HOW DO NEWBORNS GROW?

Infants or newborn’s we call the babies who have just been delivered. The first few weeks after their birth we will see the babies only sleeping. An infant will sleep up to 16 –18 hours a day, getting up only for a feed or a diaper change. Many a times a mother has to literally nudge the baby to feed him. It’s an old saying many of us may also have heard it from our granny’s, do not disturb the baby while sleeping as the baby is growing. The more the baby will sleep the stronger they will be.

It is definitely not a myth, it’s a fact newborns while sleeping are growing in every way their physical body, their motor skills, their psychological and communal skills, their mental cognition, each and every aspect of their body is grasping from their environment and helping them grow.

Physical Growth –

Every day in the 1^st month you can see a change in your baby. Especially the 1^st and 2^nd week there is a rapid weight gain in the baby. Most babies are said to gain around 4 oz to 8 oz per week and about 1-1.5 inches in height in a month.

Therefore the first year of the baby is known as the swift growth period. By the time the baby is 6 months old their body weight will be twofold their birth weight, and the baby will be threefold grown by the time they turn a year old.

Not only does their body weight increase but there is a significant growth in their height and body size. Their head their chest their hands and feet all of it will be bigger and stronger. Newborns have a soft skull at birth by the 3^rd-4^th moth that too gets filled up and gets hard.

Their necks are more stable and they can hold their heads without your support.

The development of the baby also depends a lot on the mother’s health and the house environment. A happy and healthy mother will generate the same genes to the baby and a happy home will always enhance the baby’s growth. Especially mother who are breast feeding their babies please eat well nutritious food and try to stay as calm as happy as you can as your emotions will reflect a lot on your baby’s growth.

Motor Skills

Motor skills development is mostly the same in all infants. The beginning 0-3 months will only see small activities like head lifting, some kicking and hand movements. The major development of the motor skills can be seen in the 2^nd term of 3-6 months and onwards. From the 2^nd term there will be a rapid development of motor skills, it’s a great time watching your kid becoming more and more active by the day.

Psychological and Communal skills

Newborns will not showcase an immediate growth in their communal skills. The beginning trimester the only communication is high pitched crying and occasional smiles and gurgles. Newborns are said to gurgle a lot in their sleep especially after a good feed.

Smiling is a prize reserved mainly for the mother, during the awake hours playing and singing to your baby helps their psychologically growth. Development in their communal and social skills is more after the 6^th month, when their sense of recognition has grown and they start responding using their emotions.

Mental Cognition Skill-

In the early stage the babies cognition skill are quiet defined, they cry when they are hungry or uncomfortable, they smile when everything is going as per their comfort.

Their mental abilities are in the growing process and they become significant only in the later months. An infant will showcase her cognitive skills only to the mother. Their occasional smiles when held in their mother embrace or their high pitched crying suddenly stopping as soon as they are in their mothers arm .Their sense of belonging towards their mother or attachment towards their parent is the very clear in the 1^st term. After the 6^th month and onwards you will see a considerable growth in their cognitive skills.

The earlier months after your baby is born can be termed as 1^st time months. Everything is so new, their 1^st cry to their 1^st feed their 1^st gurgle their 1^st smile their 1^st yawn etc.

Every day you will see some new growth in them. These moths are much cherished periods and their memories last with you for a lifetime. Making a baby book and keeping a record of their 1^st skill is a great way to save the memory for a life time.

A beautiful phase of your life has begun dear mom enjoy every moment of it for you truly deserve it!!

Safety tattoos for parent's mental peace

At every stage the mother has to face different sets of problems, when the baby is an infant it is a task carrying the baby around on a sling or a stroller carry their baby food their milk bottles or look for places to feed the baby at that time you wish your baby grows up fast so you are free from carrying the whole house along.

Once the baby is a little older say 8 to 9 months they are crawling and you wish they start walking so you get free of the stroller as well as carrying the baby on your shoulder.
Once the baby starts walking or running you have to encounter different kind of stress now you are worried of how to control your toddler from running away, and are constantly scared you may loose your baby in the mall or parks or amusement parks even on the roads, this I know scares the day lights out of every mother . Every mother who has a toddler will agree with me when i say you wish you could just put a leash around your baby so they don't run away. Nearly every single day you hear how babies have gone missing from amusement parks or malls in such cases you need some kind of a assurance to get your baby back safely.

To give mothers some mental peace Baltimore came up with a brilliant idea called Safety Tats. These are fancy stickers that can be used as name tags, Safety Tats come with a pen to write on them too. All you need to do is stick it on your babies arm and write down your name, babies name and your contact detail on it, just in case you loose your baby and some one finds your kid they can contact you easily.

This is a super way to remain stress free when you are shopping or at a birthday party or at an airport or a park. These Safety Tattoos are allergy free as they are made from medically permitted hypo allergic latex free gum . They are also water proof so it won't come off in water or due to sweat. The adhesive being latex free makes it easily removable by adults once you and your baby are safely home.

Just the thought of losing your baby is enough for any mother to go completely berserk and every mother will do all that is possible to keep the baby safe and secured .These Id tattoos for children are super ways to get your child back; it's a tattoo sticker that will bring your child back to you safely. Every mother who has a toddler waste no time and immediately buy them I am a mother I know how important these Id tattoos can prove to be.

Calculating the babies height

As we are always paranoid about our babies physical and mental growth, we often tend to ponder over whether the baby will be as tall as her dad or short like her mom or vice versa.

It is understandable every mother is always worried about the overall growth of the baby, so a periodic check with the babies’ pediac is essential as they will check the weight as well as check the height and the motor skills of the baby.

And if they are satisfied then you have nothing to worry about. But incase if the baby is losing out of some nutrition you can start working on it, today we have drug stores full of some amazing tonics, multi-vitamins, calcium drinks to add to the babies’ nutrition, you can check whichever is best for your baby and start with it. To a major extent the babies physical growth as a lot to do with the babies genes, if the mother is obese then the baby has chances of getting obese same way if the mother is under nourished the baby will also lack nutrition. That is mainly why I keep repeating and repeating to make sure you have a well-balanced and high in nutrition diet all through your pregnancy as the baby gets all their nutrition from you.

Height Prediction is a good guess to judge the babies height but it may only be 95% correct. As to some extent you and your partner’s height will also determine the baby's height. But this attributes only 60% of the decision the rest 40% depends on the babies’ food intake and activity level. If the baby has low nutrition then he is bound to remain short and if he lacks exercise then too he will not develop his 100% height.

Height calculator will not give the right prediction in some cases such as, if the baby suffers from hormone deficiency or he is exceptionally tall again for some medical reason.

To a great extent the babies height does go on his or her parents but make sure your baby is being well fed and also has loads of physical activity in their daily regime, this will make sure they have a good overall body development and a perfect height and weight ratio.

Reasons of delayed speech

Reasons of delayed speech-

Some kids are just slow paced and take time to start talking and in this case there is no reason to get hyper. In some children psychology also plays a pivotal role and in such cases it is important for the mother to help the child. You can also seek help of a child counselor.

Chronic ear infection at times also delays the child speech development and you can find out about it by taking the child fora checkup to the pediatrician. Simple medicines and drops will take care of it.

Home environment can also lead to delayed speech, so don’t lose hopes keep trying to create a happy ambiance.

The new research is also trying to co-relate how mercury exposure can also cause delayed brain development, but we still have to see the results of this research.

There are ways to handle late speech development. You can ask your pediatrician to guide you to a good speech therapist you can also get your baby's test and checkup done by a speech pathologist and know whether it's a medical reason or an emotional reason for delayed talking. Mother's whose babies have a speech difficulty need to be more patient and more involved in the babies day to day emotional needs you need to speak to them, sing to them and read to them and sooner your baby will also react. Have faith!!

DELAYED SPEECH DEVELOPMENT HAPPENS AND CAN BE HANDLED

Every mother awaits her child's first spoken words. It's like their dream to be addressed as mama come true. The first word the child usually speaks is mama or dada or papa easy to say and that's majorly what we want to hear them say too. Simple words of maa, paa or dada make that one simple moment into a special and memorable moment.

Children usually say their first words by their 1st birthday and by their 2nd birthday they should be saying at least 2 or 3 word sentences. However, some kids say it much earlier in comparison to many and a few speak much later in comparison to all.

I know, it can create a huge panic when we realize our kid hasn't spoken yet and our friend's kid or other kids of the same age are already on their way to pronounce more words.I know it is scary, but there is no reason to panic. Speech development in some cases is known to get delayed as children develop their speech as and when then want to and you cannot force them to speak. It is generally noted that girls in comparison will always speak faster and way sooner than boys. Your child comes into the late speech development category that too only if he has not spoken even a word and he is 20 odd months old as by this time. We expect babies to learn atleast 10 to 15 generally used words.

Usually, a child should be saying atleast 2 to 3 words sentences by their 2nd birthday and by their 3rd birthday simple words and sentence understanding should have been developed. By the age of 4 your baby should be able to understand all instructions and pronounce her words correctly, and by 5 your baby should be a non-stop chatter box. Though this may be the case of many children, but in some cases this may not be the case for all children. Some children start their speech as late as 2 or 3 years old.

Read Reasons of delayed speech in next blog post.......

Essential Vitamins are Fundamental for Overall Growth

Vitamins and nutrients are very essential for the baby as well as the mother and pregnancy is a very essential period where the mother's food intake plays a very pivotal role in the growth of the fetus and then the development of the baby. That is the sole reason every article I lay emphasis on eating nutritious food, as what you eat is what your baby will be. A mother who has eaten only healthy food during pregnancy will always have a healthy baby and a mother who has eaten more junk food and less nutrition will always have a baby who has low birth weight.

If your baby is healthy it's your own efforts so Kudos! For it and keep doing what you have been doing eat well workout well and you and your baby will always be healthy and fit. But if you haven’t been careful during your pregnancy and your baby's birth weight is low there is nothing to be disheartened, if you take certain efforts your baby will be back to being healthy and bouncy.

There are certain vitamins and nutrients that are essential for the babies growth and by adding that to your meal if your breast feeding or adding it to the baby's diet if you have already started on top food will definitely do good to your little one.

Calcium - The most important nutrient for the baby and for you, calcium is most needed for making the bones stronger, milk and dairy products are the best source for calcium, if you have an infant your breast milk will have all the calcium the baby needs, as long as your food intake too has the right amount of calcium in it. If you have a toddler make sure you are giving your child at least 2 glasses of milk every single day, for a perfect set of teeth and strong bones calcium is essential.

Iron- During your pregnancy every mother is given tablets for iron, as it is most important to have a good rate of hemoglobin , if the mother's hemoglobin is high then automatically the baby will have the right amount of iron . But if you have low hemoglobin then make sure your doctor prescribes a good capsule for the extra iron dosage, eating iron rich foods like beetroot, spinach, reddish even chicken liver will help boost the iron levels.  In case of an infant improve your diet add the above given foods in your diet and in turn your baby will receive the iron needed. If your child is a toddler then best is to add more forms of food that are rich in iron in the baby's diet.

Potassium - Potassium has to be in the right amount as it controls the blood pressure of the body and makes sure the kidney is functioning fine and the heart beats are in proper rhythm. Low potassium can lead to stone formation in the kidney and osteoporosis. The best source of potassium is fresh fruits and various vegetables make sure you are eating enough to pass it to your baby and if your baby is a grown toddler i know it will be a hard task but still do all that is possible to put some vegetable and fruits down your baby's throat.

Vitamin A - Again the only source is fruits and vegetables vitamin A is vital for the baby's hair, nail and skin growth and development. Eggs, peaches, cheese, peas, broccoli, tomatoes, oats all these are good source of vitamin A. Vitamin A should also be included as it helps in making the baby's immune system stronger and protects the baby from all sorts of infections.

Vitamin C- Citrus fruits are the best source of vitamin C oranges, sweet lime, lemon superb way to gain some vitamin C. Again a vitamin that makes the immune system stronger to fight colds and flu attacks. Not only that vitamin C is an essential for repairing the cells of our body and bones so it keeps the baby protected from injury by healing it faster.

Vitamin E- A vitamin one should have all thru their life, important for immunity as well as repairing the day to day small damages and injuries of tissues and improving the metabolism of our system. Olive oil is a super source of vitamin E and so are many kinds of nuts.Giving the baby nuts to eat please make sure you have crushed the nuts well so that they do not choke on them even by mistake.

Teething issues and problems related to teething.

Teething can be a huge nightmare for the baby as well as the mother. For the baby as the process of teething can be quiet painful and most of all highly irritable but for the mother it’s a torment to see your baby get all irritable cranky and clingy at all times.

Teething is a very prudent part in the baby’s development stage where both the mother and the baby get restless and irritable. No mother is comfortable when their baby is in any kind of discomfort. Teething usually starts when the baby is around 6months old, but in some cases symptoms of teething can be seen as early as 4months.

Children tend to put everything in their mouths that’s the way they explore things but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are teething, as signs of teething are mostly seen 6months onwards.

Babies tend to suffer the following when their teething process commences-

Crankiness and Irritability – babies tend to get unnecessarily cranky and irritable when they are about to start teething their gums are sensitive and itchy and that makes them cranky and most of all clingy. This could also lead to disturb sleeping losing their appetite, troubling while feeding. In most cases during the day you can always give the child a teether to chew on that will provide them will some relief and if the climate isn’t too cold then give them a cold teether that has been chilled , the cold effect will help them considerably. There are some gum irritability relieving ointments available but please check with your doctor before any application. To soothe your crying baby a chilled pacifier is also fine; there is no harm in giving the baby a pacifier.

Fever – in most cases babies tend to get a little fever when they are teething or they cut their first tooth, in such times a mild doctor recommended paracetamol will do the trick. There is no need to get stressed over the fever it is very normal. Just speak to your pediatrician and ask him or her to prescribe a good pain reliever paracetamol like pediatric Tylenol, ibuprofen will definitely give the baby some relief.

Salivating- excessive drooling is also seen in babies when they are teething, this is fine but because of drooling the saliva tends to cause a rash on the chin, there is nothing to worry about make sure you clean the baby’s chin with a wet wipe or a wet napkin rinsed in warm water. To get rid of the rash you can apply Vaseline 2 to 3 times a day.

First tooth- usually in their 6^th month the baby gets their first set of teeth, teeth usually come in a pair and 90% of the times the bottom 2 are the first ones to appear. The babies can be in a lot of pain at this time for this a mild pain killer like pediatric Tylenol can be given after consulting your doctor. To give the baby some soothing gently rub your fingers over their gums this will also give them a lot of relief. You can also make small ice bags out of soft napkins and give the baby to suck on, the cold bag or teether or pacifier all act as relievers of discomfort.

Their canines and molars unusually appear around the 9^th and 12^th month.

There are various ways to handle your baby at such a sensitive time, all it will take from you is loads of your patience it’s a matter of time before you see your baby flash their pearly white baby teeth, eventually baby’s settle down and the irritations will also reduce just be calm and patient and do everything possible to make the baby as comfortable as you can in this phase. There is nothing like a mother’s embrace, whatever be how ever painful or uncomfortable the baby is a soothing lullaby in the mothers arm can put everything at ease.