Once your baby bursts into their first uncontrollable giggle, you will do anything to laugh. Check out our age guide for exactly how to tickle his funny bone. Six-month-old babies are capable of emitting a cheerful belly laugh, and they will chuckle at unfamiliar experiences. Just make sure you laugh and smile too! “Parents need to give their children signals so that they clearly understand: “This is safe and this is fun,” says Dr. Miro. “Deadpan” does not work with babies.
Dr Miro adds that dads tend to be more successful clowns than moms, in part because they tend to be more physical and relaxed. So let yourself go for bananas. That goofy smile on your face will show your little one that you are trying to entertain him and not having a psychotic break. As your child’s brain develops, he will begin to recognize things that are clearly beyond his normal experience. He will find these strange occurrences amusing. Your little one needs some impressive mental gymnastics to figure this out.
First, she needs to know that shoes go on her feet, not her head, a fact she’s learned over the past few months from watching the people around her. In real children’s fashion, everything that is funny once is funny five times in a row. “Parents forget about it because it’s so easy, but if there’s something that makes your child laugh, repeat it,” says Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., author of Playful Parenting. “We adults usually get bored, but for a kid, everything is so new that it can still be funny 20 or 30 times.”