$Unique_ID{PAR00202}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Birth to 6 Months:  How Your Child Develops}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Editors of Consumer Guide
Mendelson, Robert A
Mendelson, Lottie M
Meyerhoff, Michael K
Ames, Louise Bates}
$Subject{Birth to 6 Months Develop Develops grow growing attractive
misshapen vernix lanugo bald hair toothless tooth teeth fontanel
fontanels head body control lift lifting Roll Rolling Sit Sitting fencer blind
deaf vision see hear hearing sense senses light sound cross-eyed wall-eyed
helpless newborn newborns newborn's abilities ability reflex reflexes rooting
sucking swallowing grasping crying gazing think comprehend learn learns
intelligence mental development sensorimotor intellectual physical growth
coordinated coordination prehension retain remember remembers remembering
associations habits learning understand understanding communicate communicates
communication cry cries smile smiles smiling Bonding bond bonds INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES baby babies child children}
$Log{
Fencer's Pose*0020202.tif
Walking Reflex*0020205.tif
Your baby's body is too much for her undeveloped muscles to control*0056701.tif}

The New Parents' Question & Answer Book


Birth to 6 Months:  How Your Child Develops


     Will my baby grow much during the first six months?

     She certainly will.  In fact, she will grow more rapidly during this
period than during any other time in her life.  The average newborn weighs
between seven and eight pounds and is between 19 and 22 inches long.  Of
course, many babies are considerably smaller or larger and are still well
within the "normal" range.  However, from whatever point she starts, your baby
will grow almost one inch and gain nearly two pounds each month during her
first half-year of life.  Again, all babies have unique rates and patterns of
growth.  Minor "irregularities" are the rule rather than the exception.  So,
use these figures as approximations.


     Although she is beautiful to me, objectively speaking, my newborn is not
very attractive.  Is something wrong with her?

     Nothing that a little time won't cure.  The perfectly proportioned,
absolutely adorable newborn is a Hollywood illusion.  Whenever a "newborn"
appears on television or in the movies, the tiny actor is usually at least two
or three months old.  In reality, babies start out somewhat misshapen because
the upper parts of their bodies are more fully developed before birth than the
lower parts.  In addition, the birthing process can be tough on their physical
features.  The tight passage through the vaginal canal often results in a
temporary overlap of the skull bones, so their heads are typically elongated
and melonlike.  Their ears may be pushed out of normal position, their feet
turned, and other parts slightly squeezed awry, giving them a "windblown"
look.  What's more, most newborns are covered with a white, waxy material
(called the vernix), and many have a complete body coat of fine, dark hair
(called the lanugo).  Some also may have minor skin rashes.  But don't worry.
All of these "unattractive features" gradually disappear within a few days to
few weeks.


     I like to joke that my baby looks just like her grandpa--bald and
toothless.  When will she get her hair and teeth?

     Although some babies are born with a full head of hair, most come into
the world almost totally bald.  And many who do have hair at birth lose it
within a few weeks.  It is not until several months later that the vast
majority of babies begin to grow permanent hair with lasting color and
characteristics.  By the time the soft spots (fontanels) on your baby's head
completely close between ten and 18 months of age, her head will likely have a
suitable covering of hair as well.  As for teeth, again, some babies are born
with one tooth or more.  However, the first teeth typically do not appear
until about six or eight months of age.  The rest come in at regular intervals
for many months after that.  It may not be until her second birthday or so
that your baby has her complete set of "baby" teeth.


     My newborn seems to have no control over her head and body--she's like a
rag doll.  Is that normal?

     It certainly is.  In the beginning, your baby's body is simply too much
for her small and undeveloped muscles to control.  Her "floppiness" is most
noticeable--and perhaps most alarming--with her disproportionately large head.
Therefore, for the first few weeks, whenever you pick her up or otherwise
handle your baby, you will have to provide the support that her neck and
shoulder muscles can't.  By the time she is about six weeks old, she should be
able to hold her head steady for a moment or two when she is placed in an
upright position--as long as she is kept perfectly still.  By three or four
months of age, she probably will have fairly good control of her head when
she's held upright.


     When can I expect my baby to start lifting her head?  Rolling over?
Sitting up by herself?

     Even when your baby is only a day old, she is capable of lifting her head
a tiny bit for a split second.  However, it will be several weeks before her
capacity to lift her head becomes significant.  And it will be somewhere
between two and four months (typically around three months) before she is
capable of lifting her head and chest up a few inches from a prone position
and holding it up for more than a few seconds.  By three months of age, you
may notice her regularly rolling from side to side.  It usually isn't until
somewhere between four and six months (typically around five months) of age,
however, that babies achieve the ability to turn completely from back to
stomach and stomach to back (most babies do stomach to back first, but quite a
few reverse the order).  As for sitting up by herself, your baby probably
won't hit that milestone until sometime between five and eight months
(typically at about five and a half months).  By the way, it is important to
remember that there is wide variability in the specific ages at which "normal"
babies achieve these abilities.  So don't make too much of it if your baby's
progress is somewhat more or less than the "average"


     My baby is one month old, and whenever she's on her back, she looks like
a fencer--one arm cocked up and the other outstretched.  Is this normal?

     Roughly between one and three months of age, a baby's head and arm
movements are controlled to a large extent by what is called the tonic neck
reflex.  When lying on her back, her head will almost always turn to one side,
the arm on that side will stretch out, and the other arm will bend up.  If you
turn her head, the arms will switch position.  As odd as this "fencer's pose"
may be, rest assured that it is only temporary.  You may also notice that from
the time she was born, your baby has been holding her fingers in a clenched
fist most of the time.  Her fingers will gradually start to unfold at about
the same time that the tonic neck reflex fades.


     I've heard that babies are virtually blind and deaf at birth.  Is that
true, and if so, when will my newborn's vision and hearing improve?  What
about her other senses?

     Newborns are not blind and deaf.  In fact, they are sensitive to light
and sound even while they are still in the womb.  However, at birth, their
senses are far from fully developed.  For the first two or three months, the
muscles in their eyes do not work very well and often do not work together.
As a result, your baby may appear cross-eyed or wall-eyed on occasion.  Also,
at this stage, she can focus comfortably only on objects that are about eight
to 12 inches from her eyes.  Her ears have been capable of hearing well right
from the start--perhaps too well for her brand-new nervous system.
Consequently, she's likely to startle and cry in response to any loud and
sudden noises.  As for her other senses, they, too, have been in working order
right from birth.  It will take weeks and even months, however, before your
baby has had enough practice and experience with them to make them fully
useful.  Starting at about three months, and certainly by about six months,
you will be able to consider your baby's senses almost totally mature.


     Can my newborn do anything by herself, or is she completely helpless?

     At birth, babies are not without some ability, but the list of things
they can't do is certainly a lot longer than the list of things they can do.
Actually, your newborn's "abilities" consist of a small collection of basic
"reflexes."  These reflexes include rooting (turning the head when the cheek
is touched), sucking, swallowing, grasping things that are placed in the hand,
crying in response to physical discomfort, and gazing into the eyes of others
(especially during feeding).  While these basic capacities are obviously
useful, it is clear that your baby is totally dependent upon you for her
survival at this point.  By the end of this period, you will be surprised and
delighted by how much she has learned to do for herself.  But it takes a very
long time for little human beings to achieve a truly significant degree of
independence from their parents.


     Can my newborn understand anything that is happening to her?

     Probably not.  According to our best research on how the human mind
grows, babies are born with virtually no ability to "think" or "comprehend" at
all.  They are just beginning to receive information through their senses.
They have no experience they can use to process and organize information in a
meaningful fashion.  As a result, they have no concept of time or space and
are unable to distinguish themselves from the world around them.  So there
really is no way for them to "know" what is going on.  Although your baby
began gaining experiences and making "sense" of them from birth, it will be
many months before she achieves what we refer to as true "understanding."


     How does my baby learn during these early months?

     Learning takes place through the continuous interaction of two major
functions--assimilation and accommodation.  On one hand, your baby is
constantly taking in, or assimilating various elements of her environment.  In
a very basic sense she is gathering "information."  To do this, she uses
whatever mental structures she has.  On the other hand, she is constantly
adjusting, or accommodating, those mental structures so that she can take in
even more information about her environment.  In the beginning, her only
mental structures are those basic reflexes referred to earlier.  Although they
are rather primitive and uncoordinated, they are the building blocks of
intelligence.  They allow your baby to begin the process of adapting to her
environment.  And adaptation to the environment is what early learning is all
about.  For example, one of your baby's basic reflexes is sucking.  At first,
your baby will suck vigorously on whatever comes in contact with her
lips--whether it's her mother's nipple or her father's little finger.
However, after a month or so of experience and practice, she will have refined
that basic reflex somewhat.  She may still suck on whatever comes near her
mouth, but when she is presented with the breast, she will make minor
adjustments with her body, head, and lips in order to better participate in
the nursing process.  In other words, as she exercises the basic sucking
reflex, she will "learn" something about her environment.  Then, she will use
that information to adjust her sucking reflex to make it more useful.


     If my baby can't really "think" or "comprehend" at this point, what kind
of "intelligence" can she acquire?

     The first stage of mental development is referred to as the
"sensorimotor" period because intellectual and physical growth are so closely
interrelated at this point.  Babies begin to learn about the world through
their senses and their physical movements.  Gradually, they achieve greater
control and mastery over their bodies.  They also gain greater experience with
more aspects of their surroundings by directly exploring and investigating.
Thus, at first, the "intelligence" that your baby acquires is extremely
"practical."  It is limited to getting direct information and results from her
immediate environment.  However, slowly but surely, the many experiences she
obtains through her senses and movements will form the foundations for
distinctly "mental" functions such as memory, language, problem solving,
imagination, and so on.


     When, and how, will my baby begin to realize that her different body
parts are connected?

     Sometime between the end of the first month and the end of the third
month, your baby will make her first major discovery--that she is connected to
her own hand.  When her random movements bring her hand into contact with her
mouth, she will enjoy sucking on it.  When those movements bring her hand into
her line of vision, she will enjoy looking at it.  Gradually, she will come to
realize that she can control those movements to a certain extent; she will
hold her hand in her mouth or in her line of vision for longer and longer
periods of time.  Eventually, she will also put the two together.  After
looking at her hand for a while, she will purposefully bring it to her mouth
so she can suck on it.  This is the first sign that your baby has learned to
actively "do" things in order to bring about specific events that she "wants"
to happen.


     How coordinated will my baby's actions become during the first six
months?

     After about three months of age, once she has gained fairly good control
over her head, has become free from the tonic neck reflex, and has started
unfolding her fingers, your baby will begin to make rapid progress in putting
her senses and her movements to work together.  Perhaps the most noticeable
and most impressive capacity she will achieve during this period is
"prehension," or visually directed reaching.  Somewhere between four and seven
months (typically at about five months), babies become adept at using their
hands under the direction of their eyes.  This accomplishment, along with the
coordination of other senses and movements, allows for some fairly
sophisticated activities.  So, for example, by the time she is six months old,
if your baby hears something, she will look right at it.  Once she sees it,
she will reach for it and grab it.  Once she has grabbed it, she will bring it
to her mouth and suck on it.  When you consider how basic and uncoordinated
her activities were at birth, it is remarkable how far she has come in such a
short period of time.


     Will my baby be able to remember things that happen to her during this
period?

     Your baby will "retain" a lot of what happens, but that is not the same
as "remembering."  She will be using the information she gains through
experience to help improve her capacity to take in more information.  She will
be making more associations, forming habits, and otherwise "learning" on a
very basic level.  At this point, however, your baby's consciousness will be
largely limited to "here and now."  It will not be until she is almost two
years old that she will be able to "picture" something in her mind when it is
not directly in front of her and be able to store that mental image for a
substantial length of time.  Only when she is able to form, organize, and
store such mental images will she be able to recall them for quick and easy
reference.  Think about it.  None of us really remembers anything much prior
to our third year of life, and our earliest memories are spotty and incomplete
as compared to those from only a year or two later.


     Will my baby understand anything I say to her during the first six
months?

     Probably not a single word.  Your baby eventually will respond
enthusiastically to the sound of your voice; you may even get a sense that she
is responding to changes in the tone and inflection of your voice after a
while.  But actually understanding the meaning of specific words is a bit
beyond your baby's mental abilities at this point.  Words are symbols for
things, actions, feelings, etc.  It takes a while for babies to gain enough
experience to associate a symbol with what it stands for, and even longer for
them to develop the ability to form and store these symbols in their minds for
any length of time.  Language and thought are tied closely together.  So for
the first six months of your baby's life, actions not only speak louder than
words, they are the only kind of "words" your baby will truly comprehend.


     Will my baby be able to communicate at all with me during this period?

     She certainly will, although her communication tactics will range from
obvious to subtle, with very little in between.  Her main means of giving you
a message will be something she was born with--the cry.  When she is hungry,
cold, in pain, or suffering from any sort of discomfort, your baby won't
hesitate to let you know with a loud wail.  Unfortunately, while she will be
able to let you know something is wrong, she won't be able to tell you exactly
what the problem is.  Starting at two or three months of age, your baby will
add giggling and squealing with delight, but these new forms of communication
will be equally unspecific.  Therefore, you will have to pay attention to the
many forms of nonverbal communication your baby will employ as well.  As you
try to feed or diaper her, for instance, you may notice that she tenses her
body, turns her head away, scrunches up her face, or in some other way tries
to inform you that she is not happy about what you are doing at the moment.
On the other hand, you may notice that she relaxes her body, waves her arms,
smiles, or in some other way tries to inform you that she is content or
thrilled with what you are doing.


     Our one-month-old baby began smiling at us almost from the day she was
born.  Does this mean that she knows we are her parents?

     We would all like to think that our children feel immediate and
significant fondness for us.  Unfortunately, this probably is impossible.
Although something resembling a smile may appear from time to time during the
first few weeks of life, a baby at this point does not have the social
awareness to make such episodes meaningful.  Starting a little before the
second month of life, babies begin to smile fairly regularly, but even then
the smile appears to be in response to familiarity rather than people.  In
other words, babies will smile just as often at their crib rails, mobiles,
blankets, etc. as they will at their mothers and fathers.  It is not until
around the third month of life that babies really get a sense that they are
separate and distinct from other people.  It is at this time that smiling in
direct response to the presence of their parents becomes frequent and
reliable.  By the way, this is also the time when you can first tickle your
baby successfully, because she is now aware that you are the "tickler" and
that she is the "ticklee"--a social awareness that must be added to the
physical stimulation in order for tickling to work.


     Lately my baby has been looking up when I call her.  Does this mean she
at least knows her own name?

     A lot of parents get fooled here.  Starting at about four months of age,
babies become capable of orienting accurately to the source of sound.  Early
on, you may have noticed that when her name was called, something else was
said, or any noise was made around her, your baby perked up, but she acted
like she didn't know where it was coming from.  Now, when a sound is produced,
she is likely to look immediately and directly at whatever produced it.
Moreover, she is becoming very interested in sounds, particularly human ones.
So, now when she looks, she is likely to smile as well, especially if the
sound is familiar.  Therefore, when you call her name, she looks up and smiles
at you.  But if instead you called out "George Burns" you would probably get
the same reaction.


THE "BONDING" PHENOMENON

     Bonding refers to the development of a deep emotional attachment between
parent and child.  The term first appeared several years ago in an early
research report.  The report indicated that mothers and babies who had
skin-to-skin contact during the hours immediately after birth eventually
developed a superior relationship compared to those who did not have the
benefit of this special experience.  However, later and more thorough research
revealed that this particular sort of contact during this supposedly
"critical" period actually is irrelevant (a nice thing to do, but certainly
not necessary).  It also showed that the "bond" between parent and child grows
slowly and steadily over the course of many months.  It has been shown that as
long as they provide a significant amount of nurturing as time goes by,
mothers who are under anesthesia during delivery and don't get to hold their
babies until many hours later have no problem forming a solid "bond" with
their babies.  The same holds true for adoptive mothers who do not even see
their babies until days after birth and fathers who don't get a chance to
become involved to a great extent until their babies are brought home from the
hospital.


A FEW WORDS ABOUT INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

     It is important for parents to realize that the process of charting early
human development is not an exact science.  Pediatricians, psychologists, and
educators can use their experience to establish "normal" ranges and pinpoint
"average" ages at which certain abilities are likely to appear.  They cannot,
however, precisely forecast an individual child's rate and pattern of
development.  They prepare developmental charts merely to give parents some
general guidelines, not specific predictions.  Therefore, if your baby hits
one milestone directly on the mark, such a phenomenon is likely to be an
exception rather than the rule.  As strange as it may sound, babies who
progress precisely "as expected" are not "typical."  What's more, while some
babies are routinely "late" or "early," most are early in some areas and late
in others, and they often change pace at different ages.  So unless your baby
is constantly showing up on one extreme of the scale, it is inappropriate to
make too much of what she does in any single situation.  Many parents get into
trouble by making unfair and meaningless comparisons between their baby's
progress and another's.  Perhaps the most critical thing for parents to keep
in mind is that when it comes to early development, "different" does not
automatically imply "better" or "worse," and "equal" does not necessarily mean
"the same."


SOME "AMAZING" BUT MISLEADING ABILITIES OF NEWBORNS

     Every once in a while you may see an article that talks about researchers
discovering some "amazing" ability in newborns.  This ability is supposed to
demonstrate that little babies are far more aware and capable than previously
believed.  The fact of the matter is that newborns occasionally do some
strange things, but what they do is often misinterpreted.  A good example is
the phenomenon of "neonatal imitation" discovered a few years ago.  Some
researchers found they could get babies only a couple of days old to stick out
their tongues in imitation of an adult doing the same.  Since it was
previously believed that babies aren't capable of imitative behavior until the
end of the first year, news of this discovery spread like wildfire.  However,
further study revealed that tongue protrusion was the only behavior newborns
could imitate, and that they would imitate it only rarely under very special
conditions.  What's more, after a few days, this "ability" disappears
completely until the end of the first year.  In other words, what was
discovered was a reflexlike response that has little significance.  We always
have known that if you hold a newborn over a surface so that her feet are
lightly touching it, she will move her legs up and down in a "walking" motion.
This "walking reflex" goes away shortly, and the baby doesn't start true
walking until many months later.  No one would be so foolish as to claim that
newborns can walk.  Therefore, any time you read about some incredible
capacity being discovered in newborns, or if you notice your newborn
apparently doing something that you would not expect her to be able to do,
chances are it is not what it appears to be.