Joanna Fortune: My baby grandson hardly smiles and seems serious 

Your grandchild’s personality is still developing. He is constantly learning, with most changes happening in his social and emotional right brain.

At this age, we are our children’s teachers and best playmates. Our singing, dancing, clapping and swaying with them is all the play they need.

We should ensure they are close to us so they can see our facial expressions, hear the musicality of our voices and move with us. When outdoors (and the more, the better), name what you see, hear, smell, and touch. Support him in engaging fully with the environment and world around him and those in it.

He is at stage one of developmental play: sensory, messy, tactile play. Also, around this time, children discover they are separate from others and that there’s a world outside and around them.

This stage is about boundaries and limits and an awareness a trusted adult is in charge who will take care of you and meet your needs.

So, ensure your grandchild has access to lots of messy play (sand, water (supervised), bubbles, making ‘music’ on the pots and pans or shaking dry pasta in a box) and give him things like cardboard boxes to play with as a box is a literal container with an inside/outside that mirrors the embodied learning at this stage of his development.

It also acts like ‘a skin’ that contains him and marks where he ends, and the world and other people begin.

Being a young baby approaching toddlerhood is a serious business, and I wouldn’t worry if he seems to be a serious child.

Focus on play and connection and give him time to find his preferred way to express himself. There is a value to being in the right-here-right-now moment with him, so try to stop yourself from projecting into the future. He is developing every day — he is changing every day. It’s exciting and special and not to be missed.

Play tip for young children: take opportunities to ‘toes and nose your baby or young toddler’ such as when changing nappies, bathing, and dressing. 

You do this by bringing your nose to their nose, rubbing them together, and making a beeping noise as they touch, or playing gently with their toes, for example, ‘This little piggy went to market’.

• You might find this episode of my podcast interesting to listen to exa.mn/15-minute-toddler-play.
• If you have a question for child psychotherapist Dr Joanna Fortune, please send it to parenting@examiner.ie