There is a predictable pattern of behavior as the mother and father interacts with the infant. There are remarkable things in all cases in which the parents are having a “good” time with their babies.
The baby is placed in a reclining infant chair, on a table. The mother is instructed to sit in front of her and to talk or play without picking her up. When the mother first come in, she usually stars to talk gently to the baby, to hold onto her legs or her buttocks as she first greets her, and then begins to talk to her. When the baby sees her, she greets her mother with a bright smile and pays an increased attention to her. When they play each other it will make a rhythmic dance as they signal back and forth. The baby usually sets the rhythm as she looks at her mother, her face brightening, her hands and legs reaching out toward her gently, then smoothly curling back into herself. When we looks her baby eyes it’s intensely interested in her mother’s attempts to engage her, and a dulled-down look in her eyes as she tunes herself down. Often she looks to one side to “recover” from the intense looks her mother gives her. She is attending intensely then recovering in a gentle but definite rhythm, as if to protect her rather fragile, immature heart and lung systems from becoming overloaded.
The mother looks at the baby most of the time, but she plays with her in rhythms-touching her, then pulling her hand back only to return to touch her again, often patting or rubbing rhythmically and in time with her. She smiles and vocalizes in a timing very much synchronized with the baby’s. Her head bobs gently forward when she looks at her, and withdraws when she tunes her down. All of her rhythms and her advances are timed to the baby’s attention cycles.
Underlying all of this communication system called a “feedback” system. As mother and baby are locked into each other’s signals and rhythms, they are feeding each other more than simple message. They are saying to each other that they are really in touch, and the feeling of synchrony say to both of them, “We are really locked into each other.”
We can see it as the base for the baby’s earliest emotional communication. In this way she learns by “feedback” about the world around her, as well as about herself. If the baby changes it by a smile, the chances are that her mother will smile back-and thus she learns about the effect of smiling-on those around her as well as on herself. The same goes for vocalizing, for making a reaching-out gesture to which the mother will respond in her way. In this reciprocal system, no one leads the other all the time. At one point, the baby may be setting the tone; at another it will be the mother. Each leads the other in an alternating system. At any moment, either one can turn the other off. This part of it is important to the baby, whose immature nervous system makes it necessary to be able to turn her mother off before she, the baby, gets overloaded with the excitement of too many messages from mother.
Both mother and baby have some control over this dialogue. The baby is learning about herself and her influence on an important “other” by her behavior. The mother is learning how to tune in to her baby’s responses and subtle needs.
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Please also read the article How babies Learn about Love
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