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Coming into the world is a big and scary adventure for babies. At first, they don’t know you are there to feed and care for them - they only know when they feel comfortable and safe, or otherwise.

However, even from birth, they start to communicate and give you little signals when they are tired or hungry, or awake and alert.

They are learning all the time, and the job of parents is to help them know that the world is a welcoming place where their needs will be met. Even shy and sleepy babies take an interest in your voice and face. A big section of the brain is devoted to understanding and remembering faces, and a large part of our social behaviour is based on how we ‘read’ other people’s faces.

Looking into someone’s eyes is a necessity for ‘falling in love’, so show your baby your face and talk to them soothingly right from the start. Don’t feel rejected if they turn away; tiny babies often get tired when they interact. Newborns: Can’t cry ‘for attention’ or to ‘get at’ their parents - a newborn is not capable of responding to you with any conscious purpose Laugh out loud by three months.

Common characteristics include: Many babies who are under three months cry a lot, especially in the late afternoon or evening. (‘Jiggling’ babies is not a good way to help them settle and can be very scary or even painful for the baby, even if they stop crying.

It is very important not to shake a baby

) Your baby is bombarded by external stimuli (shapes, sounds, colours) and can easily feel overwhelmed.

Newborns can hear, and have been hearing noises from well before they were born. Newborns have immature eye muscles and, while they can see (particularly at close range), they can’t organise the visual images into meaningful shapes. Developmental characteristics include:

  • In the first two months they are attracted by bright light primary colours
  • stripes dots patterns

Eyes move in unison, most of the time, by six weeks. The human face is the first ‘object’ they recognise. Over the first three months, they begin to recognise particular faces and other things (like their teddy bear) in their world.

Infants in the first eight weeks have no control over their movements and all their physical activity is involuntary or reflex. They move their bodies while they are awake, but they do not yet know how to make each part of their body move, or even that all the bits belong to them. Developmental characteristics include:

  • Sucking grasping
  • pulling to stand are all reflexes

They start to work out how to lift their heads when lying on their tummy, and kick their legs by about eight weeks. In their third month, they begin to watch their hands and feet wave in the air, and also begin to wave that fist towards your face or some other desired object. For the newborn, crying is their only means of communication.

It is important to respond to your baby as soon as possible, so they begin to understand that you will be there for them. Characteristics of speech include:

  • By seven or eight weeks they begin to discover their voice make cooing noises
  • vowel sounds. Even by about eight weeks they will listen to what you say then make noises back as they ’talk’ to you

Suggestions on encouraging and supporting your baby’s development include:

  • Rock them. All children are different develop at different rates so if your baby doesn’t do all the things listed in this article

  • it may be because they are working on some different area of learning

  • development.

    However

  • if your baby is very different from other children

  • or if you are worried about their development or it seems to go backwards

  • seek the advice of a health professional

Signs that could suggest a developmental problem include:

  • The child is exceptionally quiet placid. is available 24 hours a day Tel. Social emotional development Don’t understand what is happening to them
  • or realise they are a separate person Don’t know who is feeding them
  • or who helps them when they cry Cry when they are hungry or tired
  • but don’t know they are being cared for Can feel
  • but not think Smile by five to seven weeks Physical development Hearing
  • seeing Using their bodies Speech
  • language Suggested activities Make a mobile
  • hang it
  • facing them
  • above their cot Stroke different parts of their body to see how they like to be touched Speak to them gently
  • persistent difficulties with settling Where to get help Your GP (doctor) Maternal
  • child health nurse The Maternal
  • Child Health Line 132 229