Week 2: Your Baby’s First Year, Week By Week

Continued from week 1.

Week 2

Like the first week, you are still battling a variety of emotions, dealing with postpartum and breastfeeding issues while trying to adapt to the changes and extra responsibilities of bringing your bundle of joy home (see coping tips here, here, here and here).

Your newborn also is still trying to adjust to living outside the cosiness of your womb and has not settled into a routine yet.

Find details of what to expect this week…

Your Baby

Your baby’s umbilical cord is still healing, and you may find a dried up piece of cord stump sticking to his diaper. This is no cause for alarm.

In addition, expect more periods of quiet wakefulness this week and use it for more stimulating interactions with baby. For instance, read, talk and sing to baby.

You may also find baby groaning, stretching or squeaking while still asleep. This is no cause for alarm and calls for always making sure baby is really awake before picking him up. This will save you bouts of frustrating cries. You may also observe that while loud noises may startle baby, he does not wake up.

This is also the period baby colic, perhaps caused by indigestion or reflux, may set in. See tips to soothe baby’s endless cries here.

If you are breastfeeding, baby may take 30 – 45 minutes to feed and demand to feed again after napping for barely 30 minutes. These frequent feeds will boost your breast milk supply while giving your baby all he needs to grow into a healthy baby. 10 to 12 feeds every 24 hours with 6 -8 wet diapers shows baby is feeding well.

Development

Like the first week, your newborn has not attained a lot of milestones yet but needs lots of sleep, feeds and gentle interaction to aid rapid growth in subsequent weeks.

By the second week, most babies experience their first growth spurt, marked by increased appetite and need to feed more frequently. This enables most babies regain lost weight (babies often lose 10 percent of their birth weight during the first 3 – 5 days), and add extra pounds in coming weeks. Baby is also gaining some muscle control, so that his movements become less jerky.

Baby also has an increasing ability to focus on objects, especially your face, though his eyesight is still fuzzy because babies are born nearsighted. For now, he can only see things about 8 to 15 inches away – this is only about the distance between your eyes and his during feedings. Encourage him to practise focusing by maintaining his gaze during feedings. You can also try moving your head slowly from side to side to see if he follows you with his eyes. Do this frequently while feeding him to hone his eye muscles and tracking skills.

His face will brighten when you cuddle and talk to him soothingly, and some babies may try to mimic you when you stick out your tongue.

Your baby has also already developed a sense of taste and recognizes and prefers sweet tastes to those that are bitter. He cannot react to salty foods until around 5 months old. You’ll also notice your baby turns his head away when he smells something unpleasant, like his dirty diaper. This is because he already uses his sense of smell and can localize odours.

For now, his movements are mostly controlled by reflexes. For instance, the rooting and sucking reflex allows him turn his head towards your hand if you stroke his cheeks and find your nipples when it’s time for feeds.

…To be continued.