Infants / Child Recognizing Parents

Factual Questions
1

I’m writing a story and seeing that I don’t have kids, I’d like some feedback from parents

Basically it’s about a child that’s taken from his parents

My first question is, how soon after a baby is born, does it come to recognize it’s mother and father. I’m assuming, and correct me if I’m wrong, an infant will be able to recognize his mother before his father.

I also realize there are no hard and fast rules, but how soon would a baby know its mother from a nurse or from neighbor holding him? Same for father.

Now my second part of the question is this

How old or at what stage in a baby’s development could you remove a baby from his mother and/or father, and have him grow up and not remember that he was taken away.

I remember a friend of mine, who’s African American had a little baby and I was so excited one day when he called me Mark. I said “Oh Angie look he knows my name.” And she replied “No, Mark he calls any white man Mark.” :slight_smile:

My memories generally go back to age 4, though I do remember one incident that happend when I was 3. But I think taking a baby from it’s mother/father would be traumatic enough that he would at least have a vague notion something was off.

Or perhaps not, as I said, I don’t have kids.

So I guess for this part of the question I’m looking for the latest age or stage in a baby’s developement you could remove him and have the kid not recall anything.

2

I only know the first question. At about 3 months of age, babies begin to understand the concept of objects being unique, and begin to realize that their parents are not the same as a neighbor or grandparent. My son is about 4 months old now, and one week he was happily held by anyone, grandparent, greatgrandparent, great aunt, neighbor, whoever. A couple of weeks later, a guest comes over and he’s immediately unhappy, the week after that my mother comes over and he’s uncertain about her, too. A definite change in personality that only applied to “strangers”.

3

Making strange seems to happen around 3 or 4 months. That is also around the time they can outwardly start to show signs that they are acknowledging the world around them. They can turn their heads towards sounds and focus on objects and smile. Before that all you have is the crying when upset and the sleeping or dazed starring when comfortable.

oh and the occasional gas smile which is often mistaken for a real smile in the early stages.