Getting Sharp: Want a Brainier Baby?

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That's because babies are remarkably attuned to emotions. The best—and easiest—gift a parent can give his or her child is relaxed time when the parent is focused on the baby and follows the baby's lead. If the baby grabs at waxed paper, the adult can repeat the word paper and show him or her how it makes noise or how it can be crumpled. "The infant brain craves novel stimulation, but that can be found in ordinary nonstructured, nonmarketed things around the house," says Ross Thompson, a psychologist at University of California at Davis and one of the founders of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, a research organization of scientists and experts on early-childhood development.

Babies need to learn how to master new situations, but they also learn through repetition and thrive on predictability. "Having rituals, like bedtime and mealtime routines, brings order to babies' lives, which helps them organize their thinking," explains Tamis-LeMonda. Being able to anticipate future events as well as remember and create memories of past patterns fosters cognitive development. "Babies are very good at tracking statistical information in their environment," says Laura Schulz, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at M.I.T. "They're incredibly sensitive to human action and to intentional acts in the world. They watch what people are doing to learn causal connections." Babies will grab the same object over and over, replicating experiences, testing them out, conducting their own experiments. If I smile, will Mommy smile back? Providing babies with consistent actions and reactions helps them make sense of their world and the people in it.

"When a 9-month-old raises his arms to be picked up by Daddy, that demonstrates an incredibly complex chain of learning," says Claire Lerner, director of parent education at Zero to Three, a national nonprofit focused on early-childhood development. "First the child has to have an emotional connection to his father. Then he has to form an idea: I want to be picked up. Then he has to know to raise his arms. In that tiny vignette, you can see how complicated a baby's development is."

And how simple it is to reinforce that learning. Just pick up the baby, and start cuddling.

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