this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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There's tons of interaction happening. You're teaching her the world right now. You're teaching her what safety and comfort feel like. What it feels like to be unconditionally loved. What it feels like to have new experiences, which she's having at a rate that would leave an adult human's brain lying in a puddle.
Don't mistake her inability to communicate in a way that's familiar to you as a lack of communication. It's your job to interpret her communications. Every arm and leg wiggle, every eye blink, every coo and fart and startle.
Hopefully you and your wife are taking turns interacting with her when she's awake (while the other works or rests). The more you talk to her, touch her, hold her, move her arms and legs around, etc., the more her brain will grow and make connections and reinforce and prune and become your daughter to be.
As for my favorite time? It's this time. Tomorrow it will be that time. Hopefully without sounding too judgy, looking back and calling some prior time with your kids as "better" does a disservice to the kids in front of us today who need us to do our best work for them today.
Some of this yes. Some of this no.
This is the no. First of all, at this phase the child is a synesthete. The arm and leg wiggles are not communication but stimulus response. Espying the color red may be why the leg wiggled. While delightful to a parent, don't make more of it than it is.
Also, they cannot coo at this stage. You may have confused the social smiling/cooing phase for what the OP is commenting on. The OP is referring to far earlier in development.
The startles are reflexive. The Morrow reflex. It is also not communication. It is just an instinct hardwired in to a primate brain to prevent newborn death by putting the primate newborn in a position to grab on to an adult's body fur and thus prevent falling to their death.
I find this phase personally delightful because you get to see the human BIOS on which their person operating system is shortly to be installed, but it is absolutely okay for people not to, just like some computer enthusiasts love a BIOS and others don't. So long as one isn't neglectful, it is okay to not be enthralled.
This sounds incredibly judgy, the whole thing. Garbage like this is what causes parental anxiety and guilt. It's okay to not cherish every moment, it's okay to not enjoy whatever developmental stage your child is experiencing. Not enjoying things does not mean you're not showing up and doing your "best work" for you children.