Hearing

During the last three months in the uterus a baby will have been hearing a variety of different noises. By the time a baby is born, he will already be familiar with his mother's voice, the beating of her heart, and the sound of the amniotic fluid in which he has been floating.

His ability to hear at birth is almost as good as an adult's. His hearing threshold, however, is lower so your baby will be startled by loud, unfamiliar noises, although he will probably sleep happily through a constant loud sound such as a blaring television or loud musk.

A very young baby will prefer to hear rhythmic noises that may not seem soothing to you: the noise of a washing machine or tumble dryer, the hum of the vacuum cleaner or hair dryer. These will probably reassure him and may even lull him to sleep, perhaps because he heard such sounds before birth and he finds them both comforting and familiar.

Your own child will quickly associate you and your voice with comfort - it is thought that an infant of only a few days old can actually recognize his mother's voice. Your baby will respond to all the human voices he hears and will turn towards the sound of people talking and appear to listen intently. If he is being spoken to in the exaggerated, high pitched tone, and rhythmic singsong manner, known as "motherese" that adults often instinctively adopt for babies, you will notice that your baby pays particular attention. He may even lose interest if the speaker reverts to a normal tone.

It is through hearing others speak that your baby will eventually learn to form the words which will make up early vocabulary. He will start to understand what is being said long before he can actually make the noises himself; if he has a hearing defect this knowledge and the eventual ability to speak will be affected. As your baby gets older he will start looking for the source of the different sounds that he hears and will respond with obvious pleasure to familiar voices, words, and tunes.