Child Growth: Newborn to 1 Month (Child Development Information) - Child Development

Newborn to 1 Month

In the first several weeks (and even months) of life, a baby's primary tasks are to eat, sleep, and grow. And since babies grow so fast in the first weeks of life, it requires both a lot of eating and a lot of sleeping.

EATING
Plain and simple, newborns need to eat a lot — typically no less than every 3 or 4 hours and sometimes as often as every 1 or 2. Whether you choose to breast feed or bottle feed, the unavoidable fact is that you will spend much of your days (and nights) feeding your newborn. And while it would be ever so convenient if newborns were born inherently skilled at this important task, many will seem clumsy and uncoordinated at first. Some are just slow to learn, some are pokey eaters even after they have mastered the concept, and others eat voraciously right from the start. As you work on establishing the process with your own baby, there are certain things you should watch for to help reassure yourself that your baby is getting enough: Make sure that she is gaining weight as expected, as well as urinating frequently (6-10 times/day) and having regular bowel movements. Regardless of your baby's eating style, you will hopefully be well settled into a regular feeding pattern by the time your baby is a month old. As a side note, just when you think everything is going smoothly, don't be surprised if your baby seems discontent and much hungrier than usual. Babies often have growth spurts around two weeks of age, and then again at the end of their first month, and generally want to eat more than usual.

SLEEPING
Healthy babies should be laid down to sleep on their backs, not on their bellies, to help reduce the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) Newborns generally sleep about two-thirds of each 24 hour day, but their periods of sleep tend to be rather brief and scattered all around the clock. By a month of age, however, many are able to cluster their sleep into longer stretches and spend more time asleep at night than during the day. That said, many still prefer sleeping cradled in a parent's arm, or being driven around in a car seat to sleeping in their cribs. While many sleep experts do recommend teaching infants to learn to fall asleep on their own without needing to be rocked, nursed, driven, or held, almost all would agree that this doesn't apply to the newborn period. Simply helping your baby to distinguish night from day by making nighttime feedings quiet and dark and less entertaining than those in the daytime can help put your baby on a path towards healthy sleep habits.

PLAYING
Babies thrive on love and attention. Many new parents never consider the idea of playing with a newborn — perhaps because the word "playing" conjures up images of hide 'n' go Seek and baseball. But playing with a very young baby can be as basic as placing him in different positions — sometimes on his front, sometimes on his back — and helping him to move his arms and legs around. Simple actions we all take for granted as adults, such as making eye contact, smiling at, singing or talking to, and even just holding a baby are not just age-appropriate activities for a newborn, they are actually more enriching than any toy or battery-powered plaything you could buy in the store. As you explore ways to interact with your baby, keep in mind that infants this age are easily overstimulated. Even a walk around the block can seem like a day at the amusement park, and many babies will cry, become cranky, eat poorly, or not sleep well when they are overstimulated.

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