Great décor idea Sixth SENSE

YOUR BABY’S Beyond sight, smell, sound, touch and taste, your baby has another sense – and it helps him figure out the world he lives in and his place in it

Have you noticed that sometimes when you’re going out or having friends over your normally placid baby becomes niggly? We may flippantly call this a sixth sense, but there could actually be something underlying your baby’s distress when you take him to the clinic or when a stranger holds him – his interpretation of “something different is happening and I’m not sure that I like it” may well be a survival instinct based on his five senses, yet it is uniquely independent of them.

ALL IN THE BRAIN

Understanding why your baby is behaving in a certain way and then comforting and reassuring him is a way you can teach him about trust and so his confidence in the world around him grows.

A baby is born with instincts and reflexes. The cerebellum, found at the back of the brain, has nerve fibres that look like the branches of a tree and is aptly called the tree of life (arbor vitae). Without this part of the brain, we would not be able to survive.

The development of a baby’s brain begins as early as five weeks gestation, but its growth and development continues over the next 25 years. After the birth, changes in the brain can be divided into in stages: first to develop is the part that controls movement, which start off as baby’s milestones. Then a baby’s emotions begin to emerge, evidenced by his first smile. Finally the brain learns to think for itself when your baby moves beyond those early survival instincts.

A HIDDEN SENSE

Dr Melodie de Jager from the Babygym Institute in Johannesburg talks about internal and external senses that work together to build trust, confidence and intelligence. External senses come from the famous five: touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. “Internal senses are a group of hidden senses that work together as one integrated system,” she explains. “There are three parts to these senses: body awareness, balance and body sense. No one part can work without the other two. When these two kinds of senses don’t work well together, it leads to emotional, behavioural and learning problems.”

Melodie calls a baby’s sixth sense the sense of movement. It begins in the part of the brain called the cerebellum where motion, muscle tone, coordination, balance and a

sense of space comes from. “This part of the brain is called the survival brain and has three functions: the senses, survival and movement,” says de Jager. “The senses gather all kinds of information from the environment: texture, smells, tastes, sounds and images, and send these to the brain. The primitive brain asks: ‘Do I like it?’ If the answer is yes, the muscles engage and move towards the stimulation. But if the answer is no, the muscles stiffen in fear, and the baby starts crying, withdraws, and avoids touch, eye contact, stimulation and interaction.”

EMOTIONS PLAY A BIG ROLE

“The emotional brain is the caring part of the brain and starts developing in the womb,” says Melodie. Emotions are associated with smell and taste – two of the strongest senses at birth. These help with bonding in the first few weeks of life. “But the greatest emotional growth spurt is between 14 months and four years,” says Melodie. The emotional brain helps your baby to connect with people and the world. It’s also associated with creating and storing memories, as well as fixing and holding attention. As such, your baby’s emotional brain forms the centre of his sixth sense.

THINKING IT OUT

Babies and young children have a long way to go when it comes to being able to think for themselves. They rely mostly on instinct, intuition and repetition – all major elements of the sixth sense. Although a child’s brain has grown to around 95 percent of its adult size by the age of six, the brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. Maturation begins from the cerebellum and moves forwards, affecting the mid-brain during adolescence and finally the frontal lobe (the last part of the brain to develop) by early adulthood.

SIX TO 12 WEEKS

Give your baby a feed, change her nappy and then engage with her during awake time