing the social smile.
Undiscriminating Smile:
When your baby becomes 6 months old the baby starts an undiscriminating smile. The 6 months old baby starts smiling at you no matter what you do. Your baby at this stage may smile at anyone who responds to her/him. The cute baby smile has become more meaningful now. The smile can be because you were far away from him for a long period and your back or the child has done something. The smile can be because the child starts developing memory. The child spends long time staring closely the nearby strangers and may take time to respond and on few circumstances the response may change to smile or cry.
Selective Smile:
After 9 months there would be development of understanding. Selective smile starts during this period. Your baby starts to know that you are special to him/her and starts differentiating you from other people. At this age the child “Strange anxiety” plays the role. Your baby stops smiling at the strangers. It would be a bit disappointing that your baby did not respond to strangers, but differentiating faces is really a good sign of healthy development of the baby. Your baby’s feeling towards object stability is stronger. The baby has the ability to know something is there even when they can’t see it. You can cheer up the baby to smile by playing “peek- a- boo” game. It is a game where eyes are hidden from view with objects. It is the final laugh getter at the stage of 9 months.
Sense of Humor
Now the baby develops the sense of humor. Babies at this age laugh and laugh if you make silly noises. When your baby thinks of something playful, the baby wants to get the response from you too, so laugh along with the baby. Make a funny face by dropping something on the floor. Your baby may find it exciting. Surprises are a big essential element in making babies laugh at 12 months.
What Makes Babies Smile?
Your baby loves looking at you and you love looking at the baby. Jump up and down and make a simple sound, it makes the baby laugh. Play peek-a-boo with the baby. Lean closer to your baby and kiss on her nose. Hold a colorful object which is soft just in the front of your baby, let the baby reach for it, then hand it over, makes the baby laugh. Tickle a feather on the toes of the baby. You need to find out what makes the baby funny. Do the same the baby would enjoy. You can try blowing air though your mouth on your baby’s tiny belly, hands and feet to see if your baby smiles and laughs. You can also pretend to eat the tiny fingers and toes of your baby- this often makes most babies laugh. Blow bubbles before your baby- it undoubtedly makes the baby smile. Your child may love to play with his/her sibling, and you may see the smile come up on his face. Make some silly movements, even something as common movements can put a smile on the baby’s face. Playing with her favorite toy also make a baby smile. If your baby love to smile and act by a dance or game or song try and repeat it over and over. Some babies love to play with a pet and enjoy. Gentle touch will usually prompt a smile on your baby’s face. Even touch is very important in that process to let the baby know that you are there, safe and familiar.
Baby’s Early Laughs
From birth, the baby express needs that demand immediate satisfaction, especially for sleep, milk or for other matters. But it’s frequently not until that first smile, when they are between 1 and 2 months old, that we become aware of they want to social interaction. Their smiles let us know that they are enjoying and happy. After some months the smiling takes on a hearing measure and turns into laughter. Respond to your child’s attempts of silliness and be willing to do silly things again and again. The baby’s first laugh is usually constrained for parents who first made him smile. The baby enjoys the funny noises and natural feeling only when the baby feels that he is secure, then only the relationship with others doing the funny stuff matters. After some time the baby’s giggle is basically natural and feels delightful, tickling his feet, picking him up and flying him gently through the room, blowing on his belly. At about 4 months, the baby begins to laugh at the things he can see and hear. He gets the pleasure from non-sense of humor, such as faces with wacky sounds, wide open mouths and big eyes. If your baby is laughing means he is enjoying. He will get the sense of humor when the baby is 6 months old.
Laugh Track
Humor takes an ample of variations in forms like visual jokes, play, using the element of surprise. Generally, babies really still learning how the world feels, looks, sounds in common circumstance, and so they do not get a joke when something out of hit.
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