3 Week Old Baby - What Your Baby's Doing Now: Diary of A New Mum

 image source..image used for representation purpose only, not for commercial reasons

Wow..so you've managed to pass through the first 2 weeks! And did anyone tell you, they were actually the most fragile ones? With a tiny one in the hand, it's really tricky to do near about anything!

Now that your baby enters the 3rd week of life, there's going to be a lot of progress, changes and development, and you, mommy and dad, are going to be absolutely amazed at what all this tiny bundle knows!


Suckling:
Right now your baby will be making a lot of sucking moments. As much as you're breastfeeding baby, different babies will respond in different ways (remember, every option is natural):

• some babies are still learning to latch on
• some babies may have learnt to latch on but are still trying to be comfortable
• some babies need that extra help in latching on....no problem, spend as much time as needed and help out your little baby
• some babies are already pros...they need no help...great!

At this stage, and for some months to come, sucking will be your baby's main reflex. But each time your baby cries, or each time your baby suckles may not mean that baby is hungry. Babies find suckling and nestling up to feed extremely comfortable and soothing. If you think your baby wants to suckle even on a full tummy, hold on and soothe baby in some other ways.

Sleeping:
It's still the sleep feed poop feed sleep routine, and your baby is most likely doing it through the day and night. At 3 weeks, and for months to come, your baby needs to sleep on its back.While many parents will tell you that babies do sleep on their tummies (and it does make them comfortable) the fact is that putting baby on the tummy while sleeping is an extremely risky position. It is advised to put baby on the back while sleeping.

Movements:
Baby hardly does much movement now, but one thing that you may notice, especially if you hold up baby or give baby a bit of tummy time (recommended daily for a few minutes), is that baby will try and hold up its head. Of course this may be only a few seconds to begin with, but this is baby's beginning to be able to firm up the neck area and gradually firm up that wobbly doll look :-)

Hearing & Speaking Developments:
Your baby will most likely start recognising your voice now. It may be a subtle sign at first, but slowly you'll see baby responding more and more to your voice, or whoever is baby's primary caretaker and spends most time around.
Baby will also start making new sounds every day, lots of cooing and little kitten noises (so cute!). Talk to baby and encourage baby to SPEAK more...this is the absolute first step of baby building up its vocab and speaking skills......

Breastfeeding:
Baby will be feeding at every 1 to 1nhalf hour gap (I say this because I'm yet to come across a parent whose baby waits for the 'popular' 2 hour gap between feeds!). Also, remember to burp baby after each feed (this too is quite tricky as most times babies will fall asleep while feeding and then don't burp. Relax, you're not the only parent who gives burp time a miss).

What you may need to buy if you haven't bought it already:
Most of the things you've already bought by now, but just in case you have left out on some, here's a little reminder list. Plus you'll continue to need most of these for a while..

For baby:

• cloth nappies
• diapers
• baby wipes
• disposable nappy pads
• bibs
• mittens
• socks
• diaper rash cream
• baby's bath time essentials
• infant nail clippers

For mum (especially if you're expressing milk)

• breast pump (manual or automated)
• feeding cloak
• a sterilised bowl and spoon handy to feed baby in emergencies
• feeding bottle (though this isn't recommended in the first few weeks)
• bottle cleaning devices

Yes, this is pretty much the main things you'll need. The stores and sites will give you a never-ending list of what all you need, but trust me, at this age, your baby doesn't really need much shopping. Be a sensible buyer as babies will outgrow things in days, or couple weeks and most things will become useless pretty soon.

When it comes to your baby, you know what makes baby most comfortable. Go by your instinct and do what you think is best for your little one.

- Debolina Raja Gupta

**********************************************
And like I always believe in and say:
'Heal the world we live in
Save it for our children' - MJ
Happy Parenting!!!!

Be good to your little one, and to the millions of little ones out there who truly need every bit of love and compassion they can get.....Be a grown up...save the little ones.... Debolina Raja Gupta