How babies develop

Cues and signals

I've already mentioned that it's important never to push your baby, but to let her go at her own pace and encourage her when she lets you know she's ready. Spotting this moment of readiness is not as hard as you think. She'll give you cues and signals that make her intentions clear:

• At about two weeks, your baby will probably try to raise her head a little when lying on her tummy. This is a cue telling you she's ready for the game that strengthens her neck
• At five months she'll blow raspberries at you to ask you for games where you imitate noises
• At nine months she can point, so get her to point things out in her books
• At around 10 months she'll start pulling herself up to standing. She's getting ready to walk so place furniture so that she can cruise round it

Acting it out

Babies and children get the message better through actions rather than just words and this phase lasts till they're age six or more. Babies love it if you act out your emotions, so make sure you accompany as many words as possible with actions and expressions and exaggerate them all, especially pleasure and joy.

So the rule is: be theatrical whenever possible, larger than life, dramatic and over the top. End everything with giggles, laughter and cuddles whenever you can and make and keep eye contact with your baby as much as possible, especially when she's very young.

Emotional continence

'Emotional continence' means being able to handle emotions and not let them get out of hand. It involves being able to control strong emotions by turning them to good purpose because:

• Babies learn emotional continence from you
• If emotional continence isn't learned in the first year it's very difficult to acquire later

It's important for your baby to acquire emotional continence. Without it she finds it very difficult to cope with anything that thwarts her wishes or stands in her way as she grows up. In other words, she becomes emotionally incontinent. The classic outcome of emotional incontinence is a pre-schooler who bullies, is disruptive, or even destructive at home and at nursery school.

Building emotional continence

It's not difficult to give your baby early lessons in emotional continence. There are three easy steps in any situation:

• Legitimise your baby's emotions. Tell her 'I know it hurts' if she's fallen over or 'That is annoying' if she's frustrated by something and becomes angry
• Defuse your baby's emotions. Say, 'Mummy will kiss it better' or 'Daddy gets annoyed with that too, you know'
• Move on from the emotion. Suggest, 'When it's stopped hurting we'll go out to play' or 'Let's forget that and have a cuddle'

Dr Miriam Stoppard has a new series of books for babies called Baby Play Skills. These books are rooted in the needs, interests and capabilities of babies.

Titles in the series include Happy Baby, Baby Games, Baby Senses and Baby Talking and each aim to help encourage intelligence and the acquisition of physical and mental ability, speech and emotional skills.