Something really exiting happened this week. My son showed me EXACTLY what he wants! And it was not a simple request either. It was as if he spoke the elaborated following sentence "mommy, I want to eat now, and I want to do this on my tummy".
Jonathan and I were fooling around in bed (lots of room to fool around in mommy and daddy's bed) When he started staring longingly at the chest near the bed. I carried him ever so slightly towards the chest and he spread his arms out, reaching for his bottle. So I gave him the bottle and started getting ready to feed him in the usual position in my arms but he protested and so I placed him on his belly on the bed and placed the bottle in front of him. He then tried to reach for it and put it in his mouth while remaining on his belly. And so he had his breakfast that day on his belly… and I spend the rest of the day at work with puffed feathers of motherly pride, telling anyone who was prepared to hear me that my son can communicate and make complex requests.
I find it amazing that with relatively little means babies can in fact express their needs, and they do so from the start. The level of communication only increases as they grow and eventually they will also talk… (And when that happens there will be no shutting them up again…ha ha.) Until then its body movement, hand gesturing and crying that will do the trick.
From the start Jonathan could cry his lungs out to make sure that his tired parents got the message that he is not a happy camper. Of course he only needed to do that if he was hungry or tired. Some babies, so they say, have different cries for different needs. I have to admit I can't really hear the difference in the crying itself, but its intensively and duration, combined with other behavior does usually tell me if Jonathan is tired, wants some company or is plain hungry (or maybe its just that thee hours have passed since his last meal…).
At about a month and a half Jonathan added a new feature to his communication skills, a smile. Now he could also clearly indicate happiness and not just lack of satisfaction. At about three months of age he also added frisks and cute little kicks to the smile, so that in a way his whole body could greet me in happy welcome. From the start his face was a world of communication. He could cry in my arms for no reason, and then when given a pacifier his face would smoothen immediately, showing me clear gratitude for following his bidding (the name pacifier is very suitable too). The boy clearly likes to have company. When I put him down in his pen at 3 months of age he would protest with a wail, the crying would stop as soon as one picked him up again – a companion is always welcome.
Now he can play on his own for a while, rolling about to reach toys and any particular spot on the floor or in his pen, but if he gets stuck on the way (in the corner of his pen, or facing an obstacle he cannot bypass – like a closet…) he calls for assistance. There is a definite difference in tone when he is just babbling away in play or when he wishes to indicate that he is not happy with the way things are at a particular moment. He even does this in his sleep. When sleeping he tends to lose his pacifier. This is all and well as long as his sleep is deep, but when it becomes lighter, he tries to find it and when he fails, he calls out for help. I will find him in bed with eyes closed but moving about with an open mouth searching…this is when I know that he is not calling because he is hungry in the middle of the night but because he wants his pacifier back. I put it in his mouth and immediately all is well again and he sinks back into deep sleep with nice, even breathing – and I can return to bed!
Now Jonathan is five months old and clearly developing a sense for finer detail. He can make simple requests such as "please pick me up" by stretching his arms towards you when lying on his back in his pen (no need to cry anymore to make the request for company). He shows me if he is hungry by making sucking motions with his mouth when the bottle is near, or even reaching out for the bottle, and pushing it away when he is full. He sometimes also adds a satisfied laugh when receiving the bottle he wants, as an indicator of his gratitude that his parents got it right… He can also hold his bottle himself, putting it into his mouth or taking it out according to his level of hungriness and also as a bit of a game. The incident of eating on his belly has not repeated itself, but clearly showing happiness at the sight of a potential meal has (reaching out and laughing at the bottle, that is).
Reaching out is a great mode of communication, very useful because it is easy for mommy and daddy to figure out. He reaches out to toys that are too far to indicate that he wishes them to be brought nearer to himself. And he reaches out to people. I am sitting and writing this, and my husband and Jonathan are nearby. Jonathan is intrigued by the computer, and is looking at it with curious wonderment, and then he looks at me and finally reaches out to me. He clearly wants his mommy. We then try to reverse the roles. I stop typing; the boy is on my lap and we try to see if he will also want to go back to daddy…well, not right now it seems, it doesn't work, Jonathan is not reaching out to daddy, he want to stay on mommy's lap. (No worries to all dads out there, his daddy gets many a smile in greeting and happiness in general. Besides I think this preference for moms at the beginning wares away as they grow up and discover they can run a lot more havoc with daddy, fooling around…compared to mommy always tidying up and wanting her son to finish his dinner…).
There is already the feature of speech in Jonathan's communication skills, well up to a point that is; Jonathan tends to babble a lot. He will tell you many a good story, it's just a pity that I cannot yet understand what he is saying. One thing is however clear, he is definitely "talking". We like to look at the mirror together, and Jonathan has recently also started reaching out for the boy in the glass, talking to him or smiling at him has been a staple for months. (Jonathan is generally very big on mirrors!) Today I noticed that when we stood together in front of the mirror he also used it to look at me (as I use it to look at him). He most definitely talked to me and smiled at me in the mirror this morning! And not just to the other boy in there…
As Jonathan is growing up with two languages, the books tell me he will start talking late. On the other had I find his face very expressive and the boy is communicative, so I have hopes that he will prove the experts wrong. I wonder what the next feature in his communication arsenal will be…
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