Isn’t it the best when your child laughs? It never gets old. On the web, tons of “laughing baby videos” go viral. Baby laughing at the sound of a crinkling newspaper. (Newspapers don’t make that sound! That’s funny!) Or baby laughing at daddy making a goofy face. (He doesn’t usually look like that!) Everybody loves to see a laughing baby.
Humor is basically a form of intellectual play, and children have an innate tendency to have fun with newly developed ideas.
Babies who are six months old to around 12 or 15 months will find any unusual behavior of a parent very funny. One mother said she noticed that her baby was having trouble getting milk from the bottle. Figuring the nipple was clogged, the mom just popped the bottle into her own mouth to check and see. The baby, watching mommy, laughed as soon as he saw the bottle in his mother’s mouth. Mommy doesn’t drink from a bottle. That’s funny!
What else do babies find funny? You probably have your own stories, such as that time when daddy walked like a penguin across the floor or when grandpa mooed like a cow. Eventually, maybe around 15 months or so, a child will have the capacity to treat an object as if it’s something else. This could be for pretend play or it might be for humor! Have you ever seen your one-year-old put a bowl on her head and laugh? You can almost hear her thoughts: “This bowl is a hat, Mommy!” Have you ever seen your two-year-old use a shoe as a phone?
It’s interesting to learn what makes babies laugh – and to find out that adults have the same tendency, to laugh at something when it’s done in a different manner. But most of all, laughter is a fun way to bond with our child.
