Your Baby's and Toddler's Sense of Humour
Development of Your Child’s Laughter and Smiles in the Early Years
May 13, 2009
Smiling is the first sign of humour – and the first smile appears by around six weeks. At this age, a baby’s “sense of humour” will tend to show itself in smiling and gurgling games. Laughter comes slightly later – at around three or four months – once the baby’s vocal cords have developed strongly enough for him to laugh.
At this age, physical humour such as tickling will also tend to get a response. Once you’ve played “Round and Round the Garden” a few times, most babies will come to expect a tickle after “one step, two step”, and will show their anticipation by smiling (they will smile or laugh even more if you delay your tickle!)
Peek-a-boo and Fear
Once your baby has passed the six-month milestone, his sense of humour becomes more slapstick. Peek-a-boo is a classic favourite game that’s guaranteed to get a laugh out of even the most solemn eight-month-old. However, the hilarity doesn’t come immediately. At this age, laughter is partly related to fear. Babies will often be slightly anxious when you first start to play peek-a-boo – from their point of view, you’ve simply vanished. However, they soon get the hang of it and realise that it’s perfectly safe as you’re coming right back.
Your eight-month-old is also likely to derive great hilarity from deliberately dropping his toys out of his high- chair, pram or supermarket trolley, waiting for you to pick them up again for him.
Understanding Young Toddler Humour
By his first birthday, your baby will be increasingly mobile, and will enjoy being chased around. His increasingly sophisticated understanding of the world means he will start laughing at incongruities, such as Daddy wearing a nappy on his head. For the same reason, babies of around a year are likely to laugh at lift-the-flap books or books that make noises.
As they develop an ever stronger sense of order and rules, toddlers will also laugh at things that go awry – within safe limits. TV programmes such as the Teletubbies with a strong slapstick element tap right into this vein of small-toddler humour arising from mayhem-within-security.
Older Toddler Word Play and Fun Rhymes
After around eighteen months, your toddler’s language skills will take his sense of humour onto a new level. He’ll become fascinated by hearing and making rhymes and word-games, will laugh when you point to your nose and say it’s your foot, and will become paralytic when you look and look in vain for the thing he’s “hidden” on the rug right in front of you. Then he’ll move onto sophisticated word play and bodily functions until, by the time he starts school, he will be able to tell and understand simple jokes.
How a Baby's Sense of Humour Develops
From six weeks, your baby's sense of humour will be clearly evident. He will initially respond to smiles and tickles, and his sense of humour will become more sophisticated as his language and understanding of the world develop. By the time he starts school, his sense of humour will be well developed, and he will start to understand and tell jokes.
