Lendle

I hope that this book will give you interesting and useful information on your baby and parenting. The facts and advice are all based on well-respected research from child development experts. In preparing for your baby’s birth, you have probably read or been told about what to expect in terms of physically caring for your baby. Dealing with your baby’s feeding, changing and sleeping needs is important, but it’s not the whole parenting story. When I was pregnant with my first child, most of the advice was on how to deal with all of the ‘problems’ of having a new baby—making sure your baby was feeding and sleeping well, knowing how to put a nappy on the right way round, making sure you didn’t freeze or scald your baby in the bath tub! Nothing told me about how my newborn baby would process all of the information about her new world, or what a complete joy being a parent could be. The aim of this book is to tell you about what’s going on inside young babies’ minds—what they know and don’t know about the world, how they process information and how they communicate with you—and how this ‘mind-reading’ can make parenting more enjoyable, as well as easier. Being aware of what’s going on in your baby’s mind is just as important as being aware of your baby being hungry, tired or in need of a change. Knowing what toy or game your baby loves is a great way of distracting him if he’s fussy and restless in the supermarket. Talking or singing to your baby will help her calm down if she’s crying on the bus. Don’t be afraid to talk out loud to your baby about what he or she might be thinking or feeling—being able to put yourself ‘in your baby’s shoes’ by talking about their thoughts and feelings is really important for establishing your relationship with your baby. We also know that children’s later development is helped if their parents ‘tune in’ to their thoughts and feelings when they are babies. So making time to get to know your baby from the moment he or she is born is the best thing for both you and your child. The good news is that this doesn’t require you to do anything special or difficult—all you need to do is sit back, watch carefully and try to imagine what might be going on inside your baby’s mind.Professor Elizabeth Meins