In our survey of baby laughter we asked parents for ‘field’ reports of things that had recently made their babies laugh. Babies it seems are easily amused:
- he started yawning, and I imitated his yawning. he laughed.
- She was just about to wake up and when she opened her eyes she saw her brother. She immediantly started to giggle – he too.
- I was drying him and putting on his nappy after bathtime and for some reason just started spouting made up nonsense words in a silly “do-be-do” voice. He just cracked up.
- Dad sneezed – cue massive giggling…then 5 mninutes of dad saying atchooo which gave him absolute hysterics…he hasn’t laughed for such a long time before. If I said atchooo it got a little giggle but not quite as big a laugh as when dad did it.
- My 1yo daughter is obsessed with climbing up the stairs at the moment. My son ran ahead of her and hid in our bedroom, then jumped out periodically and shouted ‘There you are!’ Daughter found this hysterical and after the first time, waited expectantly for him to jump out, whereupon she would cackle like a witch.
- Making silly faces makes my 6-month old baby laugh, especially if they come as a surprise. A classic is when I smell my baby’s feet and make a silly face pretending it smelled bad and then I smile and say in a baby voice something like ‘ooooh, it doesn’t smell goooooood’. It works every time. Also grabbing his arms and pretending he’s clapping, or playing piano etc he loves that. But recently it’s more unexpected silly face or gestures, yesterday he laughed a lot when his sister fell in front of him, she was jumping and talking to him (she’s 4) and then tripped, he laughed so much (she was laughing as well).
- Our baby peaked over the top of the railing on his crib by pulling himself up onto his knees, which is a new skill he has figured out. As I walked past the door opening he would laugh each time he’d catch a glimpse of me.
- I was born in Serbia and I have a roling R. Our baby would start laughing without stopping when I mentioned any word with R.
- He was playing with his speaking alphabet electronic toy and pressed letter B, toy says “letter B says baaaa” and he started to laugh baaahahahaha, and he kept doing it again and again about 6 times
- On the swing. I grab her feet as she swings to me saying, “I caught your feet”, or “knobbly knees” as I catch her by the knees and swing her again. Any phrase works if my tone is happy! This will produce proper laughter for about 10mins and then the novelty wears off and she wants to get out. I think she likes that she knows what is coming as she begins to laugh with expectation before I catch her. If I stop she will request the game again by wiggling and pointing to her feet.
- We had some big sheets of packing paper, and every time we ripped the paper the baby burst into laughter. My husband held the baby in his lap while I ripped the paper, and he just kept laughing over and over for several minutes. In between rips he would be calm and quiet, but his laughter at the rips kept getting bigger and more excited.
- I looked at baby, shook my hair into my face and then said “boo”. Baby thought I was the funniest thing since red skeleton.
- She made some baby babbling noises that sounded like “tickletickletickle” as she was playing, but were more nonsense sounding. I repeated the sounds and tones that she made and she thought that was hilarious. She thinks it’s funny when I repeat her babbling to her especially if it is a new sound or tone that she has discovered.
- Baby was sitting with mommy on the floor. The dog came over to visit and was sniffing the baby and kissing her. When her whiskers would rub the baby, the baby would giggle.
- We were playing one of our predictable games. It’s called “and then we have a mush”. I use a certain tone to list some of the things we can see, and then we have a mush (a cuddling, tickling cozy up). She initiates this game, by using a sidelong glance, a verbal approximation of the list making tone, and then diving toward me with her head. She’ll laugh like anything when we mush.
- we kept playing this game, I pretend that I’m not looking at her, so she yells at me, and when I look at her she laughs out loud, and then I go back to pretending that I’m not paying attention, she yells… and so on! we kept playing this game for like 2 minutes 😀
- I n the baby were coloring and i picked a handful of crayons in my hands and he asked me to put all the color’s back..and i told him i wont..bt he was firm on askin me to put them down..suddenly i opened my hands and let the crayons smash n the ground and he started laughing..laughing hard..!! The second incident of him laughing which surprised me was that he inserted a paint brush in his nostrils and started laughing..!!
- father was jus laughing and making his volume high low and when he wud suddenly laugh loudly and go near the baby by jerking himself the baby wud start laughing too
- She laughts many times in the day, when we frighten her, when we try to reach her when she is crawling, when she is watching the TV. The better is when I am asleep, and then I open my eyes, and I see her, and she laughts to guffaw.
- There were many instances my baby laughed. Here are few: 1) Daddy was making hand gestures depicting “BIG” (ex. big balloon, big building, big house) She laughed everytime her daddy will put his hands in the air and then saying “BiG BALLOON”, “BIG dog” etc. We were surprised that made her laugh so we would do it often and she will always have an amazing laughter. 2) We were watching a children’s program and she laughed and laughed ( I think it was becuase of the sound effects the characters made) 3)”Peek-a-boo” always do the trick! 4) Making animal sounds especially the dog sound (arf arf/ aw aw). I t ried doing other animal sounds but she would just smile. But if it is the dog sound, she will surely laugh. I think if you make something sound funny or happy, the baby will laugh. I was singing the alphabet to her in a funny and happy manner and she will laugh!
- Was watching TV, suddenly started laughing at a character in a movie,when he started saying numbers 1 to 10 in Hindi (it was a comedy sequence). He laughs suddenly at many things, such as my husband wearing a cap, throwing ball in the ceiling, sneezing, etc. Many of these things does not work second time, except very few.
- She was on her back. I nuzzled and kissed her on her cheek which made her laugh. It’s almost like a tickle on her cheek.
- I saw my baby, then turn my face another way and suddenly turn my face again to him and said buuu!!! So he started to laugth.
- She saw her brother and started laughing.
- The babysitter & our baby just returned from the usual 7am to 8am walk, and were just approaching the dining table, where my husband and I were. Our baby started laughing her head off when her father smiled at her. My husband approached her and made funny faces, and she continued to laugh.
- I feel like he’s growing up too soon for my liking so, i carried him like a new born baby. I then sang Rock-a-bye-Baby while swaying side to side playfully. Whenever I’d reached the words “top”, “rock”, “fall” and “all” I’d suddenly let him drop a few inches from where I’m holding him (falling w/ my arms still around him). Every time he’d drop, he would laugh. Laughter that was relaxed and gentle, like a giggle. Then a smile while anticipating the next drop.
- The baby was taking the bath, I was washing her and suddenly her father showed up at the open doors. Baby first got scared because somebody suddenly appeared in her sight but next moment she was laughing in voice from ear to ear.
- when i talkde to him and smile to him he respond to me with smiling
- he laugh when i look at him straight to the eye
- One of my twin daughters started making a ‘s’ noise. I copied her. She repeated the noise and I copied again. This made her giggle.
- i was watching TV and she was beside trying to sleep , when i turn my face from the TV to look at her she laugh loudly . so i started to play with her , to look at the tv and suddenly look at her surprised as if she is doing something, she laugh after 🙂
- my wife was in the bathroom…I decided I needed to spend more time with my daughter…I went upstairs and since I like the dark I started playing “cama casa” in Spanish means “bed house” and I held up a blanket that made us seem in our own small playhouse in the dark and she laughed and smiled and now she is more confident with me and we do this every day now and it is developing our relationship this ‘cama casa’ with daddy
- We were sitting at the piano, he on my knee. He was banging the keys, which I allow him to do. I no longer allow him to wiggle the little brass things that hold the music open on the music stand on the front of the piano, because the little brass things are getting loose. He knows he’s not allowed to, so he put his hands towards them, stopped, and looked up at me and laughed. He made no attempt to actually wiggle them – he was just pretending to do so for fun.
