Your Baby’s Mind Explained: Cognition, Memory & More

When you look at your little one, it’s easy to think there's not much going on just yet. Your baby is completely reliant on you, after all, and they might not even be able to hold their head up.

The reality is that your baby is smarter than you think. Their minds are diligently working to make sense of the world around them and form early memories – but there’s so much you can do to make this easier for them.

If you're not quite sure where to start, keep reading for a quick summary of:

• Your baby’s amazing memory,
• Your baby's cognitive development process, and 
• The reasoning behind why we play *this* particular age-old game with babies
  

The Importance Of Memory 

When babies are born, so many things are new to them. In fact, their mother’s voice might be the one thing they can remember from utero – and this sound is often calming.

Forming memories is one of the first steps to cognitive development and babies are doing this before they’re even born. While they might not remember these memories as they get older, the experiences they have are used as stepping stones to more cognitive abilities, like language and reasoning. 

Your Baby’s Mind Revealed

While some may not believe in the power of interacting with babies before they're born, research says otherwise. 

Researcher Dr. Anthony DeCasper and colleagues at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro performed a study where they asked a group of pregnant women to read Dr. Seuss’ story, The Cat in the Hat, twice a day during the last 6 weeks of pregnancy. 

Then, within hours of birth, each of their babies was given a choice: Do they want to listen to a tape of their mother reading the story they'd heard, or a different Dr. Seuss story?

The results showed, signalled by the babies changing their sucking on a pacifier, that they strongly preferred the familiar story. While their mom may not be seen before birth, she is certainly heard!

How To Increase Your Baby's Cognition

As you probably guessed, there isn’t one single way to build your baby’s cognition, but memory-building, bonding and repetition activities are a great place to start. 

Most importantly, babies need to be in a calm alert state to absorb information. If they’re stressed about anything, they’re not going to learn. That’s why bonding and helping your little one feel safe is the first step to supporting your baby’s mind.

And here is one of the most basic parent-baby activities you can start doing as soon as they're 2 months old  (read on to learn why it helps them develop).

Peek-a-boo: A Cognitive Game

Babies love a good game of a peek-a-boo and it’s heart-warming to see your little one’s face light up. But what you might not know is that this game is building your child’s cognition and creating great memories.

You see, babies don’t know that objects continue to exist when they can’t be seen (this is called object permanence), making peek-a-boo especially exhilarating. It’s puzzling to your child that your face can just disappear and then reappear. 

Little ones enjoy the repetition of the words coupled with the unpredictability of waiting for “boo!” It makes their little brains pick up on patterns as they remember how long you waited to say “boo!” last time. I know you've played it before, but try it again with this knowledge in mind, and you might find it even more rewarding.

This is just one of many activities you can play with your child to increase their cognition and supplement their memory development. If you want to learn more ways that will support their early stages of growth, check out my free play guides.