Although we are tempted to apply our adult categories of social, emotional and intellectual processes to infant behavior, babies do not operate in that dissociated way. Rather these processes are not yet separated and function as a unified whole. Your one month old infant already has a number of preferences which are at once perceptual, emotional, social and intellectual. To illustrate, Infants attend to facial features for a much longer time than they do to non facial features. These preferences involve visual perception, positive emotional response, intellectual choice and social awareness.

This is important. While it is true that certain parts of the brain are associated with different mental processes, it also functions as a whole. New techniques allow us to view brain activity. If you show your infant a bright colored object, the visual area of the brain will light up. But if you give your baby a hug, the whole brain lights up. So it is important to remember that the infant behaves in a unified way. When your baby cries, for example, this is a complex behavior. First of all the baby is sensing discomfort, second it is trying to communicate that discomfort, third, it is expecting some response from a caregiver. When we respond to an infant’s crying we indicate that we understand the communication, we relieve the discomfort and we confirm the baby’s expectations. In this way we help build the baby’s sense of trust, that the world is a responsive and safe place to inhabit.

Keep in mind that all of your interactions with your baby are multifaceted in this way. When you talk to your baby while you are changing him or her you are making physical contact, emotional contact, as well communicative contact. In other words whatever activity you engage in with your infant, feeding, bathing, changing, playing, make it as total an interaction as possible. Touching, hugging kissing, talking, singing while engaged in infant care make it a powerful experience that reinforces the infant’s sense of trust, while providing stimulation for all parts of the brain.