A BABY’S WAY OF COMMUNICATING
Do babies have a language of their own? Of course they do. It is a God given gift for them to survive in this vast wide world. How tiny and helpless they are! Yet through the sign language that is uniquely theirs, they make their needs made known to those around them.
In fact, I am given to understand that a baby starts to communicate while still in his mother’s womb. A case in point is that of little Arav. A few months before he was born, he began to kick around to show that he was alive in his mother’s stomach. Whenever his father reached home, the first thing he would do would be to touch his wife’s stomach. The baby would show his joy his by kicking.
A baby has been given a powerful pair of lungs. After birth, he is held up and given a couple of smacks—the result being a powerful howl from the new-born. Thus, he’s given another tool for communicating. This is his sign language. He cries when he is hungry, when in pain, when he is wet, when his diaper is full. He cries when he wants someone to be near him to play with him. He cannot stand being left alone. To start with, this is his only means of communication. At first parents can be baffled to know what the little one wants. But by means of practice and proximity the parents, specially the mother, is able to understand her baby’s needs and attend to them. In fact, I have observed that mother can recognize her child’s cry from among a group of other children even if she can’t see him.
When a baby has been fed and is satisfied, you’ll find him lying on his back or otherwise, happily kicking his legs, or holding both legs with his tiny hands, cooing and gurgling away. At such times, you want to join in the singing. Sometimes before falling asleep, a baby keeps looking up at an object trying to follow its path with his head or pointing at it with his finger. Sometimes, when you put your finger in a baby’s small palm, its fingers curl tightly round your finger even when asleep. It seems to be saying-“Stick around- don’t go away”.
Lean over a baby and play “ coochi –coo”-he reaches with his hands to touch your face as if to say-“ who are you? I like you—play with me some more.”
As the new born babies grow a little older they start fussing over food or merely saying that they’re full. They show their rejection of food either by closing their mouths or by turning away their faces each time the spoon is brought to their mouths.
After all, a baby is not an ‘it’ –he or she is a person with a developing personality. A mother’s job is full time.