The curious evolution of the baby’s smile

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When do we start to smile? What changes occur in the smile during our first months of life? In this article we tell you!

Written and verified by the psychologist Elena Sanz.

There are few moments as pleasant for parents as those in which they see their baby smile. A child’s first smile provokes joy and excitement; With it, they have the feeling that they have made a little more progress in communicating with the baby. Now, is it really like that? Let’s see it taking a little trip through the curious evolution of the smile of the little ones.

Smiling is a central communicative act in human beings. It helps us to generate closeness with others, to show good disposition and to express pleasure and well-being. Therefore, it is not surprising that this innate habit is one of the first we develop; long before language and independently of our cultural environment. If you want to know more about the baby’s smile and its evolution over time, we invite you to continue reading.

The smile reflects

It is possible that if you have a newborn baby you have seen him make a small grimace similar to a smile at some point. You may even have “caught” him smiling during the last ultrasounds. And it has been observed that fetuses in the womb smile since the 23rd week of pregnancy.

Traditionally, These types of smiles are not considered conscious or intentional gestures, but rather a reflection. It is understood that they have no communicative intention and that they constitute only an automatism. However, this is not entirely clear.

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It is possible that it is also an emotional expression that arises due to a state of well-being. And some research has seen that the smallest babies smile in response to caresses, or to certain aromas and flavors. Furthermore, it has been seen that during wakefulness smiles are more numerous and morphologically different from those that occur during sleep. Something that suggests that facial expression could have a social meaning.

One thing that is clear is that By 4-5 weeks we can already consider the baby’s smile as real.. Already at this moment the gesture is produced in response to a stimulus from the environment, generally contact and interaction with another human being. Thus, if the mother, father or another person approaches the child, looks at him and smiles at him, he will respond to this approach. Although he can also smile at voices or sounds that are familiar or pleasant to him.

An interesting fact in this regard is that this reaction will become increasingly more selective.. At first, the baby can give her smile to anyone, but as he grows he will learn to distinguish between strangers and acquaintances, and will only give it to those he likes the most. Something that can start to happen around five months.

On the other hand, your ability to communicate through smiling will also increase. It is common for the baby’s first laughs to occur between four and six months.. Loud laughter that can be motivated by games, songs or sufficiently striking external stimuli. You can even accompany your facial expression with a movement of your feet and hands.

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How to differentiate the baby’s smile?

The truth is that there are individual differences when it comes to the evolution of the baby’s smile; There is no exact moment in which everyone switches from reflexive to social smiling. So how can we distinguish if it is a true communicative action? We will know this mainly from the context.

When we are faced with a social smile, we will see that the baby establishes eye contact and his smile lasts longer. He will observe his interlocutor with interest and attention, waiting for a response from him. May also smile in response to an adult-initiated interaction. In short, we will see that there is an intention to transmit.

This will be especially clear in the case of the anticipatory smile. This arises when the little one wants to draw attention to an object or share with you how much he likes it or how much it surprises him. To do this, he will look at the object smiling, then look at you and return to the object.

The importance of responding to the baby’s smile

The fact that the smile is innate is not coincidental; in fact, It is an important survival mechanism. Thanks to it, the baby can capture the attention of others and begin to bond socially and emotionally with them. It is a kind of attraction that allows you to have adults close, just as crying can be, only in this case it tries to communicate joy, well-being and satisfaction.

For this, It is essential that the other party contributes to that interaction that the child has started. In other words, it is very important for the mother, father or caregiver to respond to the child’s smiles.

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In a famous experiment called The Still Face (the still face) several mothers were asked not to interact with their one-year-old babies, not to respond to their smiles or communicative gestures. After a few moments, the babies tried by all means to regain interaction with their mothers and, when they failed, most of them began to cry. In short, babies are social beings and smiling is one of the great means they have to communicate. This is why it is necessary to pay attention to its evolution and know how to respond to it in a sensitive and appropriate way.