10 Things Everyone Should Know About Babies

Ignorance about babies is undermining society.

Have you noticed all the stressed babies? Maybe one in 30 I see has glowing eyes, a sign of thriving. What's up? Perhaps ignorance about babies and their needs. Here are 10 things to know.

1. Babies are social mammals with social mammalian needs. Social mammals emerged more than 30 million years ago with intensive parenting (the developmental nest or niche). This is one of the many (extra-genetic) things that evolved other than genes. This developmental nest is required for an individual to develop properly. Intensive parenting practices include years of breastfeeding to develop brain and body systems, nearly constant touch and physical presence of caregivers, responsiveness to needs without distress, free play with multi-aged playmates, and soothing perinatal experiences. Each of these has significant effects on physical health.

2. Human babies are born "half-baked" and require an external womb. Humans are born way early compared to other animals: 9 months early in terms of mobility and 18 months early in terms of bone development and foraging capacities. Full-term babies have 25% of adult brain volume and most of it grows in the first 5 years. Thus, the human nest for its young evolved to be even more intense than for other social mammals because of the underdeveloped newborn, lasting for 3-5 years. Humans also added to the list of expected care a village of positive social support for both mother and baby. Actually, human brain development lasts into the third decade of life, suggesting that social support and mentoring continue at least that long.

3. If adults mess up on the post-birth “baking,” longterm problems can result. Each of the caregiving practices mentioned above has longterm effects on the physical health but also social health of the individual. For example, distressing babies regularly or intensively (by not giving them what they need) undermines self-regulatory systems. This is common knowledge in other cultures and was so in our past. In Spanish, there is a term used for adolescents and adults who misbehave: malcriado (misraised).

4. Babies thrive on affectionate love. When babies receive food and diaper changes and little else, they die. If they receive partial attention and stay alive, it is still not enough—they won’t reach their full potential. Urie Bronfenbrenner, who emphasized the multiple systems of support that foster optimal development, said that babies do best when at least one person is crazy about them. Others have noted that children grow best with three affectionate, consistent caregivers. In fact, babies expect more than mom and dad for loving care. Babies are ready for a community of close, responsive caregivers that includes mother nearby.

5. Babies’ right hemisphere of the brain is developing rapidly in the first three years. The right hemisphere develops in response to face-to-face social experience, with extended shared eye gaze. The right hemisphere governs self-regulatory systems. If babies are placed in front of screens, ignored or isolated, they are missing critical experiences.

6. Babies expect to play and move. Babies expect to be “in arms” or on the body of the caregiver most of the time. Skin-to-skin contact is a calming influence. After learning this one of my students when at a family gathering took a crying baby and held it to his neck, which calmed it down. Babies expect companionship not isolation or intrusion. They expect to be in the middle of community social life. They are ready to play from birth. Play is a primary method for learning self-control and social skills. Companionship care—friendship, mutual responsiveness and playfulness—builds social and practical intelligence. Babies and caregivers share intersubjective states, building the child’s capacities for the interpersonal “dances” that fill social life.

7. Babies have built-in warning systems. If they are not getting what they need, babies let you know. It is best, as most cultures have long known, to respond to a baby’s grimace or gesture and not to wait till crying occurs. Young babies have difficulty stopping crying once it starts. The best advice for baby care is to sensitively follow the baby, not the experts.

8. Babies lock their experiences into procedural memory vaults that will be inaccessible but apparent in later behavior and attitudes. Babies can be traumatized from neglecting the list of needs above. They won’t forget. It will undermine their trust of others, their health and social wellbeing, and lead to self-centered morality which can do much destruction to the world.

9. Culture does not erase the evolved needs babies have. Babies cannot retract their mammalian needs. Yet, some adult cultures advocate violating baby needs as if they do not matter and despite the protests of the baby. Everyday violations include baby isolation like sleeping alone, “crying it out” sleep training, infant formula, or baby videos and flashcards.* When violations occur regularly, at critical time periods or are intense, they undermine optimal development. These violations are encoded in the baby’s body as the optimal development of systems is undermined (e.g., immunity, neurotransmitters, endocrine systems like oxytocin). Surprisingly, some developmental psychologists think it fine to violate these needs** in order for the child to fit into their culture.

The rationalization of “culture over biology” reflects a lack of understandingnot only of human nature but of optimal development. This has occurred in laboratories with other animals whose natures were misunderstood. For example, Harry Harlow, known for his experiments with monkeys and “mother love,” at first did not realize he was raising abnormal monkeys when he isolated them in cages. Similarly, at least one of the aggressive rat strains used in lab studies today were first created when scientists isolated offspring after birth, again not realizing the abnormality of isolation. Note how the cultural assumptions of the scientists created the abnormal animals. So it matters what cultural assumptions you have.

The culture-over-biology view may be doing the same thing with human beings. By not understanding babies and their needs, we are creating species-atypical human beings. We can only know this to be the case in light of knowledge about human beings who develop under evolved conditions, with the evolved developmental nest: typically, small-band hunter-gatherers. They are much wiser, perceptive and virtuous than we humans in the USA today.

Thus the final point:

10. Experiences that consistently violate evolution undermine human nature. When species-atypical childrearing occurs, we end up with people whose health and sociality are compromised (which we can see all over the USA today with epidemics of depression, anxiety, high suicide and drug use rates***). Such mis-raised creatures might do all right on achievement tests or IQ measures but they may also be dangerous reptiles whose world revolves around themselves. A lot of smart reptiles (“snakes in suits”) on Wall Street and elsewhere have been running the country into the ground.

What to do?

(1) Inform others about the needs of babies.

(2) Be aware of the needs of babies around you and interact sensitively with the babies you encounter.

(3) Support parents to be sensitive to the needs of their babies. This will also require many more institutional and social supports for families with children, including extensive parental leave which other developed nations provide.

(4) Read books that convey the evolved principles of caregiving, like the following:

The Science of Parenting

Attached at the Heart

The Attachment Parenting Book

The Other Baby Book

Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids

The Science of Mother-Baby Sleep

* Note that sometimes violations (e.g., formula, isolation) are required under emergency conditions that are matters of life and death.

**Of course they don’t think it’s a violation because they don’t take the set of mammalian needs seriously.

*** In the USA, everyone under 50 has numerous health disadvantages compared to citizens in 16 other developed nations (National Research Council, 2013).

References

Babiak, P. & Hare, R.D. (2006). Snakes in Suits, When Psychopaths Go To Work. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Blum, D. (2002). Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. New York, NY: Perseus Publishing.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chiron, J.I., Nabbout, R., Lounes, R., Syrota, A., & Dulac, O. (1997). The right brain hemisphere is dominant in human infants. Brain, 120, 1057-1065.

Fry, D. P. (2006). The human potential for peace: An anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fry, D. (Ed.) (2013). War, peace and human nature. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Hrdy, S. (2009). Mothers and others: The evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Ingold, T. (1999). On the social relations of the hunter-gatherer band. In R. B. Lee & R. Daly (Eds.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers (pp. 399–410). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Konner, M. (2010). The evolution of childhood. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Liedloff, J. (1977). The Continuum concept. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

Montagu, A. (1986). Touching: The human significance of the skin. New York: Harper & Row.

Narvaez, D. (2013). Development and socialization within an evolutionary context: Growing Up to Become "A good and useful human being." In D. Fry (Ed.), War, Peace and Human Nature: The convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views (pp. 341-358). New York: Oxford University Press.

Narvaez, D. (forthcoming). Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

Narvaez, D., & Gleason, T. (2013). Developmental optimization. In D. Narvaez, J., Panksepp, A. Schore, & T. Gleason (Eds.), Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From Research to Practice and Policy (pp. 307-325). New York: Oxford University Press.

Narvaez, D., Panksepp, J., Schore, A., & Gleason, T. (Eds.) (2013).Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From Research to Practice and Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Narvaez, D., Valentino, K., Fuentes, A., McKenna, J., & Gray, P. (2014).Ancestral Landscapes in Human Evolution: Culture, Childrearing and Social Wellbeing. New York: Oxford University Press.

National Research Council. (2013). U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Schore, A. (1994). Affect regulation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Schore, A.N. (2002). Dysregulation of the right brain: a fundamental mechanism of traumatic attachment and the psychopathogenesis of posttraumatic stress disorder. Australian & New Zealand Journal ofPsychiatry, 36, 9-30.

Schore, A.N. (2003). Affect dysregulation & disorders of the self. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton.

Schore, A.N. (2005). Attachment, affect regulation, and the developing right brain: Linking developmental neuroscience to pediatrics. Pediatrics In Review, 26, 204-211.

Spitz, R.A. (1945). Hospitalism; an inquiry into the genesis of psychiatric conditions in early childhood. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. 1, 53-74.

Tomkins, S. (1965). Affect and the psychology of knowledge. In S.S. Tomkins & C.E. Izard (Eds.), Affect, cognition, and personality. New York: Springer.

Trevarthen, C. (2005). Stepping away from the mirror: Pride and shame in adventures of companionship”—Reflections on the nature and emotional needs of infant intersubjectivity. In C.S. Carter, L. Ahnert, K.E. Grossmann, S.B., Hrdy, M.E. Lamb, S.W. Porges, & N. Sachser (Eds.), Attachment and bonding: A new synthesis (pp. 55-84). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Trevarthen, C. (2006). First things first: infants make good use of the sympathetic rhythm of imitation, without reason or language. Journal of Child Psychotherapy 31(1), 91-113.

Trevarthen, C., & Aitken, (2001). Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications; Annual Research Review. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 3-48.

Trevathan, W.R. (2011). Human birth: An evolutionary perspective, 2nd ed..New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

If you'd like to learn more you can find this article here.

12 Things Young Parents Are Tired Of Hearing

Yes, we started early. Yes, we can see you doing mental math and subsequently judging us.

1. Awwww, is this your little sister/brother?

This fine specimen of humanity is the product of unprotected sex between me and my partner.

2. How old are you?

Old enough to know that’s a rude-ass question.

3. Were they happy accidents or planned?

Is there a right way to answer this?

4. Is the baby’s father/mother still in the picture?

Nope, much like the praying mantis, the young parent eats their mate after conception to show dominance.

5. Did you consider alternatives when you found out you were pregnant?

Well yeah, I mean we thought about exposing the fetus to radiation in hopes of birthing a superhero but it was like a 50% chance it’d turn into a villain. Not worth it, am I right?

6. Man, I just don’t think I was mature enough for kids at your age.

Good thing you didn’t have them then.

7. Isn’t it irresponsible to have kids before you’re financially secure?

If everyone waited until financial security to have kids, the human species would be extinct.

8. It must be nice to have all that energy!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHA!

9. I don’t think I can handle being friends with you now that you’re a parent.

Kids: the ultimate early asshole detection system.

10. Don’t you feel like you’re missing out on your youth?

You mean going to animated movies in theaters, playing hide-and-seek, having pancakes for dinner, building a blanket fort, getting back into coloring, and trading Pokemon cards? Because that’s what we did last weekend.

11. Oh wow, you could be a grandparent in your forties!

And that’s a bad thing why? My kids will be in college when yours are in kindergarten.

12. How do you manage everything?

With faith, trust, and pixie dust. Also a day planner, like everyone else.

Sure things might be rough going now…BUT!

One day our friends will all be at PTA meetings while we’re drinking margaritas with our adult kids on a cruise.

Babies Have Self-Awareness From The Minute They're Born

With their uncoordinated movements and unfocused eyes, newborns may seem pretty clueless about the world. But new research finds that from the minute they are born, babies are well aware of their own bodies.

Body awareness is an important skill for distinguishing the self from others, and failure to develop body awareness may be a component of some disorders such as autism. But little research has been done to find out when humans start to understand that their body is their own.

To determine babies' awareness of their bodies, the researchers took a page from studies on adults. In a famous illusion, people can be convinced that a rubber hand is their own if they see the hand stroked while their own hand, hidden from view, is simultaneously stroked.

These studies show that information from multiple senses — vision and touch, in this case — are important for body awareness, said Maria Laura Filippetti, a doctoral student at the Center for Brain and Cognitive Development at the University of London. [Incredible! 9 Brainy Baby Abilities]

To find out if the same is true of babies, Filippetti and her colleagues tested 40 newborns who were between 12 hours and four days old. The babies sat on the experimenter's lap in front of a screen. On-screen, a video showed a baby's face being stroked by a paintbrush. The researcher either stroked the baby's face with a brush in tandem with the stroking shown on the screen, or delayed the stroking by five seconds.

Next, the babies saw the same video but flipped upside down. Again, the researcher stroked the infants' faces in tandem with the upside-down image or delayed the stroking by five seconds.

Working with babies so young is a challenge, Filippetti told LiveScience.

"It is challenging just in terms of the time you actually have when the baby is fully awake and responsive," she said.

To determine whether the babies were associating the facial stroking they saw on-screen with their own bodies, as in the rubber-hand illusion, the researchers measured how long the babies looked at the screen in each condition. Looking time is the standard measurement used in infant research, because babies can't answer questions or verbally indicate their interest.

The researchers found that babies looked the longest at the screen when the stroking matched what they felt on their own faces. This was true only of the right-side-up images; infants didn't seem to associate the flipped faces with their own. [See video of the baby experiment]

The findings suggest that babies are born with the basic mechanisms they need to build body awareness, Filippetti and her colleagues report Nov. 21 in the journal Current Biology.

"These findings have important implications for our understanding of body perception throughout development," Filippetti said. Perhaps more important, she added, becoming more knowledgeable about normal development may help scientists better understand autism and related disorders. Autism research frequently focuses on abnormalities in social development, Filippetti said, but less is known about how children with autism perceive the self.

Next, Filippetti and her colleagues hope to use noninvasive brain imaging to determine how the newborn brain responds to sensory input to build body awareness.

You can find this article here.

31 Things No One Tells You About Becoming A Parent

You’re going to need to know this stuff before you take the plunge.

1. At some point you will accidentally hurt your kid and you’ll feel like the worst parent ever.

Try not to take it so hard. It happens to the best whether they admit it or not.

2. You will know a lot less about this:

“Wait. What happened?”

3. And a whole lot more about this:

4. Your Netflix account will eventually only suggest kids’ shows.

“I am a grown-ass person, Netflix! I don’t want to watch Bubble Guppies!”

5. Your pet will no longer be your top priority.

You: “When did we last feed the dog?” Spouse: “Dog?”

6. You will gain 15 pounds.

Kids love to eat ice cream, and what are you gonna do? Let them eat that tiny, 4-ounce kid’s cup without getting a jumbo for yourself? That would just be rude.

7. The backseat of your car will be nasty.

I don’t care how often you wash your car now. Crushed Cheerios, spilled juice, and a whole lot of other crap are in your car’s future.

8. You will eat 95% of your meals either incredibly fast or with one hand. Or both.

9. You’ll basically become a ninja.

When you need something from the baby’s room late at night you’ll be able to slip in and out without upending a feather.

10. Despite your best efforts, your kids will get their hands on your iPhone.

And this is what your photos will look like afterward.

11. Parenting is harder than you think it’ll be, but you won’t really notice.

Kind of like how lobsters don’t notice the water getting hotter, parents don’t notice how increasingly difficult parenting becomes.

12. You will have to sneak candy like it’s a contraband substance.

If your kid so much as smells chocolate on your breath, you’re screwed.

13. You will laugh more than at any other time in your life.

Kids do and say the funniest stuff ever. It’s pretty awesome.

14. You’ll be awakened at 2 a.m. to fetch a glass of water only to find your kid passed out when you deliver it.

The good news, though, is that the water is now totally yours!

15. You will see your own faults reflected back at you.

It’s sobering when you see your kid imitate your own bad behavior, and it will make you want to be a better person.

16. Folding kid and baby clothes is torture.

A normal-sized pile of laundry will take you three times as long to fold if it’s full of baby stuff.

17. It’s impossible to feel manly when folding said baby clothes.

Aww, look at the big man folding the tiny, widdle clothes.

18. The power of cute is more formidable than you realize.

Right now you’re like, “I’ll never give in to my kid’s whims and desires.” But you have never had a 3-year-old peer up at you and say, “Pwease? PWEASE?”

19. You will find talking to your friends without kids more difficult.

Friend: “I met this gorgeous girl at the club last night and we’ve been texting all day.” You: “I changed a poopy diaper.” Awkward silence.

20. Kids become actual people and not baby blobs way sooner than you think.

By the time your kid is 2, you’ll be having conversations more rewarding than many you have with adults.

21. Something you love will get ruined.

Kids have a knack for breaking, dirtying, or losing your favorite possessions. Don’t get too attached to that deer head, pal.

22. You will turn into your parents.

At some point you will actually find yourself saying, “That’s it! I will turn this car around!” and “Your face is gonna freeze like that!”

23. Very little will embarrass you.

Singing to your crying baby in public? Dropping your kid off at school in a robe? Nope. It’ll take more than that.

24. You won’t be able to watch movies where kids are killed or kidnapped.

When you have a little person in your house who you love more than anything, those movies hit a little too close to home.

25. You won’t want to spend money on yourself because you’ll know every dollar spent on yourself is a dollar you could’ve spent on your family.

This is why parents are famous for wearing outdated jeans.

26. Buying your kid something will make you way more happy than buying yourself something.

27. When your kid is little, every trip out of the house will feel like getting ready to go to the airport.

“Got the wipes?” “Check.” “The diapers, change of clothes, blanket, baby bottle, pacifier?” “Uh, check.”

28. You will love to watch kids’ movies.

This isn’t because the movies are so great (though most are tolerable these days), but because they’re an amazing bonding experience with your kid.

29. You will cram your entire adult life between the time your kid goes down and you go to sleep.

“Quick! Turn on The Walking Dead! Pour the wine! Tell me what you think about Obamacare! Ah, crap. It’s time for bed.”

30. For a while, only you will be able to understand them, so you’ll basically become their interpreter.

Grandma: “What did she say? Moogle woogle boo?” You: “No, she wants me to take her and her cousin to the park over on Smith Street next Tuesday.”

31. And lastly, it’s all worth it.

OK, so this is something people will tell you, but it’s true. Even with all of the maddening things that come along with being a parent, being someone’s mommy or daddy is one of life’s most rewarding experiences.