Babies can become very clingy and anxious around new and even familiar people and may cry if suddenly approached by a stranger. While it may be cringe-inducing for you as a parent, it's actually a very normal part of your baby's development.
Fear of strangers is very common. It happens as your baby develops a healthy attachment to familiar people – like you. Because babies prefer familiar adults, they might react to strangers by crying or fussing, going very quiet, looking fearful or hiding.
Believe it or not, you come home to a crying baby not because he doesn't remember you, or because he's sorry to see you, or because you've fallen out of favor with him. Instead, all those tears mean that he's thrilled to see you (though he's got a heck of a way of showing it).
This is a biological instinct that babies crave their mother's attention. When they see you, they expect you to immediately pay attention to them. Even if you're holding them and trying to comfort them, they may still cry.
According to researchers at Yale University's Infant Cognition Center, also known as “The Baby Lab,” babies can actually tell good from evil, even as young as 3 months old.
And research suggests that babies evaluate people in much the same way, preferring people who like the same foods, clothes, and toys that they like. This preference helps us to form social bonds, but it can also have a dark side.
Your baby might stare and smile because they are happy to see a familiar face, such as a parent or caregiver, or because they are trying to engage or communicate with someone. Babies might also stare and smile because they are mirroring someone who is smiling at them.
3 to 7 months
The precursor stage known as stranger anxiety starts as early as 3 months old, but most commonly occurs at 5 months old. This is when babies first start to recognize the difference between their primary caregivers and other adults.
Babies not only pick up on their mother's stress, but they also show corresponding physiological changes, according to a UC San Francisco-led study.
Studies show that, from the womb, babies respond to their own mom's voice differently than they do to other voices — their heartbeats accelerate, showing they're more attentive, more alert, more in tune with the sound of Mom.
Research has shown that, during pregnancy, your baby feels what you feel—and with the same intensity. That means if you're crying, your baby feels the same emotion, as if it's their own. During the gestational period, your baby is preparing themselves for life in the outside world.
When babies are really young and still learning about the world and their place in it, they might cry just to check that someone is still there protecting them. Over time, older babies may learn that crying leads to attention and crying may become more about wants than needs.
After the first month, however, an infant begins to smile in response to what they see, and what babies like to see most are faces! Researchers believe that these earliest smiles represent the pleasure of the baby recognizing an object (such as Mommy or Daddy) [2].
''Virtually from the day they are born, there is something particularly disturbing to infants about the sound of another infant's cry,'' said Martin Hoffman, a psychologist at New York University. ''The innate predisposition to cry to that sound seems to be the earliest precursor of empathy.
Don't worry, they don't hate you. According to experts, newborn frowning is a sign that the baby wants to take a break from what they're doing or that they're sleepy and tired.
Babies can become very clingy and anxious around new and even familiar people and may cry if suddenly approached by a stranger. While it may be cringe-inducing for you as a parent, it's actually a very normal part of your baby's development.
Babies and toddlers often get clingy and cry if you or their other carers leave them, even for a short time. Separation anxiety and fear of strangers is common in young children between the ages of 6 months and 3 years, but it's a normal part of your child's development and they usually grow out of it.
Relax, it's normal. If baby cries with others (or with anyone but mom), it may be due to attachment, says Webb. Babies often see their primary caregiver as a “home base” of sorts, she explains, and they are only comfortable exploring the world when mom or dad is around.
A further line of evidence relating to infants' facial representations is infants' preference for attractive faces. Infants 2 months of age and older will spend more time looking at attractive faces when these are shown paired with less attractive faces (Langlois et al., 1987; Samuels & Ewy, 1985).
Remember all of this is true while your baby is becoming accustomed to visual and audio cues that represent safety, nourishment, and a smiling face. So, while your little one may simply be distracted, staring at the ceiling can also be a way for your little one to take a break from the stimulus around.
Rapid Eye Movement (REM) or Active Sleep
The vast majority of newborns' smiles during sleep appear to occur when the eyes are moving rapidly, as they would during a dream. Studies suggest that adults smile in response to positive dream imagery.
Human infants, just a few days of age, are known to prefer attractive human faces.
Do Babies Feel Love? In short, yes: Babies do feel love. Even though it will be quite a while before they're able to verbalize their feelings, they can and do understand emotional attachment. Affection, for example can be felt.
For some reason, your daughter has latched onto squeezing your face as a particular way of "connecting" with you. You could think of it as a comforting mechanism or a way of saying hello or her way to convince herself that someone she loves can't turn away and pay attention to something else.