Help Your Baby to Learn

From the first day your newborn baby comes into the world, he/she is ready to interact with you and have a lot to learn. They can recognise faces, see colours, hear voices, discriminate speech sounds, and distinguish basic tastes. At birth, your baby’s main brain circuits that control basic functions like breathing, heart rate, body temperature, digestion, sucking and reflexes are well developed. However, there are trillions of complex connections between brain cells to be formed and these are greatly influenced by what he or she experiences during childhood.

Cries, gurgles and body language are the ways your baby communicates, so be attentive and work out what they are attempting to tell you. Every time you interact with your child you are helping them develop new connections within the brain. As your baby’s brain grows the skills your baby demonstrates reflects the orderly and sequential development of the connections being made in their brain. These skills build on each other and allow the development of increasingly complex skills such as reading and writing.

Brain facts

• By the 17th week of pregnancy your unborn child already has 1 billion brain cells more than an adult.
• At 7 months your unborn child has 100 billion brain cells of potential.
• The brain is the only body organ incomplete at birth.
• At birth, the most complex parts of the brain are least developed, and the most affected by the environment.
• By your baby’s first birthday the brain has doubled in size and by the time they are three years old, their brain is approximately 90% of the weight of an adult’s brain.

Other information you may find useful

• Dads Needed for Construction Project - explains why it is important for dads to be involved in their baby's life right from the start.

Print this page

Rate this Page: 0 1 2 3 4 5