Baby Behaviour

Baby behaviour isn’t about making your little one lie quietly in her cot. It’s about trying to establish some basic rules of what’s acceptable and what's not.

Babies may not initially understand the message you’re trying to get across but as long as you’re patient they will eventually. The important thing is to lay some behavioral foundations which you can build on as your child grows older.

Don’t leave it too late
If you don’t start teaching you baby to behave properly from the outset you will have real problems later on. Although you should obviously treat you baby very gently, you must help her understand the difference between good behaviour and bad behaviour.

Remember she is only a baby
As we touched on above, you should always remember how young and vulnerable babies are. They have very little capacity to understand so trying to punish them for bad behaviour is completely pointless as well as extremely unfair.

Tell her no
The most effective tool you can use to make your baby behave is the word no. Although babies have very little brain power, they are able to understand when mummy isn’t happy with them. By using the word no whenever they do something wrong, a baby will quickly realise what they should and shouldn’t do. However, there’s little point saying no with a great big smile on your face. If you send her mixed messages she will never learn the difference between right and wrong.

Don’t connect crying with behaving
Many people wrongly assume a well behaved baby is a quiet baby. Crying has absolutely nothing to do with good or bad behaviour. Babies cry because it’s their only of telling you they need something. It’s simply their method of communication.

Consistency is the best method. Enforce a rule, for example "No climbing or jumping on the furniture, it's for sitting" show them what you mean, and than every time they jump or climb on the furniture, give them 2 warnings...they usually get it before the 2nd warning