Even when we pushed her on her pram along the pathway to the car park, I will hear grannies sitting at benches of the pathway saying "hey, she is smiling at me".
The recent comment we heard over weekend "Your baby is always with smiles. It must be from both of you since both of you are always smiling. You see, Daddy was smiling just now when swiping his NETs card". Alamak, I was like thinking...what a good salesperson!
Yesterday, Justin papa commented "Baby Claire is a happy baby because she eats and sleeps well."
So what makes a baby so happy?
Seriously, I am not a psychologist or trained in anything like early childhood programmes. I guess it might be the following:
As a marketing lecturer, I taught students on "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs".
From the most basic level, "Physiological", Baby Claire was provided with all the necessities. An example would be good nutritious food. I can proudly said that she was exposed to many different fruits and vegetables before the age of 1 year. Now, she started to eat chopped broccoli and cauliflower instead of those puree form. Working full-time is challenging to prepare lunches and dinners for your kid. Thus, this may not be possible if I didn't do batch freezing once every 2-3 weeks.
I also agree with hubby that she has good sleep. At 13months old, she still sleep around from 7.30p.m to 7a.m and has around total of 2 hours of nap time during day time. I guess Baby Claire benefited from the sleep training given to her when she was 6 months old.
What makes a baby happy again?
We believe is the support from our family and friends.
Next two levels, "Safety" and "Belonging-love". Baby Claire has lots of love, hugs and kisses everyday.
She has very doting grandma and grandpa who selflessly look after and care for her. Baby Claire particularly loves to stick to grandma and "bullies" grandma to ask her to carry her around frequently.
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And of course, our niece, Chriselle who loves to visits and play with her.
So why our baby is happy?
Definitely we cannot forget the lots of fun, tickles and laughter at home.
For the last two levels, "Self-esteem" and "Self-actualization" should be harder to achieve though we are doing little things like praising her when she is able to climb down from the sofa. Yah!! she is now able to climb down the sofa after I guide her like 3 times.
This article from BabyCenter mentioned about different ways to build self-esteem for our kids. Simple ways for example if your kid did something wrong, instead of saying "you are naughty", we need to try to say things to focus on the behaviour instead of the person, "the book is now torn and we are not able to read stories from it" ~ interesting reading.
Have fun making a happy baby!
Cheers,
Deariebearmommie
