Where's your smile?

My little girl has been a happy baby from Day 1. Always content and always smiling. It has always made my day when I look at her little face and see her beaming back at me. I thought that was just common sense, but science confirmed it. Apparently, when a mother sees her baby smile (and only her baby, not just any baby), it lights up the reward centres of the mother's brain. [On a side note, the article mentions that the researchers are planning to further analyze their data to see if they can detect differences in the responses of women based on their different styles of attachment to their babies - I'll have to keep my eye out for those results!].  

Although I thought it was obvious that a smiling baby makes her mother happy, I also found it interesting because of some reading I did a while ago about the development of the Female Brain in Louann Brizendine's book. Apparently, baby girls (more so than baby boys) are very tuned into facial expressions and emotions. According to the book:

Baby girls are born interested in emotional expression. They take meaning about themselves from a look, a touch, every reaction from the people they come into contact with. From these cues they discover whether they are worthy, lovable, or annoying. But take away the signposts that an expressive face provides and you've taken away the female brain's main touchstone for reality...

...They interpret an emotionless face that's turned toward them as a signal they are not doing something right...

... You can imagine, then, the negative impact on a little girl's developing sense of self of the unresponsive, flat face of a depressed mother - or even one that's had too many Botox injections.

So there is a cycle. I smile, that makes her happy and secure. She smiles, that makes me happy. And we keep smiling and smiling.

But now she's not smiling. Not as much as she used to in any case. Maybe she is still getting over being sick last week. Maybe she's teething. Maybe the frustration of toddlerhood is settling in. Maybe she's bored. Maybe she doesn't like the food we offer her. Maybe those mosquito bites are still bugging her. Maybe its too hot outside. Maybe she wishes mommy didn't have to go to work. Maybe it is a bit of all of those things.

But whatever it is, I miss her always being happy and I know that the almost constant whining gets me down, which I'm sure she can see in my facial expression, which would make her even less likely to smile.

So I'll try to smile, despite the whining and despite not getting a smile in return, in hopes that with time, whatever is bugging her will resolve itself and the smiles will return.

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[If you catch me humming the El]

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[Childhood Anxiety]

[...] at maternal depression, but not paternal depression. While there is certainly evidence to show that babies are happier if their primary caregiver is happy, I think it is important in this day and age, especially in Quebec, where the study was done where [...]