During my years of work as an early childhood therapist, I’ve learned that many parents strongly underestimate the emotional capabilities of their newborn child. A newborn sleeps as long as 18 hours a day during those first few days so it’s easy to understand why parents think that a child doesn’t have much of a personality at this point. It seems like all the baby does is sleep, and then when she’s awake, she’s eating or pooping!

But this isn’t exactly true. When a newborn baby is asleep, it’s best to let that baby sleep. Waking her up can cause some serious issues for the well-being of the adults in the household, and I don’t recommend it. I repeat…I don’t recommend waking a sleeping baby!

But, when baby is awake, she can have a personality. She just needs a little guidance from the adults in her life. Each time that she is awake is an opportunity to really focus on her personality, even if it seems that she doesn’t have one quite yet.

Dr. T. Berry Brazelton has paved the way in teaching new parents exactly what a new baby is capable of. He meets with the parents within a few days of the baby’s birth to let them know what skills a newborn baby has. And when he’s done this, the parents are surprised—some to the point of tears—to learn that their newborn baby is capable of so much more socially than they were going to give her credit for.

One of the things that Brazelton teaches newborn parents is how capable an infant is at mimicking facial expressions. He enters the hospital room of the newborn baby, picks up the baby and holds her up so that she can see his face. And then, he sticks his tongue out at the baby. Then, he gives some encouraging words to the baby like, “Come on baby, you can do it!” And do you know what happens?

That one day old—and sometimes less than one day old—baby, sticks out her tongue!

This is amazing! A one day old child is able to mimic the look or the action on our faces at just one day old! How many of you knew that a newborn baby could do this? Probably none of you! And if you were wrong about that, then you’re probably wrong about some other capabilities of a newborn.

Instead of thinking of this newborn stage as a time where the baby eats, sleeps and poops only, think of these waking hours as an amazing opportunity to learn more about what that baby is capable of emotionally.

Try some of these tips to learn more about your baby’s social capacities and to promote your baby’s emotional development early on.

Tip #1: Model Emotional Expressions

Show your baby many different faces and emotional expressions; some can be happy, some neutral, some silly, and some more serious. See how well she can mimic your facial expression.

Give your baby time to attempt this. She’ll need a lot more time than you to get her muscles to work together to form that expression. Be very lenient on what you count as a mimic. Babies usually don’t smile during the first week, so if she moves her lips into a kind-of smile, that’s good enough! When she accomplishes the task, smile and make a big deal out of what you have just seen, so that she knows she’s done something that makes you proud. Smile, clap and say something like “Yay!”

Tip #2: Talk to Baby

Say positive things in a sing-songy voice that shows her how much you love her. Talking to your baby helps to create an attachment between the two of you. The more you talk to her, the more important she thinks that she is in your life. But even more than that, talking to her introduces her to the words that will increase her vocabulary in the future. The more you talk with her, the more she’s learning—both emotionally and cognitively.

Tip #3: Narrate Baby’s Day

Infants have only one way to communicate, and that’s through crying. When an infant enters the world, she isn’t sure if her needs will be met. When she begins to cry, she may start crying softly, and continue to cry, gaining in intensity until her needs are met.

It’s incredibly important during the first few months of life that you meet every need that you possibly can so that the baby learns that you can be trusted to take care of her. Don’t worry right now about spoiling her. This doesn’t exist for newborn babies. The less you meet her needs, the less trusting she will become which typically results in mental health concerns later in life like anxiety, depression, behavioral concerns and poor attachment in later relationships.

But of course, parents can’t always meet every need instantly. There may be a time lapse between when the baby starts to cry and the time when the parent is able to meet the need, like warming up a bottle for a crying baby.

When you narrate what you are doing for your baby, you start to teach her words to connect with actions that may calm her crying. Each time you prepare a bottle for your baby, tell her exactly what you’re doing: “I’m getting your bottle ready for you baby. I’m warming it up.”

If you are able to do this consistently, in the future, when your baby cries because she is hungry, you’ll likely be able to calm her by saying the word “bottle.” Your baby will hear the word, know that her message was relayed appropriately, and calm down as she awaits her bottle. While her hunger doesn’t disappear, her need to cry does because she now knows that she can trust you to provide her with a bottle any time that she is hungry.

This has a lot of benefits—for you and for baby. Research indicates that excessive crying causes damage to the developing child’s brain. Each time you are able to meet your baby’s need and decrease the amount of time she cries, you are protecting her brain from a stress chemical called cortisol, which is responsible for causing that damage.

Now don’t take this advice to mean that if you’ve tried everything and you still can’t get your child to calm down that she’s damaging her brain forever. Instead, just keep this tidbit of information in your mind to motivate you to calm her crying whenever you can. There will be times when you can’t calm her, like when she has gas or acid reflux, and your comforting arms bring no relief to what she’s feeling. These times will happen, and your child won’t be ruined. Just try your hardest to do what you can to protect that developing brain from stress by calming a crying baby as quickly as possible.

So there you have it: three easy steps to take today to help foster your infant’s emotional development. She’s capable of much more than you give her credit for, and if you follow these three simple tips, then she’ll be capable of much more!