What comes to mind when you see a baby? Cute. Adorable. Lovable. Yes, yes, and yes! How about smart? Not sure about that? Surprisingly, they’re actually way smarter than we think they are.
Research shows that babies start listening to their parents’ voices while still in the womb. Once born, your baby begins tuning in to your words and sentence patterns to figure out what you’re saying.
That’s not all. In spite of their blank stares, babies are actually capable of copying facial expressions. According to parentingcounts.org:
Newborns only hours old have been found to copy facial expressions, like making an “O” with their lips or sticking out their tongues.
So don’t be fooled by their cuteness. Since babies are utterly adorable, they’ll end up manipulating you. They have the power to do so. All they need to do is to imitate a smile to get you weak in your knees. That’s one smart move … don’t you think?
Since babies are fast learners, they end up doing a lot of other surprising things you’d never expect them to do.
Here are the 5 surprising things babies can easily do.
5. Babies Are Seekers of Justice. Before we’re able to talk or walk or take care of our own poops without sitting in them for a while first, we’re able to distinguish between good and evil. Not only that, but we’re also able to choose the right side. (Good … the right side is good.) Source: Cracked.com
A research study carried out at Yale University’s Infant Cognition Center and led by Paul Bloom, a professor psychology, found out that babies can indeed have moral judgement and can differentiate between helpful and unhelpful behavior.
In one experiment babies between six and ten months old were repeatedly shown a puppet show featuring wooden shapes with eyes. A red ball attempts to climb a hill and is aided at times by a yellow triangle that helps it up the hill by getting behind it and pushing. At other times the red ball is forced back down the hill by a blue square. After watching the puppet show at least six times the babies were asked to choose a character. An overwhelming majority (over 80%) chose the helpful figure. Prof. Bloom said it was not a subtle statistical trend as “just about all the babies reached for the good guy.
Can you believe a minutes-old newborn can do this next surprising thing?
Rumors are true … this phenomenon really does happen. Wow.
4. Newborns Can Crawl to Boobs. If you place a brand new minutes-old baby in the middle of his mother’s chest, the baby will slowly but methodically migrate to one of her nipples, latch on, and start sucking. Source: Cracked.com
Breast crawl is the instinct of mammal (including human) newborns to move towards the nipple and attach to it for breastfeeding all by themself. In humans, if the newborn baby is put on the mother’s abdomen, the movements start 12 to 44 minutes after birth, followed by spontanous suckling at 27 to 71 minutes after birth.” Source: Wikipedia.org
Studies confirm this amazing instinctive ability of babies. According to researchers, babies use their sense of smell, hearing, and vision to crawl on their mother’s belly and latch on her nipple. It’s really an extra ordinary phenomena.
Parents have suspected this for the longest time. Researchers have also confirmed this.
These little cuties surely know how to manipulate us at such a young age.
3. Babies Can “Fake Cry” to Attract Attention. Like method actors the world over, young babies can turn their thoughts and feelings into lifelike performances which elicit from their audiences — mostly mom, really — mostly … attention. Sound manipulative? It sort of is. Source: Mom.me
Confirming what a lot of parents suspect, a Japanese researcher analyzed the cries of two babies over the course of six months and found that a baby can indeed turn on the waterworks on an instant in order to get a mother’s attention.
The infant “appeared to cry deliberately to get her mother’s attention and convey to her [mother] that she wanted her to come closer and play with her again,” study researcher Hiroko Nakayama, of the University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo, wrote in the December issue of the journal Infant Behavior and Development. “This appeared to be an instance of fake crying,” Nakayama said.
Why do babies keep watching your mouth when you talk?
Did you know that babies can do this?
2. Babies Can Read Your Lips. Starting at about 6 months old, babies stop looking into their caregivers’ eyes and start looking at their lips to figure out how to make sounds correctly. Source: Cracked.com
Researchers found that starting at around 6 months, babies appear to be studying the lips of people who were talking to them instead of just gazing intently into the talking person’s eyes.
“The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they’re hearing,” explains developmental psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led the study being published Monday. “It’s an incredibly complex process.”
It doesn’t take long for babies to start picking up things and start matching the sounds coming out with the movements of the mouth. It’s quite remarkable that these little babies are so observant.
“It’s a pretty intriguing finding,” says University of Iowa psychology professor Bob McMurray, who also studies speech development. The babies “know what they need to know about, and they’re able to deploy their attention to what’s important at that point in development.”
Who needs a lie detector when apparently, babies are as adept as being BS detectors as they are milk consumption experts.
1. Babies Are Amazing B*llshit Detectors. Not only are babies adept at determining when someone is lying to them, but they totally judge them for it. Source: Cracked.com
We know that babies are great imitators. That’s pretty much how they learn, being pretty much like sponge. However, a study found that babies tend to imitate an adult based on how credible they perceive that particular adult. It’s like they have some sort of radar to screen the real one from the “bogus” one.
“Like older children, infants keep track of an individual’s history of being accurate or inaccurate and use this information to guide their subsequent learning,” said study researcher Diane Poulin-Dubois, a professor in the Concordia Department of Psychology and member of the university’s Centre for Research in Human Development. “Specifically, infants choose not to learn from someone who they perceive as unreliable.”
Numbers 1 and 2 are surprising revelations. All the while you thought you could get away with certain stuff, apparently not. You’re better off thinking twice before saying something to your cute, adorable baby.
It’s interesting how babies can do all these things. This hilariously written, yet factual article gives a more in depth explanation as to why and how babies are capable of doing amazing things. You can read the full article here.
Did you ever think your little one could do any of these things?
