Your first few moments with your newborn
Congratulations you have a brand new addition to your family! Whether it is your first or fifth plenty of Mums can't remember exactly what's it's like to have newborn (blame the comb of sleep deprivation and pregnancy brain!), so find out about baby's first month on Essential Baby.
Development
Newborn babies are born with a number of inherent, fundamental reflexes that are vital for survival. These include the sucking reflex, the swallowing reflex and the gagging reflex that prevents him from taking too much liquid and the labyrinthine reflex, where a baby that lies on his stomach will automatically turn his head, instead of just lying with his head down.
At this age babies can also move their head from side to side, bring their hands to their face, respond to familiar voices, blink at lights, extend their arms to grab hold of you and grip tightly with their fingers.
But your baby will still learn several important things in the first month. Your newborn’s eyesight is still developing and as he learns to focus on objects in front of him, he may cross their eyes but this is typical. You can help with this by placing objects, such as mobiles, in primary colours within six inches of his face, which your baby will stare at intently.
Medical
Shortly after birth babies may have discoloured or scaly skin with red or pink blotchy patches and their skull may appear misshapen and their eyes puffy but this will subside over the next few weeks.
Bathing is important in order to keep the stump near the belly button, clean and free of infection.
Possetting is also common from the first month, which is when babies regurgitate milk in small quantities either because they have been overfed or when the baby gulps in air while feeding and releases partially digested milk when their stomach contract. Most babies outgrow this between six and twelve months but you can avoid this by keeping your baby still during and after a feed and by remembering to burp him during a feed as well as afterwards. Continual possetting may be related to reflux which isn’t serious but does require medical intervention.
Soft bowel movements are another good indication of your baby’s health. Five or more movements every day are normal initially and progressively lessen as time goes on. Diarrhoea can be distinguished by smell and in conjunction with other symptoms such as fever. Constipation can be distinguished by hard, infrequent stools. Babies often pull faces when passing stools so don’t be concerned about this but if you are in any doubt about your baby’s health talk to your doctor.
Sleep
Newborn babies are not able to fall into a perfect slumber. Infant behaviour can be categorised into six states of consciousness: quiet alert, active alert, crying, drowsiness, quiet sleep and active sleep. The long periods of sleep are assisting with development and as they grow, babies will be able to stay awake for longer periods. But at this time, most babies are only alert for 2-3 hours per day. But you should use this time to catch up on your own sleep!
A newborn’s sleep is quite restless, and he will probably make facial expressions and move a lot. Newborns wake up often during sleep because much of their sleep is REM sleep, which is active sleep and if they sleep in the same room with you, you will hear them stir, twitch and grunt. You may also hear them breathing rapidly, shallowly and irregularly, which is normal as you baby is still developing breathing control.
Newborn babies will sleep approximately 14-20 hours in a 24 hour period, in 1-3 hour bursts and are unable to tell the difference between day and night. They are usually able to sleep in a noisy environment and this can be a good thing as it enables them to sleep in a variety of places such as in the car and in the stroller. Research shows it is safest to put your baby to sleep on his back because it lowers the risk of SIDS.
