Our baby's development since birth

For parents it's always important to know if their babies are in line with the actual development of the other babies or if there is a bigger time gap between one of the development, may it be physically, visionally or mentally.

The time frame for certain steps of the baby's development are:

1. smiling
2. focusing the eyes on moving objects
3. moving the head up and down (supporting of the neck muscles)
4. creeping
5. sounds (like babbling)
6. laughing
   

How to teach your baby reading and math (part 1)

Do you know that you can teach newborn baby everything from birth on?

Do you know that some babies can read and make maths calculations already with 12 months? No?
We will show you how these kids have learned these skills within their first year of life!

Do you know that your baby can only see high-contrast colours?

According to the studies, the visual system is the least mature system at birth, therefore the newborn baby is not able to perceive the bright colours. Hence, black and white colours can easily attract baby and this will enhance the growth of the vision system.

Studies show that high contrast graphics can

• help increase concentration skills
  
• stimulate the creation of synapses (brain cell connections)
• increase an infant's attention span
• calm a baby (when she is bored)
• enhance curiosity
  

It is believed that showing black and white flashcards and toys to the newborn baby from birth on, the baby can response to mother's smiles faster as it stimulates the vision system. Black and white colours are effective to baby from birth to six months.


Few days before, we bought Timmy a set of black and white flash cards which contains 60 cards and double sided with 120 images. Its size is 31.4cm X 23.3cm, baby prefers to see big images or letters. So far, Timmy shows his interests on the flash cards. We showed him just now during the nappies time, he even smiled at the images! :-) We think this is also a bonding time together with Timmy, we enjoy these precious moments!



Why did we choose black and white flashcards?

When Timmy was about 7-week-old, we DIY (Do It Yourself) the black math dots cards from number 1 to 7. We showed Timmy faithfully every day, we found that Timmy was able to focus on the flash cards. One week later, he started to smile at us and respond to us every day until now. Before this, we only could get the smile from Timmy while he was falling asleep. But now we can "chit-chat" with Timmy every day and of course he shows us his angel smiles most of time! :-)


There are many websites available for parents to print out the flash cards, you can DIY! If you are interested, you might want to check out this website Brillkids, you can even join their forum to share your views and experiences.

Second checkup and 5-in-1 vaccination for Tim

Yesterday we went to the clinic for the second month checkup.

Tim gained around 1 kg weight since last month, his weight is now 4,4 kg. He is now 57,5 cm tall. This is an increase of 5 cm from the last checkup on 18th of March 2009.

Since the birth he gained now 1,4 kg and grew 7,5 cm! Luckily it's all in the normal range.

After the checkup, Tim had to get the vaccination. They use a four-in-one jab including vaccine against Triple Antigen (DPT), Hepatitis B (2nd dose) and orally given Polio Vaccine (Hib 1).

As the vaccine has to be injected into the muscles, the nurse had to inject it "deep" into the upper leg.

That's how Tim looked like during this procedure

Updates about the "side effects" of this Mega-vaccination following in the next hours.

Have a great time on our blog!

Happy Easter from baby Tim!

What a day! How do i look like in this dress? ;-)

Bathing time for our baby Tim

Hello, today we take again a bath in our bath tube.

I'm now already used to the water and i love having this five-minute bath each and every day together with my mummy and my daddy.

Let's see some pictures from me from today's bathing time!

Advantages of breast-feeding your baby

There are numerous advantages of breast-feeding your baby.

• It's time saving:
  The most obvious reason for breast-feeding is that you/your baby have usually instantly access to the breast milk because it's immediately available at a suitable feeding temperature.
  
  
• It's money saving:
  If you are breast-feeding you should increase your daily calorie intake. Usually the cost for this food is around one third of the cost for the formula milk product.
  
  
• Breast milk has the best ingredients mix:
  Main ingredients are sugar (lactose), easy to digest protein (whey and casein) and fat (digestible fatty acids), additional you may find many minerals, vitamins and enzymes which aid in the process of digestion. In comparison to formula milk, breast milk provides the baby with antibodies (to build up and strengthen his immune system) and the enzymes (which shows its effects in changing more often the diaper when you breastfeed).
  
  
• Getting faster in your previous body shape:
  The body burns up to 500 calories each day while breast-feeding, it tightens up the shrinking uterus more quickly and brings the tummy back earlier in shape.
  
  
• Emotional and psychological advantages for mother and baby:
  It includes direct skin-to-skin contact, milk production hormones also promotes the feelings of mothering, one of these hormones also gets into the breast milk and can be used as natural pacifier (that's why sometimes the baby falls asleep during feeding ;-) )

What are your experiences with breast-feeding? Which advantages did you recognize during the times of breast-feeding? Share your opinions!

Funny facts about having babies!!

Birth order of children:

1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.

2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.

3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.


Preparing for the Birth:

1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.

2nd baby: You don't bother because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.

3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.


The Layette:

1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes, color-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.

2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.

3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?


Worries:

1st baby: At the first sign of distress--a whimper, a frown--you pick up the baby

2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.

3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.


Pacifier:

1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.

2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby's bottle.

3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.



Diapering:

1st baby: You change your baby's diapers every hour, whether they need it or not.

2nd baby: You change their diaper every two to three hours, if needed.

3rd baby: You try to change their diaper before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.



Activities

1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, Baby Zoo, Baby Movies and Baby Story Hour.

2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.

3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaners.



Going Out:

1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.

2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.

3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.



At Home:

1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.

2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.

3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children



Swallowing Coins (a favorite):

1st child: When first child swallows a coin, you rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays

2nd child: When second child swallows a coin, you carefully watch for the coin to pass.

3rd child: When third child swallows a coin you deduct it from his allowance!


Are this true facts which happened in your life, too ;-) ?
Share your views and leave some comments about this topic!

If you like to know the further development of our son, just subscribe to our RSS-Feed and get informed as soon as a new article is written about the background of his development and the explanations/ guides for parenting.

EEC-Syndrome: Our nine-finger son

The EEC-Syndrome is a complex genetic disorder which can influence most of the body parts. Most common are the cleft lips/palate, there a gap on the upper lip/mouth will occur. Our son is NOT affected by cleft lips/palate!

The visible appearance for our son is the 'claw-like' fingers and the missing of fingers on one or both hands/feet.

Usually two fingers are combined and then it is followed by a gap and the other two or three fingers are a separate pair/triplet like you can see on the pictures from our son Tim Johannes.

This disorder of the skin/bones has no effects on his future development (physically, intellectually, mentally). It has mostly only to do with appearance disorder like we describe it below the picture.


Left hand with five fingers, the gap is between the middle and the pointing finger

Right hand with four fingers and gap between the ring finger and the pointing finger, the middle finger seems to be missing


Other features in connection with the EEC-Syndrome could be in the future:

• missing or abnormal teeth
• hearing loss
• kidney problems

Usually gene or chromosome tests are made to see which kind of features could appear in the future because some of the features are already localized in the chromosomes.

At the moment we have to wait for the results of these tests. The doctors said we should get them at latest by end of April. We will keep you updated.

Do you have also a kid with some health problems?
Share your thoughts about it with us in the comments!

If you like to know the further development of our son, just subscribe to our RSS-Feed and get informed as soon as a new article is written about the background of his development and the explanations/ guides for parenting

First newborn test - Apgar score

The Apgar score is a number which will be given after five standard tests are made with the newborn baby.

The newborn tests will be performed usually one minute and five minutes after birth (sometimes additional ten minutes later, too).

These are the standard newborn tests:

• Heart beat (> 100, 2 points; below, 1 point; absent, 0 point)
• breathing (regular, 2 points; irregular, 1 point; absent 0 point)
• movements (active, 2 points; some, 1 point; limp 0 point)
• skin color (pink, 2 points; bluish extremities, 1 point; blue, 0 point)
• reflex response (cries, 2 points; whimpers, 1 point; absent 0 point)

A normal Apgar score would be 7 points or above. Lower Apgar scores at the first testing are ok when they improve after the second testing.

A lower Apgar score at the second testing indicates usually the immediate attention of a pediatrician.

With Tim Johannes the newborn tests showed high/the best Apgar nscore at the second testing.
This was one of the reasons that there was no need for the pediatrician to check him earlier.

Otherwise the feeding intolerance would have probably detected earlier. As this kind of newborn test is not performed in the Apgar score a food intolerance can only be discovered by a careful observation of the newborn baby through the nurses/doctor/mother or parents during/after feeding (more about feeding intolerance in one of the next posts!).

Which Apgar Score did your newborn baby have?

If you like to know the further development of our son, just subscribe to our RSS-Feed and get informed as soon as a new article is written about the background of his development and the explanations/ guides for parenting.

The first hours of our newborn baby

Hello dear readers,

i'm Tim Johannes. I was born on 19th of February 2009 at 2:57 pm in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. My weight has been 3,05 kg and my height has been 50 cm. My head circumference was 34 cm.

My Apgar Score one minute after birth has been 9, five minutes later it has risen to the highest score, 10.

The nurses told my parents that i'm one of the special newborns because i have nine fingers. This means i would have one of the rare EEC-Syndromes (my parents will always explain the bold written scientific-sounding words in the next post!).

At 4:30 pm i was brought to my parents because my mum is an exclusively breast feeding mother. I felt sleepy after the delivery and my eyes were most of the times closed but i heard many different voices in the room. It seemed like the nurses wanted to tell my mother something about how to breastfeed me.

I just lay on the warm and soft breast of my mum in this time and enjoyed this feeling for almost 30 minutes. In this time they tried to open my mouth so that i could latch on mummy's nipple. In the beginning i didn't know what this was all about and so it didn't interested me much.
After some minutes i opened my mouth and tasted for the first time a small amount of breast milk from mummy's nipple.

I think my mum wanted to feed me again on the other breast as she changed my position on the breast but at this time i slept already again like you can see on the picture below :-)

The next feeding time was around 7 pm and this time i got much more milk than before. This tasted very good. I like the smell of my mummy and her breast milk. I have to try to remember the taste and the smell of both!

The third feeding has been around 9 pm. This time it was earlier because the nurses heard me crying and they took me to my parents room in the hospital. But after tasting again a small amount of breast milk and with some difficulties in latching-on, i started to fall asleep after some minutes. I guess my mum tried several times to open my mouth, so that she could put her nipple in it but i was too tired form the delivery and sucking can get exhausting, too.

Around 9:30 pm i choked the breast milk which means i couldn't keep it in my stomach or it went into the airway system and the pediatrician had to pump and clean the inside of my throat. In the end they had to support me with oxygen because i could only hardly breath after this kind of choking!

The pediatrician told my parents that they have to send me to another hospital with better equipment in case i wouldn't stabilize my breathing in the next hours and as he checked me completely he wasn't sure if there are also "abnormalities" inside of my body (with my organs) which could have caused this type of choking. Otherwise he guessed it would be a feeding intolerance.

In the next posts my parents will explain the words

• Apgar score
  
• EEC-Syndrome
• advantages of exclusively breastfeeding and the importance of early breastfeeding
  
• how to breastfeed
• feeding intolerance

Which experiences did you make on the first day of your newborn baby?
Share your experience with us in the comment section.

If you like to know the further development of our son, just subscribe to our RSS-Feed and get informed as soon as a new article is written about the background of his development and the explanations/ guides for parenting.