Newborn milestones

The big milestones most babies go through in their first year are sitting up, crawling, and starting the first solid foods. But even newborns change and learn new things every day. What can you expect from your newborn in the first six weeks or so? More than you think, perhaps!

In the days after birth, your new baby is likely to sleep an awful lot even up to 18 hours a day. As your newborn gets older, she will start being awake for longer, and may be more focused on the immediate surroundings. You may notice that your baby is starting to react to your voice and your partner's in the first weeks of life. Some babies do this right at birth. Somewhere in the first day after birth, your baby will have his first bowel movement, which is made up of meconium. Your baby's umbilical cord stump will fall off a few days to a week after birth. This is another transition to life outside the womb, if only a symbolical one, and certainly a milestone. Your baby will settle into a nursing routine all their own, if you are a breastfeeding mother. Your baby may be on the breast much of the time, or have clear intervals at which she cries to nurse. Your baby may establish sleep patterns as well, even if they are not the ones you had hoped for, or the ones that will offer you most sleep. Babies may not have a clear sense of day and night, or any sense at all, But often still follow specific sleeping patterns, which may be the same as those they had in the uterus. Your baby will probably learn to hold his head up somewhere soon after birth. Some babies are born with this ability, but most are not. And the sweetest one of them all, your baby will start smiling at around six weeks!