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Baby talk.Babies can see, hear and feel, love and be loved. My Granddaughters in dresses I smocked for them.
My Husband and Jonathan in the pool. Baby TalkEveryone knows during the first six months of life every baby produces randomly every sound in every language on earth. In the past, human babies were underestimated by many people. The pediatric group now understands the capabilities of very young babies. http://www.birthpsychology.com/birthscene/intelligent1.html My. My. The doctors are finally learning what most moms knew anyway. From birth, a normal baby is not blind, insensate or deaf. Perhaps it required fathers in the birthing room. Now we have a better concept of the steps of development including the hazy first 6 months of life. First Words are from within the Child's Small WorldMy grandson said "Dehhie" as his first word which was mom's dog's name. Dessie is a wonderful collie german shepherd who adored Jonathan from the moment he arrived. Jonathan learned to bark and run to the window when the dogs barked. Jonathan's first source of amusement was watching my sheltie Aslana simply being happy wagging her tail. He would laugh and laugh as soon as he saw her. Around age 1, He also made his first joke "Nana" pointing at me "Nana. Nana" pointing at Aslana. He ignored the SSSS, that is because he has fluid in his ears from to time. The joke is that Nana and Nana's dog have the same name. I call my first grandchild Jonathan the great. We love each other. The twins were born In January 2004.I have been blessed to live in the same town as my daughter, and to be able to enjoy her children as much as I enjoyed mine. Having twins was a new experience for me. My children were very close together, but I remember praying every pregnancy "Please, no twins. I am not capable." When my daughter announced she was having twins. I thought she was kidding...then I hoped she was kidding. I worried about all the things that could go wrong. At term, my daughter measured 48 weeks pregnant. The Twins Locate each otherLast year the twins clicked and chucked to each other. The sound they make is different from any babbling my babies made, probably that exact African click. Perhaps it works during the prenatal swim. They weighed 5 lbs 9 oz each, an excellent weight for twins, but they were the smallest babies I have ever picked up. They could keep the sound up for hours, and despite watching them for hours, I never figured out how they added pitch to the tongue movement. There is communication between these twin babies which I have never seen in any other situation of 2 babies together at the exact same age and stage. I am sure they did it before they were born. They wake each other up by punching the sleeping baby. When Erica was in a hospital bed with a high fever at 6 weeks, her healthy sister was in another bed in the same room. Roberta knew something was not right because she was being separated from Erica, but still healthy and aware. She clicked and chucked all day while Erica slept. My daughter would pick her up and show her sleeping sister to her. She continued to click and chuck until they were again together in the same bed. When Erica felt better she clicked and chucked to her sister. They use this sound to locate each other in a world which separates them from time to time. If you put the car seats back to back, the clicking starts. Possibly they do it in the car, but the engine is louder than the baby noise. My daughter is breast-feeding them. She is definitely the most important person in their lives when they are hungry, hurt, or tired. They love their daddy too, and big brother Jonathan. Innate MotheringMammalian mothers have innate baby skills. I was reading a book by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas , The Social Lives of Dogs. She is a anthropological biologist. She was observing a water hole in Africa where there was a very pregnant and dead wildebeest which had been killed by another animal. A lioness came over to find her supper. She bit into the belly of the wildebeest and found the dead baby wildebeest still in its cowl. She tenderly cleaned the baby wildebeest just as she would a baby lion, licking the cowl off, cleaning the face and mouth and ears with her tongue, licking the belly, snipping the cord with her teeth, and then she ate the dead baby. So if you have to have your baby in a cave, you are equipped to birth the child and clean it. You are like the lioness, programmed to deal with babies of any sort. When your breasts are full of milk, your baby knows where you are, and you know where your baby is. You need that baby to nurse, and the baby needs your milk. You are a perfectly matched unit of mother and baby. Fathers are now part of the family unit, provided they behave the way we want them to. They have to bring food, and show that they are not going to kill the baby. I loved the line in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when the mother said "Greek men are the head of the family but I am the neck, the head goes where I turn it." Ashley Montague was quite right when he said human babies have 18 months of gestation. Humans have large heads, and the nine month growth of the pregnancy produces a baby which is as big as it can get to get through the birth canal without killing the mother. The growth of the fetus is huge, and continues at this same huge rate although slowing down for the next nine months in which most babies are totally dependant on the mother for food and love. Most babies sit at 6 months, which is the beginning of balancing up rather than lying down. Around nine months is when the babies start to move independently and accurately, and they go from lying down, and crawling to standing up and walking. The rounded baby limbs straighten, they start to be able to graze for food a short distance from mum. Babies are designed to put everything in their mouths. Baby BabbleDuring the first six months, all babies babble. http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2005/babble.html When the beginnings of sound feedback system between the ears and the brain and the mouth are not working, as in the case of deaf babies, the babbling stops. So if your child babbled, and stopped, your child should be evaluated for hearing loss by an audiologist and your child should see a speech pathologist. http://www.tyketalk.com/talk.htm and a ton of information on early speech and early speech problems from my efriend in Aussie Caroline Bowen. http://members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/consumerindex.htm Fluid in the EarI have fluid in my right ear which is allowing me to experience sensori-neural and conductive loss combined. The sounds in my hearing aid which are perfect for my sensori-neural hearing loss are obliterated by the fluid and I hear nothing. Little babies often have this fluid in their ears, they can even have glue ear which is solid guck. Reid had glue ear as a young baby, and had a myringotomy to remove the guck. Later he had tubes installed, and he has significant scaring on his good ear's drum which causes hearing loss too. The most sound which is eliminated by conductive loss is 40 dB, after that the bones of the head take over the hearing function. But it is the most important part of speech is in that first 40 dB of sound http://www.hardofhearingchildren.com/Great%20Information/ling_sound_test.htm Previously hearing problems were not identified for a long time. The average age for diagnosis of congenital profound hearing loss was 5 years when Reid was born. The bump was caused by the pre-kindergarten public health screening. At some point the age dropped to 3 years 6 months. Well, if you cannot hear for 3 years and 6 months of your childhood, your speech is going to be affected. When Jonathan was born four years ago, the concept of newborn hearing test was understood by the audiologists and the parents of the children with hearing losses, but the importance was glossed over by the rest of our society. Jonathan had a hearing test at 14 days because his family found one, and took him there. Although the equipment for baby hearing testing was finally in the nursery, the role of who was going to use it, and training with the equipment was not established. 3 years later when the twins were born, the hearing testing was finally part of the newborn protocol. Second Hard of hearing Child gets Diagnosed SoonerI saw a pair of ear molds for a 6 week old baby a long time ago. That baby was the second child in the family to have a hearing loss. The first child had had a rough path between all the same obstacles preventing hearing testing which we had for Reid. The parents the second time round accepted no bull from the professionals, and had a great team in place. The baby had hearing aids by 6 weeks. Sensorineural hearing loss tends to be stable over the short term while conductive loss can fluctuate from day to day, from hour to hour. I sit here writing to you, and have a little thought...hmm would be nice to hear again in that ear, it's been weeks...maybe I could try ear candling even though I know it does not work...maybe if I stick my finger in far enough it will move out. Now these are the fundamental thoughts of someone who knows why she cannot hear well, and who knows nothing smaller than your elbow should go in your ear. At the beginning I thought my hearing aid was broken again. Not Hearing Words because of Fluid in the earHow does a baby who is learning language at the same time deal with not hearing well from time to time, or all the time. Part of a solution would be the effect of earshot, moving closer to a noise makes it louder. The baby is isolated from the normal hearing environment, only hearing parts, or some one day and another part the next or possibly missing the whole show. Babyhood has gone from being considered a mainly physical time full of feedings, changes, and crying, playing and sleeping to having more understanding that the baby is learning so much on so many levels, speech, crawling, emotions, tricks, smiles. The need to love and be loved is most important. Body LanguageBody language is also important. Erica was the first twin to see me as different from her immediate family but a pleasure to see. She scrunches her whole body into the brilliant Erica smile. Her mother will comment that she is a flirt. One Sad Demanding, Searching, Lonely, Hopeless, word from both babies MAWhen Ross and I take care of the babies, we are absolutely aware that they are not pleased to have Mom gone. They usually scream MA MA MA MA MA until Mom returns. Now they are walking, they walk to the door mom went out and scream MA MA MA. When Roberta is upset by her mother's absence, I can fool her sometimes by holding her the same way her mother does. If she turns her head and finds Nana's equipment instead of Mom's she is filled with baby anger, straightens her back, turns away and cries. Babies Scream at 80 - 90 dB.Babies scream at around 90 dB. They turn my hearing aids off. Sometimes when the crying is too much I put on my hearing protectors for the vacuum. I love Erica and Roberta too. Someday soon they will think Nana is funny too.
We Know Delaying did not Work.If you think your baby is not keeping up to the kid next door, the first person to ask is your family doctor. There is so much information on the internet today about child development, and chats with experts and other parents. If you think your child has stopped babbling, find a speech pathologist and an audiologist. The earlier you got problems identified, the more you can do in the natural development time of learning to crawl or walk. We know delaying did not work. PAM Candlish
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