this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
31 points (89.7% liked)

Parenting

1703 readers
299 users here now

A place to talk about parenting.

Be respectful of others' parenting decisions.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
31
Having an infant is boring and I can't wait to have a toddler. (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

As of today, I have a 1 month old. She is amazing and I love her so much, but she's boring! Don't get me wrong, she's difficult and my wife and I haven't slept a good night in a month, but all she does is eat, sleep, and poop. There's basically no interaction.

I'm so looking forward to being able to laugh with her, play with her, and generally start teaching her the world.

How do you feel? What's your favorite stage of child development?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Some of this yes. Some of this no.

Every arm and leg wiggle, every eye blink, every coo and fart and startle.

This is the no. First of all, at this phase the child is a synesthete. The arm and leg wiggles are not communication but stimulus response. Espying the color red may be why the leg wiggled. While delightful to a parent, don't make more of it than it is.

Also, they cannot coo at this stage. You may have confused the social smiling/cooing phase for what the OP is commenting on. The OP is referring to far earlier in development.

The startles are reflexive. The Morrow reflex. It is also not communication. It is just an instinct hardwired in to a primate brain to prevent newborn death by putting the primate newborn in a position to grab on to an adult's body fur and thus prevent falling to their death.

I find this phase personally delightful because you get to see the human BIOS on which their person operating system is shortly to be installed, but it is absolutely okay for people not to, just like some computer enthusiasts love a BIOS and others don't. So long as one isn't neglectful, it is okay to not be enthralled.