When do babies start smiling?

Reflex smiles vs the real thing

Newborns smile from birth — in their sleep, mid-feed, after wind — but these are reflexes, not communication. The social smile is different: your baby sees your face or hears your voice, and smiles at you, often with their whole face and body joining in. It typically arrives between 6 and 8 weeks, conveniently timed with the 6–8 week health review.

How to invite more of them

Babies smile earliest and most at high-contrast, animated faces at close range — about 20–30cm, roughly feeding distance. Face-to-face time with exaggerated expressions, pauses for baby to respond, and imitating the sounds they make all build the back-and-forth that smiling grows from.

If smiles are late

Premature babies work to their due date, not their birth date — a baby born four weeks early may reasonably smile at 10–12 weeks. If there's no social smiling by around 10–12 weeks (corrected for prematurity), raise it with your health visitor. It's usually nothing, but it's one of the developmental markers they genuinely want to hear about. See our month-by-month development guide for what comes next.