Humour in babies: when does a child understand a joke?
Humour in babies appears much earlier than you might think. A study published in 2021 by researchers at the University of Bristol followed 671 children aged 0 to 47 months. Half of the babies enjoyed some form of humour by around 2 months, and half were making jokes of their own by around 11 months. At 4 months, three children out of four laughed or smiled at an age-appropriate joke. Before the age of 1, humour is physical and visual; by around 2, it works through language; by around 3, it plays with rules.
These figures come from parents’ answers to a questionnaire, the Early Humor Survey, not from laboratory observations. So they describe what parents notice in their own child, with all the approximations that implies. Even so, they give the only numbered timeline available, one type of humour at a time, and that is the timeline we set out here.
Laughing, smiling and humour: three different things
A baby can laugh without any joke involved, for example while being tickled or during a movement game. A baby can also enjoy a joke and only smile. So the researchers distinguished three things. Laughter. Appreciating humour, meaning finding an incongruous situation funny. And producing humour, meaning creating that situation yourself to make someone laugh.
The social smile, which appears between six and eight weeks, comes before all of this. We described it in our article on the age at which babies smile. Humour, on the other hand, requires a baby to recognise that something ‘isn’t the way it usually is’ and to enjoy that mismatch. It is a cognitive step, not just an emotional one.
The stages of humour in babies, age by age
The ages below correspond to the point at which half of the children in the study were described by their parents as appreciating or producing each type of humour. Any individual child may be earlier or later without it meaning anything.
Before 6 months: the body, sounds and surprise
The first forms of humour are physical and sensory. Peekaboo, tickling, funny faces, strange body movements and silly voices are enjoyed from the very first month by some babies. Half of them respond to these in the first few weeks. What makes them laugh here is a break in an expected rhythm: the face that disappears and then reappears, a parent’s voice that suddenly changes.
From 4 to 8 months: chasing and objects used the wrong way
By around 4 months, half of babies enjoy chasing games, including when it is two toys ‘chasing’ each other. By around 8 months, using objects the wrong way appears: the cup placed on a head, the spoon held upside down, the sock on the cuddly toy. To laugh at this, a baby must already know what the object is for. It is the same knowledge that, at this age, drives them to explore everything they can get their hands on, as we explain in our article on babies who throw things.
Around 11–12 months: your baby’s first joke
This is the median age for producing humour for the first time. Your baby holds out an object and then pulls it back at the last moment, repeats the face that got a laugh the day before, or puts the cup on their own head while watching for your reaction. Teasing, meaning offering something and then taking it back, is enjoyed by half of children by around 12 months. The glance towards the adult just after the gesture is the surest sign: your baby is checking that the joke worked.
From 15 to 18 months: showing off, scaring and imitating
Three forms of humour emerge in this period. Showing a part of the body that is normally covered, for example lifting up their T-shirt (15 months). Scaring someone by jumping out or shouting (16 months). And pretending to be something else, a dog, a baby, Daddy (17 months). This last form relies on imitation, which we cover in detail in our article on learning through imitation, and it heralds pretend play.
Around 2 years: ‘forbidden’ topics and deliberately wrong words
By around 23 months, half of children laugh at topics considered disgusting: poo, farts, smelly feet. By around 29 months, they enjoy deliberately calling things by the wrong name, calling the cat a ‘cow’ or giving a wrong answer on purpose. By around 30 months, they make fun of others, for example by giving a parent a ridiculous nickname. These forms require vocabulary: a child who is starting to put words together has what it takes to invent their first verbal jokes. Our article on the age of first sentences gives the matching language milestones.
From 2½ to 3 years: playing with ideas and words
By around 31 months, half of children play with concepts: ‘dogs go moo’, ‘dinosaurs eat the wall’. By around 35 months, they make up nonsense words. So-called aggressive humour, pushing or spitting out water to get a laugh, is also enjoyed by half of children by around 31 months: it deserves a calm response, but it reflects the same mechanism.
After 3 years: social rules, pranks and puns
By around 44 months, half of children find it funny to break a social rule: saying a rude word, putting the cat on the table. Planned pranks, such as putting salt in the sugar, were enjoyed by only a quarter of children at 39 months. Puns with a double meaning remained out of reach for most children before the age of 4. They come later, with reading and an awareness of sounds.
Why humour matters for development
Finding a cup on someone’s head funny means knowing what a cup is normally used for, spotting the mismatch and understanding that the other person is doing it on purpose. Making a joke also means anticipating how someone else will react. The study’s authors point out that humour thus draws on understanding of the world, memory and reading other people’s intentions. In time, it could serve as a developmental marker, just like other milestones. They make clear that further research is needed before it can become a screening tool.
Humour is also an exchange. A baby who makes a joke looks for your gaze and waits for your laugh. It is one of the earliest forms of shared intention, close to what you see when they give kisses or point at an object. Responding to these jokes, even the most repetitive ones, nurtures that exchange.
How can you encourage your baby’s sense of humour without forcing it?
- Play peekaboo, often. It is the earliest and most universal joke. It builds on object permanence, which we discuss in our article on object permanence.
- Use objects the wrong way in front of them. A spoon on your head, a slipper on the end of your nose, then a pause and a look: you are showing them how a joke is built.
- Laugh at their attempts. The adult’s reaction is what turns a gesture into a joke. A child who gets a laugh does it again, and refines it.
- Accept the repetition. Once a child produces humour, they do it often: in the study, half of the children concerned had made a joke in the three hours before the questionnaire.
- Leave room on the floor. The physical humour of the first months, chasing, tickling, hiding behind a cushion, happens lying flat. A large play mat allows these games with no risk of falling.
- Tell humour and provocation apart. Spitting out water or pushing another child to get a laugh is, at 2½, one form of humour among others. Set the limit without making a drama of it, and suggest an acceptable joke instead.
My baby doesn’t laugh at my jokes: should I be worried?
Not before looking at the whole picture. The ages given are medians: at 2 months, half of babies don’t yet enjoy any form of humour, and that is normal. A baby with a calm temperament tends to smile rather than laugh. Which jokes work also depends on age: a 6-month-old cannot find a nonsense word funny. What is worth mentioning to your doctor is no responsive smile by around 3 months. The same goes for a complete lack of eye contact and of any reaction to surprise games after 9 months, especially if other signs concern you. Humour on its own is not a criterion.
Key takeaways
Humour in babies follows a clear progression. The body and surprise before 6 months, objects used the wrong way around 8 months, the first joke around 11 months. Then teasing and imitation between 12 and 18 months, deliberately wrong words around 2½, broken rules around 3½. Each stage reflects what the child understands about the world. The best way to support it is also the simplest: play, laugh with them and respond to their attempts.
Sources
- Hoicka E., Soy Telli B., Prouten E., Leckie G., Browne W. J., Mireault G., Fox C., ‘The Early Humor Survey (EHS): A reliable parent-report measure of humor development for 1- to 47-month-olds’, Behavior Research Methods, vol. 54, 2022, pp. 1928–1953, published online in November 2021 (open access): 671 children from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Canada; median ages by type of humour, table 1.
- University of Bristol, press release ‘Study captures humour’s earliest emergence in young children’, 19 November 2021.
