I hope that you are all not finding this blog to boring. If you would like to suggest ways to improve it feel free to comment on any of the posts. I thought that maybe I would also add little interesting facts and things that I find in articles that I find.
As many of you know Mckenzie will be a whopping 3 weeks old tomorrow. My how time flies!
At this age, it's important to continue offering tummy time for the babies. This time allows the baby a chance to strengthen his/her neck muscles. It is suggested that the best way to encourage this is to lay the baby on your stomach and encourage them to look up at you. This will be very important down the road when the child learns to roll over, sit and crawl. By the end of the 3 week, they may be able to hold their head up briefly enough to turn their heads from side to side. This strengthening of the muscles and maturing of the nervous system will help make the newborns jerky movements more fluid.
Another characteristic if newborns at this age are their need for self soothing. It is recommend not to discourage. In a article that I read on www.babycenter.com, it states that the Academy of Pediatrics recommends that a pacifier should be given during nap time and bedtime, based on evidence that pacifier may reduced the risk of SIDS(sudden infant death syndrome).
I really found the information interesting about the pacifier. My children never would take a pacifier. They just didn't seem to like it. I was always a little glad. I don't know how many times that I have went shopping and was in public and saw little kids around 3-5 yrs old sucking on a pacifier. I just felt that their are other things parents can try to offer to help sooth them. I guess it was just one of the little things that I never agreed with.
Little Mckenzie seems to like sucking on his fingers and hand so much, that we thought that it was best to try one. We felt that down that road it would be much easier to get rid of a pacifier then having to stop him from sucking his thumb! It used to be that the hospital always would offer a pacifier but our local hospital has changed their look on it especially with the new little ones that are trying to get started on breastfeeding. It is felt that they would rather them try nursing then getting distracted with a pacifier.
I guess in the end it always comes down to us as parents and what we prefer and believe. Nobody ever said raising a child was easy!! There is just no booklet that spells everything out for us. We can only apply what we learn and go from there, in the end we learn by trial and error. Not every child learns the same and that's what makes us each individuals. I can say that after having my six children and watching them grow and develop into the young people they have become, it's what makes being a parent so rewarding. Rebecca
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