When Do Babies Start Laughing? A Guide to Your Baby's First Giggle
Giggles and gurgles…a wonderfully infectious sound that brings about immediate smiles and giggles in return. When your baby starts giggling, you just don’t want it to end. Here's a guide to your baby's first giggle.
The 6-Week Smile
One of the first major milestones in an baby’s life is the so-called-6-week-smile. It provides the much-needed motivation for exhausted parents to persevere through the whirlwind of tasks and sleep deprivation. The smile eventually develops into giggles or laughs at around 4 months.
Timetable of Humour Development
- Social Smiling: 5-9 weeks
- Laughter in response to Physical Stimulation: 3 months
- Laughter in response to Social Games: 3 months
- Laughter in response to Visual Events: 7-9 months
- Humour Creation: 9-11 months
- Clowning (Creating absurd events): 10 months
Types of Humour Indicators
Researchers at the University of Bristol found that there are more than 20 types of humour that seem to emerge on a developmental timeline as young as 0 months. These types of humour indicators included:
- Copying jokes
- Chasing and tickling
- Peek-a-boo style surprises
- Silly faces
Researchers found that roughly half of the babies showed an appreciation for humour by 2 months old. Furthermore, by 11 months old, half of the babies that participated in the study began to experiment with making their own jokes.
Interestingly, babies under the age of 12 months appeared to be attracted to physical comedy more than verbal. So, peek-a-boo, chasing and tickling, funny faces and absurd use of common objects etc. would elicit more of a reaction/the biggest response from them.
Keeping Your Baby Happy
At Huggies® we know that a comfortable baby is a happy baby. We want to keep your baby as happy as can be at the bottom, so that it leads to more giggles at the top! Huggies® Extra Care and Pure Wipes are our ultimate skincare routine. Designed to keep baby’s skin happy, healthy, and protected.
