He smiles, reaches out his arms, and moves his eyebrows. These are all ways your baby communicates with you. Adults still wonder sometimes how to decode baby’s expressions. It’s very simple.
His movements are interpreted from the time he’s in his mother’s womb. Béatrice Jaricot, psychomotor therapist, explains: "The expectant parents’ imagination is in full swing, starting to interpret what the baby is doing. This continues when the baby arrives and they see the baby’s first gestures and movements. Parents interpret each movement of the baby’s mouth as a sign of pleasure or displeasure, each sucking motion as a sign the baby is hungry, and each eye rub as a sign of fatigue. Communication begins to exist in the roots of this translation."
Initally, no movements are voluntary but they start to become intentional. He learns how to reach out his arms to be held by watching his parents reach out their arms to get him out of bed.
His facial expressions are often related to emotions and generally easy to spot, but body language is a bit harder to interpret. Parents often go by instinct.
Jaricot adds: "Often, babies use facial expressions to accompany gestures. It’s not uncommon for toddlers to use sounds, babbling, mouth noises, language fragments, and voice sounds. In fact, he soon realizes that the more sounds he makes, the better it works! All efforts have basically one purpose: attract our attention and get in touch with us."