Category: video

9 week old baby laughing with daddy
Graph of ages when babies start laughing.

Results from our survey showed that some babies start laughing very early.  Parents have reported laughter in the first few months. However, many babies laugh a lot later. This makes many people skeptical that these very young babies really are laughing. I think that parents know their own babies far better than anyone else. If parents are reporting that their babies are laughing then I believe them.

Mind you, it is worth noting that there is no ‘right age’ for a baby to start laughing. Finding a wide range of ages for babies first doing things is quite common. Young babies have an awful lot on their plate and they all take their own individual route through development. Some walk ‘early’, some walk ‘late’ while the opposite could hold for talking. 

Here’s a video submission from Resica and her family showing her daughter laughing at 9 weeks old.

It’s great to see a laughing baby page as I have been curious about my baby’s smiles and laughs. Failing the old wives tale my little daughter (now 12 weeks) started smiling at 11 days, she would smile at times on request specially for taking pics and when she was 9weeks she was laughing hard with my husband. She is twelve now and we get lots of laughter sessions from her. Here is the video when she first laughed

Niana laughing at 9 weeks old.

Thanks to Resica, Niana & Niana’s daddy for sharing the video.

If you have a laughing baby you’d like to share, please submit a video.

But by weird and happy coincidence in April this year C&G Baby Club called Lauren up saying they wanted her help to make ‘scientifically proven happy song for babies’.  Lauren called me and, of course, we said yes.  With help of FELT music consultancy, they recruited Grammy winner Imogen Heap as the composer and Michael J Ferns and Pretzel Films to film it.
It was a frantic summer but we are very happy with the final song. And while the song is great but you should start by watching the Making of.. video.

Ready?

Thanks to all the mums, dads and babies who helped with the project. We couldn’t have done it with our small army of tiny music consultants.
Please let us know if it makes your little ones happy too.

The most popular post on this blog is the one that asks ‘Should we tickle babies?‘ A lot of adults don’t like being tickled and babies can’t easily defend themselves. Perhaps we shouldn’t do it. Well, as this video of 9 month old baby Jaxton shows very clearly, babies really do enjoy being tickled. But they will also let you know once it gets a bit too much for them.

Thank you to Stacie, Jaxton and the rest of their family for sharing their video.

In several years of running the Baby Laughter project, I’ve been sent some wonderful and remarkable videos of laughing babies. This video of three month old Callan is one of the best ever. Our research into baby laughter asks two simple questions; what makes babies laugh and why do they laugh. The answer to the first question is clear. Above all else it is people that make babies laugh. Laughter is first and foremost about social connection. We laugh in company, we laugh to share things.

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people” – Victor Borge

But why laughter. Well, I think part of the answer comes from seeing that for babies, laughter and tears are two sides of the same coin. They are their first forms of communication. Tears say ‘make this stop’, laughter says ‘please continue’. This is obvious for crying but less so for laughter. But, as the millions upon millions of laughing babies on youtube show us, there is something very compelling about baby laughter too. Babies need to learn about the world and within that, the biggest mystery is other people. Baby laughter captures our attention and makes us give the baby our full attention. It is no coincidence that the most popular thing to make a baby laugh is the game of peek-a-boo. It is pure social interaction, and for a baby, pure learning. This is something incredibly important to a baby. They need as much human interaction as they can get. And laughter is their way of persuading us to give it to them. And guess what, it makes you laugh too. Laughter serves a very important role for the baby and it is present from very early in life. So to me, although this video is completely remarkable, it is not entirely unexpected. The video was sent in by his dad, Davide and filmed by his mum Sara.

Thanks to Davide, Sara and Callan.

Many of the videos submitted to the Baby Laughter project suggests that babies find dogs much more funny than cats. But perhaps not this baby… And does the beagle feel guilty for stealing the baby’s toy or is just trying to get it to play fetch like this optimistic labrador? More Baby

Tiny Nina is only 11 weeks old but she’s already getting in on the family jokes. Here we see her laughing at the antics of her 4 year old brother. Who is, of course, more than willing to play the fool. Also present and enjoying themselves are her mother and her grandmother. This nicely illustrates how laughter is universal across generations. A more subtle point than you might imagine.   

The cognitive differences between a 4 year old and a baby is just as dramatic  as between an adult and a child. There’s an equal gulf to bridge. But whereas we adults can make a conscious effort to come down to a child’s level.  It is beyond the sophistication of pre-schooler to act so deliberately. But they do have an intuitive ability to empathise and connect with tiny babies (and pets). Making his little sister laugh is tremendously empowering for the four year old.  He knows he is also gaining kudos from his mother and grandmother. No wonder he’s happy and laughing along too.

Nina is still too young to appreciate that she’s make the others laugh but she isn’t too young to connect with them. She’s laughing with her brother not at him. She’s laughing precisely because he’s very familiar to her.  So the strange things he’s doing aren’t scary.  As Darwin perceptively noted, a baby who laughs when a loved one tickles them  would burst into tears if the same was done by a stranger. Thanks to Nina and her whole family for the video.

Handle With Care from ticktockrobot on Vimeo.

New born babies – Handle With Care is an entertaining instructional by animator, director and first-time father Jun Iwakawa. New parents are confronted with an overwhelming amount of advice at a time when they are already overwhelmed by the little alien that has just landed in their lives. No doubt that is how Jun Iwakawa felt at first. But he and his new family survived without losing their sense of humour.

Our latest laughing baby comes from Naveen and features his wife gently teasing his five month old son Daksh:

In this video, my son (Daksh) is featured. every time his mom scares him to eat him away, he innocently laughs at her. This is so cute. On a hindsight, I tend to think that our lives should be like a kid’s life which is free from worries, and is innocent, cute and always happy. I quite agree that it would be wonderful if we could retain some of the sheer joy that babies possess. It is not alway easy but fortunately, laughing babies help us laugh too.

Thank you , Naveen and much happiness to you, your wife and son.