Thursday, December 2, 2010

Chapter 9 - 1 month Milestones

Carly Mae just 3 days old
So you just had a baby and right now baby doesn't do much of anything. Basically your routine consists of baby eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping.
You may notice within the first days that baby lets out a smile every so often, but don't get to excited this isn't a "real" smile, actually its gas.
From weeks 1-4 you may or may not notice the milestones that your baby is hitting.
Baby can only focus 8-12 inches in front of his/her face, so when you "playing" try to stay within that range so baby can see you clearly.
Hearing is fully developed. So you won't needed to yell like your talking to a deaf person because guess what baby can hear you! And because babies hearing is developed they may startle at loud noise, and the noises don't have to be super loud, so be careful getting to loud around baby.
Arm and leg movements become smoother. You may have noticed when baby first came home that he/she was had very fast sporatic movements, but as the next four week progress baby won't look like she/he is flipping out at a rave party.
Brings hands towards eyes and mouth. You may notice baby rubbing eyes when tired, and chewing on his/her hands. For those that have binkies (pacifiers, what ever you call them) it may get annoying fast because they will be knocking it out of there mouth alot and then getting mad because its gone. So have fun with that (I sure have not!)
Turns head towards familiar sounds and voices. This will be exciting especially when you notice baby is recognizing your voice and turns towards your voice to find you.
You also may have noticed that baby has really week neck muscle and can barely control his/her head (of course you may be lucky and have a kiddo that has very good head movement when born). This is were "tummy time" comes in handy to help develop those neck muscles and to help baby to get better control of his/her head. Not all babies like this so even if you can get a few minutes at a time a few times a day it will help. Another way to get some "tummy time" is lay baby on your chest, it is pretty much the same as baby being on the floor but at least he/she will have you to look at.
The first month is kind of the boring month as far as the milestones go but you may notice that baby starts changing a little as far as his/her features go once the swelling from delivery starts to wear off.
Again I am getting all my information from experience and from Parents.com so if you want to know more check it out. :)
Have a Great Day!
Catrina

2 comments:

Jenny said...

What a wonderful blog for new mothers. It seems like it would be so nice to read about what other mothers are going through at the exact same time.

I'm going to send the new Mom bloggers I know your way.

Catrina said...

Thanks! :)