Answers to Baby Questions
“New parents are excited, overwhelmed and filled with baby questions.”
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Protecting and nurturing your newborn child produces many baby questions along the way. The number of questions that plague a new mother’s mind is virtually endless.
While these questions and concerns may vary from parent to parent, they all revolve around making the best environment for the new addition to the family. Here are the answers to just a few questions about babies that may be keeping you up at night.
When do I start feeding my baby solid foods? The answer depends on both the parent and the child. Babies are ready for solid foods anytime between 4 and 6 months of age. Until 6 months of age, breast milk provides all the nourishment your child needs.
It’s important to assess your child’s interest in and readiness for solid foods. Your child will give you signs that she’s ready to start solid foods. If she shows an interest in what you’re eating, has good head control, sits upright and has a growing appetite it’s probably time to begin.
How much sleep do babies need? It seems like every mother has a different idea or method for getting babies to sleep. The reason there are so many answers to this question is because sleep is the most sought after and most precious commodity for a new mother.
There is nothing like sleep depravation to make a new parent troll the internet looking for the answer. Every baby has different sleeping needs, some babies need as much as 16 hours and some as little as 10. On average your newborn will probably sleep 15 hours, 8 during the night and 7 during the day. By the time your child is one, this number will have dropped to 14 hours, and will continue to drop as they age.
When will my baby start sleeping through the night? The number of baby questions that revolve around a full nights sleep are enormous. When will my baby learn to self soothe? When will my baby stop waking during the night? When will my baby finally give me some peace and quiet during the night? When will I no longer look and act like a zombie? All of these questions have one answer; it depends.
While babies are all unique individuals with their own unique sleeping patterns and habits, in general babies will not sleep through the night until they are at least four or five months old.
It could be as long as nine or ten months before they are consistently sleeping through the night and able to self soother even if they do wake. Take comfort in the fact that things will get better, maybe not as fast as you would like, but you will be able to enjoy a good night’s sleep again…one day.
Is my baby developing properly? There must be more baby questions about childhood development and milestones than any other subject. Parents are obsessed with this topic and feel enormous pressure to do everything they can to make sure their babies meet these standards. Unfortunately, these questions don’t have concrete answers.
Babies develop in unique ways and a one size fits all chart simply doesn’t cover the full gamut of perfectly normal development in children. Always remember that the developmental charts are roadmaps, not gospel. More baby charts are breaking milestones into categories as a result of this problem.
These categories are mastered skills, which most kids can do, emerging skills, which half of the kids can do and advanced skills, which very few children can do at that particular age. In general, by the time your child is one year old, he should be able to imitate what he sees others doing.
For example, this could mean clapping his hands when he sees you doing the same thing. Your child should also be able to indicate what he wants with gestures. Gestures can mean any kind of hand movement, the most common of which is pointing. About half of the kids who are a year old can say mama or dada and one other word and take a few steps.
Advanced skills include walking alone, scribbling with crayons and saying a couple of words besides mama or dada.
Hope these answers to some of your questions reduced your sleepless nights. Remember whatever baby questions you have, one answer doesn’t fit every baby. Thank goodness our children are all special and unique in their own ways.
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