The Baby In The Mirror (a child's world from birth to three) - Charles Fernyhough

This was one of those frustrating reading experiences where an interesting book held my attention throughout, but I forgot most of it as soon as I put it down. I enjoyed the author's attempts to describe life from his infant daughter's point of view (laughing out loud at her initial recognition that her world is populated by two main characters, "a tall person, whose clothes open at the front at mealtimes, and an even taller one, who has no such talent"). A few random pieces of information about babies' cognitive development that have stuck with me are:

• Newborns emerge with a kind of synesthesia, taking a while for the senses to become differentiated (for example, in a study where infants were shown clearly different visual stimuli, there was no difference in the reactions of the visual cortex, but olfactory, auditory and even motor control areas showed differences) - "The smell of her shawl might be a dim flash of light to her. The daylight beyond her eyelids might reach her as a faint hum. She is tasting in colour, smelling in sound. Compared to that, dreaming seems positively mundane."
• Babies are born able to perceive a distinction between things that move like people and things that don't.
• Fat in the diet is massively important in the first few months because it's being used to produce the myelin sheaths that coat nerve cells in the brain and improve communication between them.
• Private speech (i.e. talking to yourself) is extremely positive for problem solving and learning and should not be discouraged.