9 Things You Should Know About Your Newborn

Mark Wealth

Newborn babies make you learn new things. As is the case with new beginnings, new parents will be pushed to their wits end in coping with the introduction of a new member of the family. The baby is still learning how to respond to this new world according to his/her changing physiology so parents have to anticipate and learn about the responses and how to cope with them.
Here are 10 things you will observe and experience with your new-born baby.

1. The Hunger

Before birth, babies didn’t have to feel or even get hungry. Food was always ready and found it’s way into their tender bodies through the umbilical cord. Now that they are born, they have to be deliberately fed. Their small stomachs allow them just enough breastmilk to last a few hours (2 to 3 hours). This means they will be hungry in the next two to three hours and the hunger games carry on.

2. Cry Baby

Your baby is going to cry a lot. It’s going to be worrisome and you will have to put up with it for some months. This is because it’s the only way they know how to communicate. So they cry when they are lonely, cry when they’re hungry; cry when they poop in their diaper. Soon you will understand that they’re not just trying to loosen some nuts in your head, and start to decipher the exact reason why they’re crying at a particular time.

3. The First Poop

It’s called meconium and may surprise you with its colour, black or greenish black, and it’s stickiness. It is odorless because the lining of the intestine hasn’t been colonised by bacteria. Bacteria and consequently, smelly poop will start when baby starts feeding. Then the colour changes from black to green and then to the normal yellow.
If the poop is white or red, you should notify your doctor immediately.

4. Sleep Patterns

New born babies will sleep most of the time, only waking up to poop, play and feed then it’s back to snooze land both during day and night. This cycle goes on until they reach the three-month milestone. This means you won’t be catching much sleep then.

5. Short Sightedness

Because their brains haven’t developed fully, babies won’t be able to see very well. This means that they will only be able to see your face or the face of the person holding them clearly most of the time. As their brains develop, their eyes will be able to take in much more with increasing clarity.
They may also not be able to synchronise the movement of both eyes. You may notice that their eyes seem to cross occasionally. Holding a bright object in front of their eyes and moving it slowly from side to side will help them control the movement of both eyes in the same direction.

6. Sensitive Sense of Smell

This is about the most developed sense the baby has at birth. After a couple of days, say a week, your new born baby will be able to recognise your (mom’s) smell. This is how they are able to identify you even before you come into their line of vision. It’s another way, mother nature has equipped the baby to bond with his/her parents.

7. Tender Skin

Taking Sugar In The First 1,000 Days After Conception Of A Child Linked To Health Issues Later In Life -New Study

Your baby’s skin is actually very tender because it has been soaking in water for months. It’s going to take time to get used to the conditions out here. As a result, you may notice baby’s skin getting dry and flaky. Apply natural olive oil on your baby.

8. Noisy Nose

You may notice your child making wheezing or raspy sounds from his nose, like he’s experiencing difficulty in breathing. It’s because his nasal airways are still very narrow and usually clogged with mucus. Some of the mucus is caused by amniotic fluid from the womb that gets trapped in the nasal passages after birth or breast milk that flows into the wrong place when feeding.

9.The Soft Spots, One at the back and one in front.

Okay we will be hard pressed to find a parent who doesn’t have a soft spot for their baby. They do exist but that is not the kind of soft spot we’re talking about here. It is an actual soft spot, or make it two soft spots on your baby’s head: one, the bigger one on the front and another one at the back. You might observe it pulsating along with the child’s heart beat or bulging when baby is crying or passing faeces.
The soft spot at the back of the head closes up after about six weeks while the one at the front closes up after eighteen months.