Everything Your Baby Would Ask... If Only He or She Could Talk

PrefaceHave you ever wondered what is going on in babies' minds before they can talk? What do they understand about the social and physical worlds? Is it all a complete mystery, or are babies born with some knowledge of what to expect? Is their life in utero totally passive, merely swimming around in the amniotic liquid until it is time to come out, or are they already learning something during their intrauterine stay? When do babies recognize their parents' faces and voices? How important is play in learning about the conventions of social life? How does the baby experiment with language and objects? These and many other questions are addressed in this book.Don't think that this is your typical "How to bring up your baby" book, however. You won't find advice on diaper changing or when to introduce solid food. Our aim is different and, we believe, much more crucial for understanding how your baby develops. We try to penetrate the baby's mind and guess at the questions babies might ask about themselves and their experiences if only they could talk -- to see the world from the baby's perspective. For if you are to be a confident parent, grandparent or child-carer, you need to understand how each baby gradually becomes an intelligent, independent individual.Each chapter of the book focuses on a broad area of infant development. The amusing question -- answer format (baby asks a question, we provide an answer) is followed by slightly more serious text, telling you about the kind of research that has helped us discover how babies develop. We have mostly concentrated on life in utero and in infancy, but at times we have added a "Looking Ahead" section where we felt it was important to explore how the behavior of babies gradually evolves through toddlerhood and beyond. We have also included dozens of suggestions for ways you can make your own amazing discoveries about your baby's development, as well as special features on the increasingly specialized workings of the infant brain. Imagine, your baby's brain is more active and consumes more energy than yours! And science now has techniques for looking at infants' brain activity.There can be huge differences between one infant's rate of development and another's, and the ages we give in this book are simply rough guides. Your baby will find his or her own schedule of development and you should only be worried if milestones occur well outside the age ranges we provide. Using "he or she" always sounds heavy, so we decided not to keep doing this in the rest of the book. But each mom and dad obviously cares about whether they have a boy or a girl and they certainly don't want their baby referred to as "it!" We opted for a compromise whereby we refer to the baby as male in one chapter and female in the next.Finally, a little about the voices behind this book. Your two authors were actually three: Kyra was expecting her first baby while writing this book, so we had a constant eavesdropper! And many years ago, Kyra was Annette's second baby. We have worked together before, but this is our first project as a fully fledged daughter-mother team. We both enjoyed the experience immensely and plan further joint books. At the end of writing not only have we not fallen out under the strain, but we've actually become even closer friends.The book is dedicated to Annette's four tiny grandchildren: to Misha, the baby son of Gideon and Kyra, born six days after we handed in the final manuscript; to Alexander and Nicholas, the baby sons of Enrico and Yara, Annette's elder daughter; and to ThÉÏa, the baby daughter of Paul and ClÉa, Annette's step-daughter. We hope that you will enjoy reading the book as much as we've enjoyed writing it.Kyra Karmiloff and Annette Karmiloff-SmithKarmiloff, Kyra is the author of 'Everything Your Baby Would Ask... If Only He or She Could Talk', published 2004 under ISBN 9781552979075 and ISBN 1552979075.