Conversational Rhythm with Your Baby

I was reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell and came across a few interesting points for parents to consider.

Chapter Two - The Law of the Few

"...Two people may arrive at a conversation with very different conversational patterns. But almost instantly they reach a common ground. We all do it, all the time. Babies as young as one or two days old synchronize their head, elbow, shoulder, hip, and foot movements with the speech patterns of adults. Synchrony has even been found in the interactions of humans and apes. It's part of the way we are hardwired."

When I was reading this, I began to think back on all the conversations I've had around Nathaniel. He's 68 days now, so I've must've already had hundreds of conversations with different people around him. Naturally, my wife and I converse at a fast pace. Could this be why our little son moves around so much? He is already moving around like a 4 month old. We are anticipating he'll be able to start rolling around very shortly. I don't know if speech patterns contributed to his motor skills, but I would say that it is very much in sync with the pace of the conversations he's mostly around.

I guess reading this passage reiterated the importance of something we hear all the time. READ TO YOUR BABY. No matter how young they may be, 1 or 2 days old, setting aside some time to read to your baby would give you the opportunity to have a nice conversation and teach him some moves.