It's a pure delight to hear your baby laughing for the first time - laughter is a milestone that babies reach at around 8 weeks. Babies cannot distinguish 'object permanence' until towards their first birthday. This means that they do not believe that something exists unless they can see it. They delight in peek-a-boo and other games where you show a toy and then hide it. To them, the toy, or your face, is suddenly appearing from nowhere! Babies also cannot distinguish between reality and animation, so animate a teddy or puppet in front of them whilst singing a song in a silly voice and they will believe that the teddy really is singing. Of course, one of the old favorites for making your baby laugh is to blow raspberries on their tummy. The combination of a funny noise with a tickling sensation leads to uncontrollable laughter. The innocence of such uncontrollable laughter is a joy to hear! Why not play some of these games whilst changing your baby and turn this into an enjoyable experience?

Laughter has been proven to improve your immune system and help relieve stress.  Research has found a number of biological benefits, all pointing to increased activity in the immune system and an overall decrease in stress hormones.  I've talked before about the development of humor in children, but given the positive benefits of laughter and humor, there really is a good excuse to make your babies laugh, and for you to laugh along with them!   You'll see smiles at around 6 weeks, proper laughter kicks in a little later at 3 -4 months.  Make sure that you nurture humor, and make your kids' laughter infectious!

It's a real joy to hear your babies and toddlers laughing. As children grow, the things that make them laugh change. At 6 - 12 months, babies will laugh at you if you do unusual things, like pretending to drink from their bottle, waddling like a penguin, or making funny animal noises. Between a year and three years, children will laugh at objects used in unusual ways, such as putting your shoes on your hands, using a shoe as a telephone or balancing a book on your head. Later, from around 2 - 3 years, children will laugh at things that you say that don't make sense. You can make up words that sound funny, or misname objects, calling a cat a dog, a car an aeroplane and so on. Making children laugh helps them to build confidence in the world, and will bring you the greatest pleasure. See what makes your children laugh today...!