The first few months
Giant steps in the first few months
To make the giant steps in development required in the first few months, your baby needs a lot of nutrients. Breast milk provides your baby with a healthy start and is the natural first food for babies. Breast milk has many benefits for your baby – and for you too!
Busy days and not much sleep
There’s so much to do when you have a newborn. They need to feed every two to four hours so it is a case of feeding, burping and changing around the clock. And that is just your baby. There’s also cooking, laundry, housework and coping with the invasion of family and friends who all want to cuddle your little one.
Having a child is a major life change and places intense demands on your time and energy. Sometimes it seems that you never have enough time, training or preparation to do the job; you may be tired due to lack of sleep or emotionally overwhelmed. But see it as an adventure, a challenge – and bear in mind that everyone’s situation is different and that everyone will have their own ideas. Just be confident and enjoy your journey into parenthood – sparkle in your own way.
By the time your baby is three months old he or she may be able to sleep for six to eight hours at a stretch. Realistically, however, few babies will sleep this long until they are 12 months old.
Birth weight and changes
Most babies who are born ‘full term’ (between 37 and 42 weeks of gestation) weigh between 2.5 and 5 kilograms; the average birth weight in Europe is about 3.5 kilograms. Birth weight can be influenced by many factors, such as pregnancy gestation at birth (whether the baby is born earlier or later than ‘full term’), the baby’s gender, the mother’s health and nutrition during the pregnancy, a multiple birth, or the baby’s health at birth.
A newborn baby may lose some weight in the first five to seven days of life, but most babies are back to their birth weight by the time they are 10 to 14 days old.
The nutrient supply route changes
Before your baby enters the world, all of the nutrients necessary for growth are provided by the placenta. But as soon as your little one is born, everything changes. The placenta is attached to your baby through the umbilical cord, the lifeline between you and your baby. This cord is cut at birth and the digestive tract is set into action.
The digestive system needs time to mature
The digestive system or gastro-intestinal system (GI tract) is basically a long, twisting tube that runs from the mouth to the anus. A couple of organs help along the way. Everything that is not absorbed into the body leaves through the anus as faeces (stool). Depending on the composition of food, the whole process takes about 24 to 48 hours. After birth, this system undergoes intense growth and functional maturation, which is why your baby is not ready yet to accept types of food other than milk. And, because the stomach is still very small, feeding must be frequent.
Reflux: a common, non-serious problem
Almost all infants bring up small amounts of milk after a feed, whether they are breastfed or bottle-fed. Reflux (regurgitation, posseting or spitting up) is common in infants. As long as the baby is otherwise happy, healthy and gaining weight, there's generally no cause for concern. These infants are also called ‘happy spitters’. It is a temporary, non-serious problem that usually gets better as muscles in the baby’s digestive system mature. So a combination of a tiny stomach that holds limited amounts of food and a muscle that is still developing causes the milk to go the wrong way. As the baby grows, the muscle ‘learns’ to keep food where it belongs, in the stomach.