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Baby's First Year


Your Newborn

Physical Development
  • Your newborn's movements are generally uncontrolled and not deliberate. Most of his movements happen automatically without any conscious intention on his part. It will take time for him to learn how to control his movements.
  • While your baby can move his head from side to side when he's lying on his stomach and he can raise his head an inch or two off the ground when he's lying on his back, his neck and shoulder muscles will need to develop further before he can support his head on his own.
  • Your newborn is quite nearsighted. And even when he looks at objects that are within his ideal focal length, those objects look quite fuzzy.
  • When your baby looks at something, he focuses on particular details rather than looking at the whole object. For example, when he looks at your face, he only takes in your eyes or your mouth, not your face as a whole.
  • Your baby's eyes are only able to track objects within a 90-degree range of vision, and his eye movements are short and jerky. He has not yet figured out that he can move his head to follow objects beyond this range.
  • Your baby's hearing is not yet as acute as the hearing of an adult. He can't hear very soft sounds like whispers. He's more attracted to high-pitched sounds than low-pitched sounds, something that helps to explain why parents around the world lapse into parentese (exaggerated speech patterns) when they start communicating with a baby.
  • Your baby is born with a reflex that encourages him to turn his head in the direction of a sound. It will be a few months, however, before he starts consciously trying to determine the source of a particular sound.


Cognitive Development
  • Your baby experiences brief periods of quiet alertness but spends most of his time sleeping. As the length and frequency of these periods of alertness increase, he will become increasingly tuned into the world around him.


Social Development
  • Your baby is fascinated by human faces and human voices right from birth. He quickly learns how to pick up his mother's scent, to recognize the sound of her voice and to recognize her face. In fact, he started getting used to his mother's scent and voice long before birth.




As a reminder, always consult your doctor for medical advice and treatment before starting any program.

SOURCE: WebMD Medical Reference from The Mother of All Baby Books

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