A 4-month-old baby seeing herself in the mirror for the first time has melted hearts across the internet.
Baby Presley was 20 weeks old when her father, Chris Jarrell, lifted her up to show her what she looked like in the mirror—but never expected the reaction she’d have.
“We were getting her ready for bed and she started looking at herself in the mirror and belly laughing. I was in another room and heard her, so I pulled out my camera and caught this on video,” her mother, Hannah Jarrell, told Newsweek. “This was the first time she had actually recognized herself and made a connection! It has been so neat to watch her come into her own personality, and when you see them do things for the first time it just warms your heart.”
In a video to Hannah Jarrell’s TikTok account, @tiredteachersboutique, posted on March 2 and which has been viewed more than 1.2 million times, Chris Jarrell holds Presley up to the mirror, and the moment she looks at herself, her entire demeanor changes.
Her jaw drops in what looks like surprise, before turning into a huge smile as the 20-week-old begins laughing hard, babbling and giggling, never taking her eyes off herself, as Hannah Jarrell asks: “Are you funny?”
Presley’s father, meanwhile, cannot keep the smile off his own face as he holds his daughter and watches her react to her reflection.
“I loved watching her dad’s expression,” Hannah Jarrell told Newsweek. “He just has such love for her and is so enamored with her.”
TikTok users, too, were obsessed with the video, awarding it close to 260,000 likes, as one user commented: “May they always smile when they see themselves in the mirror.”
“Isn’t a baby laughing the best sound in the world?” one asked, as one predicted: “I bet her spirit has been here before and this is her first time seeing her new self as a baby.”
Many commented on Chris Jarrell’s expression while watching his daughter, as one user commented: “Dad’s eyes stole the show,” and another wrote: “The dad’s face! So full of love.”
“This is his first daughter,” Hannah Jarrell explained to Newsweek. “He has two sons from a previous marriage and it’s been so awesome to see him become a girl dad. We had her with IVF and she is a true miracle.”
Dr. Gary Kirkilas, pediatrician at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, explained to Newsweek that the ability to recognize oneself in the mirror “doesn’t typically occur until much later, when a child is 1-and-a-half to 2 years of age. Prior to this developmental point, infants interestingly have no sense of self and perceive themselves as part of their caregiver. When a baby sees their own hands or their mother’s hands, they simply think it all belongs to one person.”
In the case of a 4-month-old baby like Presley, when they “smile at themselves in the mirror they are simply smiling at what they perceive to be another human face, not their own face,” Dr. Kirkilas said.
“This is what pediatricians refer to as a ‘social smile’ which occurs after seeing another human face. It is a very important social cue that typically starts at 1 to 2 months of age.”
He added that by 4 to 6 months old “babies recognize familiar faces and by nine months exhibit ‘stranger anxiety’ to unfamiliar faces.”
“Humans are social animals with a good portion of our communication being non-verbal, so the ability to recognize faces and convey emotion is a crucial part of our development.”
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