Your Newborn Baby

At birth, your baby boy is on an average about 50.5 cm tall and weighs 3.3 kg. However if you have a girl, her height and weight, on an average, may be 49.9 cm and 3.2 kg respectively. Your baby will gain another 500g per month in the first three months.

Breast milk is the best source of nutrition for your baby at this point of time. As a new mother, you may have various concerns regarding breastfeeding and how to get started with it. Check out a bunch of articles that we have to offer you at
Feeding Baby. Changing baby diapers is another key activity that you find keeps you occupied most of the time. You can make this task easier using our simple tips at
Changing Diapers. Your baby likes being warm and cosy. Swaddling your baby helps to achieve this. This also helps to prevent him from getting disturbed by his own reflex actions. Learn how to swaddle your baby with some simple tips at
Swaddling Baby.

All the five sense organs are present in your baby at birth. But they are not well developed and therefore not completely functional. At this stage, your baby's sense of hearing is better developed than his sense of vision. He likes objects that make a noise. Your baby can follow the movement of objects but his eye movements are not very precise. His vision is 20/800. Your baby prefers patterned images to plain ones. He cannot differentiate colours and likes objects with high colour contrasts

Gentle caresses and massages increase the alertness of a baby and make him more responsive. He can distinguish objects purely by touch. He prefers sweet smells.

Your baby will be given an Apgar test twice - the first at one minute after birth and the second at five minutes after birth. This test checks your baby's skin colour, reflexes, pulse rate, muscle tone and breathing. Testing of reflex is done by stimulating the sole of the baby's foot. On stimulation, if the baby cries, the maximum point of 2 is awarded. If the baby shows a distressed face, 1 point is awarded and no points are awarded if the baby shows no response. The total score for the check of all five characteristics is 10.

Your baby has a set of involuntary actions called reflexes. Most of them last for sometime and are replaced by improved gross and fine motor skills. In the first few weeks, your baby's movements are very jerky. He has very little control over the movement of his hands and feet. He cannot hold his head erect at this point. Touching your baby and establishing body contact with him often stimulates early physical growth.

KidandParent also offers you a collection of videos that serve as a practical guide on baby care. Watch videos on swaddling your baby, burping him and many more at
Baby Care.