Why the baby who doesn’t cue a lot needs extra attention

This article is part of a collection inside The Possums Sleep Program called Deeper Dive, which explores the more complex scientific, historical and social contexts in which families and their babies or toddlers live and sleep. You don't need to read Deeper Dive articles to be helped by The Possums Sleep Program.

Most babies communicate when they need attention. That is, they dial up. Most babies assert their cues into your days so actively that you might even wish your baby was a little less good at communicating at times!

But babies have different personalities. A small number of babies don't dial up much, or only give you very subtle communications or cues. It’s important to pay extra attention to these little ones who don’t cue much. They need a loving adult to make time to wait and watch and look out for their subtle communications, regularly throughout the day.

Of course, you or the carer will have been lovingly attending to your baby’s physical needs minute after minute, hour after hour, day and night! But this is different. This is specially creating opportunities to notice even the tiniest expressions and gestures. This is making the time to watch carefully (as you admire your tiny child’s beautiful little face and being!) and wait for your baby to direct small gestures, facial expressions, or sounds towards you - so that you can respond back. Your responses encourage your baby to be the first one to start communications more often.

The little ones who don’t cue much are at risk of not initiating as much communication over the course of a day, which means they can tend to miss out, over time, on lots of the richness of building back and forth communications (also known as reciprocity chains) together.

If you think your baby isn’t interacting much with you and you're worried about it, I recommend that you speak to your local GP.