BABY'S MIND

Vitamin requirements for baby during pregnancy

2011-04-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

Vitamins are just to be catalysts for many chemical reactions in the body and the supply should be sufficient amounts during pregnancy.

Vitamin C plays a role in collagen formation, hormone synthesis, and proper immune function. Increase vitamin C intake also positively affects the absorption of iron – another nutrient critical for a healthy baby.

Because the formation of the nervous system occurs during the first few weeks of regency, before a woman know she is pregnant, all women of childbearing age are well advised to include at least 400 micrograms of folic acids.

Deficiency during pregnancy may lead to easy rupture of fetal membrane and increased newborn mortality rate.

Vitamin A is essential and a key nutrient for normal reproduction function, and it can be obtain by it eating green vegetables and deep yellow or orange fruits and vegetables.

It plays important roles in reactions involved in cell differentiation.

Taking excessive amounts of vitamin A can cause kidney and brain malformations in baby and therefore should be avoided.

However deficiency that occurs early in pregnancy can produce malfunction of fetal lungs urinary tract and heart.

For vitamin K, it usually present in small amounts in human milk. Fetal stores of vitamin K protect the infant as does the prophylactic dose usually given at birth, until the newborn receives sufficient milk from the mother and the child’s intestine matures enough to manufacture its own.

Altered maternal metabolism, the growth of the fetus and additional storage of some vitamins in the placenta, in particular vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, C and folic acid, increase vitamin requirements during pregnancy.
Vitamin requirements for baby during pregnancy

Baby Jaundice

2010-12-23T19:47:00.000-08:00

One out of every two babies get jaundiced between two and six days of age. This is more common in breast fed babies.

Jaundice is the yellow color seen in the skin of many newborns. It happens when a chemical called bilirubin builds up in the baby’s blood.

The skin of a baby usually appears yellow. The best way to see jaundice is in good light, such as daylight or under fluorescent lights.

Jaundice usually appears first in the face and then moves to the chest, abdomen, arms and legs as the bilirubin level increase.

In most cases, the level of bilirubin that causes the jaundice is not harmful and does not require treatment.

However, any jaundice visible in the first 24 hours of life should be assumed to be serious.

The jaundice can be worsen due to:
*ABO disease – when mothers with type O blood may have babies with type A or B blood and thus have mild compatibility.

*Rh disease – incompatibility of the Rh factor in the blood between the mother and baby.

*The reabsorption of bruise marks after a difficult delivery.
Baby Jaundice

The Beginnings of Interaction of Baby and Surroundings

2010-08-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

The Beginnings of Interaction of Baby and Surroundings
During periods of calm, we can see the baby becoming increasingly attuned to the external world and particularly to her mother or primary caregiver.

In the first two months the baby’s sensory modalities became more organized and accurate.

As early as 2 - 3 weeks infant staring intently at her mother’s face or looking at her fist or listening to voices.

Over the next month she begins to expect certain events will occur when she fells certain things. For example, when she is hungry she expects to be fed. She has been in and remembers the rhythms and routines her caregivers have organized for her.

The two months old- orients to sight and sounds and also becomes more interested in objects. She can visually track objects that are moving.

He body registers excitement when she sees a bright colored toy, and she will try to grasp it, though usually without success since the aim of her reach is not yet accurate because she cannot yet coordinate more movements with visual perception.

By 6-8 weeks infants show a preference for face to face interactions and are very responsive to their caregivers; facial expressions, movements and voice tones.

They study their caregivers’ faces and begin to establish to eye to eye contact and to smile at about 4-6 weeks.

Their faces begin to express a range of emotions, and by 3 months they can recognize and respond to the emotions of their caregivers.
The Beginnings of Interaction of Baby and Surroundings

Nurture Growth and Change

2010-07-03T20:03:00.000-07:00

Nurture Growth and Change
When your child is a newborn, it may be difficult for you to imagine him ever growing up, and yet your main purpose as a parent is to encourage, guide and support his growth.

He depends on you to provide the food, protection and health care his body needs to grow properly, as well as the guidance his mind and spirit need to make him a healthy, mature individual.

Instead of resisting change in your child, your job is to welcome and nurture it.

Guiding your child’s grow involves a significant amount of discipline, both for you and for your child. As she becomes increasingly independent, he needs rules and guidelines to help him his limits and move beyond them.

You need to provide this framework for him, establishing rules that are appropriate for each stage of development and adjusting them as your child changes so they encourage growth instead of stifling it.

Confusion and conflict do not help your child to mature. Consistency does. Make sure that everyone who cares for him understands and agrees on the way he is being raised and the rules he’s expected to follow.

Establish policies for all his care givers to observe when he misbehaves, and adjust these polices along with the rules as he becomes more responsible.

Another way you nurture your child’s growth is by teaching him adapt to changes around him. You can help him with this lesson by coping smoothly with change your self and by preparing him for major changes within family.

A new baby, death or illness of a family member, a new job for a parent, unemployment, and chronic illness all deeply affect you child as well as you.

If the family faces these challenges as a mutually supportive unit, your child will feel, secure in accepting change and adjusting to it.

By being open and honest with him, you can help him meet these challenges and grow through them.
Nurture Growth and Change

Neural Planning

2010-05-28T02:42:00.000-07:00

Neural Planning
Continue from previous article.
What is neural planning? It is daily routines such as feeding, bathing and playing strengthen particular synapses while those connections that are not reinforce by repetition actually wither away.

Many people assume that building synapse should be the name of the game. After all, nobody likes to think of “losing” anything! But neural planning is a neat trick of human survival that allows a baby to adapt to many possible difference conditions and settings.

The connections that are frequently used remain and are further strengthened though continued use. At a cellular level such as repeated due do pathways allows energy travelling between neurons to flow faster and more efficiently, thereby freeing energy to enable a person to gain expertise in those ideas, sounds and concepts she works with most often.

It helps to imagine pathways in the brain as a network of roads. Before neural pruning begins, when we need to get from location A to location B, there are many different routes in small roads we could take to get there. With experience we learn which route is the easiest and fastest and we go that way more often, no longer using those other a smaller, less efficient roads for A o B.

The road used most frequently is widened over time into a bigger road, and then eventually becomes a super-highway, making a trip from A to B quick and easy.
Neural Planning

Milk and Baby Milk Formula

2010-04-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

Milk and Baby Milk Formula
Some of processed baby formula are manufactured by drug companies. Many nutritional doctors consider formula to be baby’s first junk food and drug.

Sweetened foods given to babies are linked to obesity, diabetes, diverticula disease and colon cancer.

In 1950 thousands of parents in the United States were very concerned when their newborn babies went into convulsions without any explanation.

One doctor noticed that these convulsion stopped when one infants formula was changed.

The company was manufactured the infant formula had forgotten to add vitamin B6 in their formula.

It is frightening when we realize errors in industrial formulated baby formulas can cause illness as well as deficiency in nutritional value.

Cow’s milk has too much protein and salt for human baby’s system and puts a strain on their kidneys. The casein content of cow’s milk helps build the bone structure of the baby calf, and is 300 times more potent than that in mother’s milk.

The cow’s milk is intended to double the weight of the calf in 6 to 8 weeks. Infants require 6 to 7 months to double their body weight.

Low fat milk is not any better for babies and many doctors call it a myth that it is better than whole milk.

Low fat milk is deficient in vitamins C, E and iron. It lacks essential fatty acids such as linoleic acid which is a vital nutrient for proper infant growth and central nervous system development.
Milk and Baby Milk Formula

Parental responses to Difficult Infants

2010-04-01T21:44:00.000-07:00

Parental responses to Difficult Infants
Many parents with “difficult” infants find ways to reduce their irritability. Some find that containing techniques, such as holding the baby a great deal or swaddling him tightly in blankets, reduces irritability and increases security.

Others discover that their “difficult: infant is hypersensitive to stimuli and in response take steps to reduce new stimuli or slow the pace of events in the infant’s environment.

Or they interact with him using only one sensory modality at a time; instead of over-stimulating him by talking to him and jiggling him simultaneously, they talk to him while holding him still.

These example of the concept of “goodness of fit” in the sense that the parent responds adaptively to the infant’s difficultness.

Some parents with difficult infants, on the other hand respond with frustration, irritation or anxiety to the infant’s constant fussiness and disregulation.

They experience their baby as impossible to console and may blame themselves or the baby.

These parents may not responds adaptively and instead express anger, handle the baby roughly or abruptly or emotional withdraw and leave the baby to “cry it out.”

In such cases, the parents behavior reinforces the infant’s temperamental tendencies toward irritability, hypersensitivity and disregulation.

A cycle of mutually negative feedback can be established which in turn interferes with secure attachment.
Parental responses to Difficult Infants

Growth and Change for New Baby

2010-03-04T23:15:00.000-08:00

Growth and Change for New Baby
When you child is a new born, it may difficult for your to imagine him ever growing up, and yet your main purpose as a parent is to encourage guide and support his growth.

He depends on you to provide the food protection an health care his body needs to grow properly as well as the guidance his mind and spirit need to make him a healthy, mature individual.

Instead of resisting change in your child, your job is to welcome and nurture it.

Guiding your child’s growth involves a significant amount of discipline, both for you and for your child.

As he becomes increasingly independent, he needs rules and guideline to help him found the limits and move beyond them.

You need to provide this framework for him, establishing rules that are appropriate for each stage of development and adjusting them as your child changes so they encourage growth instead of sifting it.

Confusion and conflict do not help your child to mature. Consistency does, Make sure that everyone who cares for him understands and agrees on the way he is being raised and the rules he’s expected to follow,

Establish policies foe all care givers to observe when he misbehaves and adjust these policies along with the rules he becomes more responsible.

Another way you nurture your child’s growth is by teaching him to adapt to changes around him. You can help him with this lesson buy copying smoothly with change yourself and by preparing him for major changes within the family.

A new baby, death or illness of a family member, a new job for a parent, unemployment, and chronic illness all deeply affect your child as well as you.

If the family faces these challenges as a mutually supportive unit, your child will feel secure in accepting change and adjusting to it. By being open and honest with you, you can help him meet these challenges and grow through them.
Growth and Change for New Baby

Take Your Baby Out For Some Fresh Air

2010-02-22T01:05:00.000-08:00

Take Your Baby Out For Some Fresh Air
by: Kimberly Thane
Fresh air is unmatched, unparalleled. Nothing is up to it. Bring your baby under the influence of fresh air whenever you can. Getting out on a regular basis is excellent for your baby.

But if you don’t have adequate time to take him out, ensure that his nursery has a good ventilation system that will increase flowing of fresh air all around the room.

A room with stale and stagnant air is a place nurturing dust mites and germs. Don’t enwrap the cot with curtains that will block passing of fresh air.

The baby’s room must be well ventilated. It should not be stuffy or subject to over heat. Maintain a temperature of the room heater that would never overheat the baby’s room.

Let the temperature fall a bit and wrap and dress up the baby more warmly. This you can surely do think about your baby’s health.

But whatever you do to improve the air circulation in the baby’s room, the freshness of air outside can’t be found elsewhere. Of course you have to rely on your common sense - which season you are in, what time is perfect to take the baby out.

If the weather is clear, wrap up your baby, put on him a warm hat and get outside. In the rainy season you can use prams or strollers with rain hoods but it is better to stay at home at that time since the hoods will only hinder fresh air from passing through.

Only the same air will circulate for the whole of the strolling. The outcome will be only wasting your precious time. But you can always buy a stroller with rain hood as they are good to combat any unpredicted pouring.

The babies are prone to new ambience. They love to be taken out and enjoy immensely all the jostling and stuff. And when your baby is able to sit, he will never stop looking around, wonderstruck by what’s happening around him. So try to take him out whenever it is convenient for you.

If there’s a local park near you, stroll in that area. Lots of greenery and fun will make your child rejoice. In addition to that enjoyment, your baby will inhale lots of fresh air. You can even take his pram under a large tree….that is an excellent entertainment for the baby.

He will love to watch the leaves dancing with the music of the wind. Lots of places with trivial entertainment are near your house. Search for them instead of thinking of exotic destinations.
About The Author
Kimberly Thane is a primary school nurse and author. See more of her articles at http://www.babymobility.info

How the Brain Grows can be Influenced by How It’s Used

2010-02-03T09:46:00.001-08:00

How the Brain Grows can be Influenced by How It’s Used
Children can be born into a mind boggling array of living situations. They may be bundled into bearskin blankets in the arctic cold, or they may be carried skin to skin in slings through tropical jungles.

They may hear one of hundreds of language with countless dialects.

Those native tongues may be expressed in ways that are loud, harsh and drunken, or in voices that are soft lilting and friendly.

A bay may be sheltered purposely from life’s cruel realities or tossed out to “sink or swim” on a beggar’s barrio.

From the start, a child’s brain begins to adapt to the place and spaces into which it has landed.

No single, specific blueprint for brain growth could cover what’s required to survive in all possible environments.

The brain starts with only a general mandate: “grow connections as needed.” Brains are built to change in this manner in order to stay alive.

Survival depends upon continually adapting to new input and changing conditions.

This survival instinct is unconscious but powerful. The rapid speed with which a young brain adapt allows for a baby to gain maximum advantage within whatever climate culture or family system she happens to be born.

During early development, for more connection are formed than will eventually be needed – trillion more! The brain of atypical two year old, for example, has almost twice the number of connections that your brain has.

Daily routines such a feeding, batching and paying strengthen particular synapses, while those connections that are no reinforced by repetition eventually wither away.

This natural process is called neural planning.
How the Brain Grows can be Influenced by How It’s Used

Nursing Baby

2010-01-17T17:20:00.001-08:00

Nursing Baby
The best protection and nourishment a mother can give her newborn is to nurse her baby. Many doctors now encourage mothers to nurse their babies, pointing out that mothers milk contains up to six times as much vitamin E as cow’s milk and almost twice as much as selenium.

The first few days are important for breastfeeding. The mother secretes a clear yellow liquid, called colostrum which is high in protein and certain vitamins and minerals and lower in milk, sugar and fat.

Colostrum contains antibodies that protect the baby from infections that you will never find in a commercial formula.

Colostrum protects against some of the most dangerous bacteria such as E. coli which accounts for about 80 percent of cases of meningitis of the newborn.

It protects against allergies, Breast fed infants have one half the incidence of inner ear infections, and one fifth the incidence of respiratory infections, and two and one half times less digestive upsets than bottle fed babies.

Breasts milk can provide most of the baby’s nutritional requirements during the first year of life.

Even though solid foods are introduced around six months they cannot provide sufficient amounts to satisfy nutrient needs.

The protein in mother’s milk contains all the right amino acids, and is easier to digest. The iron in mother’s milk is absorbed readily into body.
Nursing Baby

Advantages of Breast-feeding

2009-12-27T20:36:00.001-08:00

Advantages of Breast-feeding
Breast-feeding gives your baby a tailor made formula for good nutrition and a whole lot more. The following are some advantages to breast-feeding.

*Human breast milk can strengthen the baby’s immune systems and help reduce the risk of allergies, asthma and sudden infant death syndrome. It can also decrease the number of upper respiratory infections in the baby’s first year of life.

*Mother’s milk contains nutrients that are ideally suited to a baby’s digestive system. Cow’s milk isn’t as easily digested and your baby can’t readily used the nutrients of contains.

*Human milk also contains substances that help protect a baby form infections until his own immune system mature. These substances are especially plentiful in the colostrums that mother’s breast secret during the first few days after the bay is born.

*Babies are more likely to have an allergic reaction to cow’s milk than to the mother’s milk.

*Breast feeding is emotionally rewarding. Many women feel that they develop a special bond with their baby when they breast-feed and they enjoy the colostrums surrounding the whole experience.

*Breast feeding is convenient. Mother never have to carry bottles or formula with her.

*Mother’s milk is cheaper than formula and bottles.

*Mother doesn’t have to warm up breast milk. It’s always the perfect temperature.
Advantages of Breast-feeding

Temperaments and Self Regulation

2009-11-19T20:32:00.000-08:00

Temperaments and Self Regulation
As the infant becomes more regulated and more social, the amount of fussy crying and “colicky” discomfort diminishes.

Newborns tend to cry easily and to have a low threshold for distress; in normal infants by 3-4 months, however crying has become much less frequent because of improved self-regulation.

However, some infants remain fussier, harder to comfort and more irritable.

These babies have been describe popularly as suffering from colic, which involves frequent and prolonged crying, seemingly in response to pain, though in fact the etiology of colic has not been established.

Research has suggested that colicky babies have lower thresholds for arousal, more disturbed sleep and delays in establishing circadian rhythms.

The phenomenon of colic overlaps with the “difficult” temperarnent style.

While difficult temperament in infancy has not been found to be stable characteristics across childhood, it can persist if caregivers are unable to help clam and contain the baby or if their response actually reinforce the baby’s lack of regulation.

Fussy, irritable behavior that persists after the forts 2-3 months due to temperamental factors creates an adaptive hurdle for the infant and her parents.
Temperaments and Self Regulation

Mental Ability

2009-11-01T18:21:00.001-08:00

Mental Ability
Evidence that a child’s genes might matter more and more as the child develops comes from Wilson’s longitudinal study of the intelligence test scores of pairs of identical and fraternal twins.

Identical twins become highly similar in their intellectual performances the end of infancy and stay highly similar throughout childhood.

Meanwhile, fraternal twins are most similar in IQ at about age 3 and become less similar over the years, so that by age 15 the correlation between their IQ scores drops to 54, about the same as that for non twin siblings.

During childhood, identical twin’s IQ scores also continue to change in similar directions at similar times, in other words, their developmental paths are similar.

By contrast, members of fraternal twin pairs take their own distinct development paths, guided in part by their different genetic genetic make ups.

This not to say that environment has no impact, however. Wilson found the twins who experienced intellectually stimulating home environments had higher test scores that did twins whose homes were less stimulating.

Similarly, adoption studies indicate that the IQ scores of adopted children are correlated with measures of the intellectual abilities of both their biological parents and their adoptive parents.

Finally, even though intellectual differences among adopted children are related to the IQ of their biological parents, the level of the intellectual performances that these children reach can be increase if they are adopted into intellectually stimulating homes.
Mental Ability

Basic Wiring in the the First Few Years of Life

2009-10-11T19:16:00.001-07:00

Basic Wiring in the the First Few Years of Life
Anyone who spends a lot of time with the very young – parents, preschool and kindergarten teachers, child-care workers –can sense that this stage of life is truly amazing.

Many of us involved in education have long felt we ought to pay more attention to kids in these early years, though few of us could explain why.

As a result – and also because the medical community couldn’t see the brain that way it could see and measure other body parts through x-rays, ultrasounds, blood tests and the like – an emphasis on very early development remained a bit of an afterthought.

When your baby was born, most of his major organs were fully formed, although in miniature.

The heart, for example, already had the same parts and operating principles in place that it needed to beat more than two billions times in a lifetime.

The lungs the liver, the kidneys - all were up and running from the start, their essential circuitry having been formed before birth and then growing in steady pace along with the rest of the body.

Not so for the brain begins outside the womb remarkably unfinished – only about a quarter of its eventual adult size.

Yet before your child’s second birthday, it will have ramped up to three fourths of adult size and will be almost at its adult weight and volume (ninety percent) by age five.

This doesn’t mean that ninety percent of the information a person will ever know is learned in the first five years – far from it!

It means that in these earliest years the way information flows though the brain’s structures and gets processed is largely established.

These pathways and structures will be used and reused as learning continues though life.

Part of the tremendous growth in the first few years is due to the unfolding of one’s genes, but part of it is the result of early life experiences.

A baby’s surrounding begins to exert influences on the cells within his brain, right from the start.

Although most of the brain cells (neurons) were produced before birth they’re poorly connected.

The majority of the connections between neurons called synapses, must ne created after birth.

As the brain matures, each neuron sends out multiple branches to communicate with more neurons.

There are two kinds of these connecting “branch lines” – some send information out (axons) and some takes information in (dendrites).

Most of the brain growth in the first few years is thought to be due to the growth of dendrites the lines bringing information.

These synapses work something like phone lines between cells, allowing them to send messages to one another.

One’s individual pattern of connections from the basis of all movement, thought, memories and feelings.

The newborn brain is like a communication network to a city where the main lines in each neighborhood exist, but time and experiences are required to create specific connections from house to house.

Each brain begins to make its own unique associations with wires that literally grown themselves as needed.
Basic Wiring in the the First Few Years of Life

Infants Nutritional Deficiency

2009-09-19T10:55:00.000-07:00

Infants Nutritional Deficiency
Infants are totally dependent on the parent’s knowledge of nutrition for their health and well being.

We are seeing babies born with physical and mental defects has doubled in the last twenty years.
We are witnessing babies born with cancer, crippling bone disease, deformed bodies and many other diseases.

This has been traced to the inadequate diet of the mother deficient on the basic trace elements – especially minerals like iodine; and amino acids (building blocks of protein).

The problem increases in those who consume alcohol and tobacco.

Nutritional deficiency can permanently damage an infant’s mental as well as physical development.

The diet of infants has long lasting effect in their bodies for health or sickness. The infants who are already born with problems need nutritional supplements more than any other time in their lives.

Proper food for infants has a far reaching effect on the body for many years of its life, and will produce healthy bodies with an efficient immune system, strong nervous system and strong bones and teeth.

The nervous system develops rapidly as the child obtains milk sugar. Lactose plays important part on the myelination (the coating protection) of the nerves.

Lactose is broken down into glucose and galactose. Galactose is vitals for the myelination development and cannot be found in any sugar known source of this lactose.

Many nervous disorders could be avoided if babies could obtain the lactose for proper development of the nervous system.

A well nourished baby will sleep well, wake up alert and with an appetite, satisfied with the feeding and will have a happy disposition.
Infants Nutritional Deficiency

Intelligence Can be Shaped After Birth

2009-09-02T03:20:00.000-07:00

Intelligence Can be Shaped After Birth
The old thinking was that biology is destiny. IQs were thought to be born not made. Certainly, some kids seem naturally smarter than others, right from the get-go.

But we now know that the sum total of a baby’s intellectual capacity is not fixed at birth.

A child is born with an IQ range that can vary by as much as twenty or thirty points.

While gens and physical health set the stage for some of a child’s future behavior, we now know that a child’s IQ and ability to function well also depends on the environmental experiences that she is exposed to on a consistent basis.

Think of healthy brain development as a dance between biology (what your child was born with) and early care (what happens after birth).

The two are so intertwined scientists are now examining factors in the environment that can either hinder or facilitate the way that genes operate.

We now know that some genes can be dormant; whether or not they get “turned on” depends on experience. This is dramatic new finding.

Your baby’s consistent early experiences may actually protect against the turning on of certain genes involved with unwanted traits, such as hyperactivity, compulsivity and aggressive behavior.

An amazing example of the power of life experiences to alter the “destiny” inscribed by our genes can be seen in rhesus monkeys.

Those born with one particular variation of a gene grow up to be extremely aggressive when they are poorly bonded to their mothers during infancy, yet other monkeys who also have this gene variant do not become aggressive when they have developed a secure relationship with mom.

Despite the monkeys in each situation having the same version of the gene, they have different levels of the chemical that’s produced by the gene.

This indicates that life experiences in the early years can actually change how certain genes function.

A child can grow up to be bright independent of his parents’ intelligence levels, and a child who is born bright can sustain or exceed that intelligence depending on life experiences.
Intelligence Can be Shaped After Birth

Regulation of Arousal and Emotion

2009-08-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

Regulation of Arousal and Emotion
The second component of self regulation is called regulation of arousal and emotion.

At first this is primarily a mutual process, with the infant signaling discomfort and the caregiver moving in to reduce the baby’s distress and arousal.

During the early months infants depend on parents to feed them when they are hungry and pick them up when they are distressed.

If the caregiver is responsive and predictable, the baby develops expectations that he will be fed or comforted within a certain time frame.

Out of awareness, the infant develops a beginning ability to wait.

His parent’s responsiveness helps him manage his anxiety and distress, because he learns that his needs will be met.

Good experiences with mutual regulation lay the groundwork for self-regulation and in the long run promote autonomous coping and resiliency.

The young infant is also learning to regulate arousal by depending on the self. By 3-6 weeks, when she is coordinated enough to reliably get her hand to her mouth, she discovers that of she sucks on her hand or thumb, she feels calmer.

She discovers that she can calm herself by looking at her parent’s face or by watching the mobile above the crib.

Another means of self-regulation under he infant’s control is called gaze aversion.

If as parent is behaving in a manner that is too stimulating, the infant looks away. The infant shift her attention away when she is becoming aroused to the point of distress.

The increasing maturation of the central nervous system during the first month of life also contributes to the capacity for self-regulation by making the infant’s reactions to stimuli more predictable and organized.

He can delay reactions to hunger, He is less fussy and reactive, which means his states of calm alertness last longer.

When he is wake his attention span is greater and his awareness focuses more on observing and exploring people and objects.

While maturation of the nervous systems helps smooth out the full term 1 month old’s degree of reactivity, a baby born prematurely will take longer to appear more settled and capable of regulating arousal.

The premature infant’s central; nervous system development is “behind” by the number of weeks of prematurity.

Illness, intrusive medical procedures and a period of time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are frequently associated with prematurity and also contribute to slower early development.
Regulation of Arousal and Emotion

Child Brain Development

2009-06-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

Child Brain Development
We have evidence that shows that early experiences are literally brain shaping.

Thanks to the latest neuroscience – combined with related research in pediatrics, psychology, and child development – we know have clarification about what very young children need most and when they need it.

The very kinds of basic nurturing that most loving parent routinely provide turns out to be most important of all.

You can help wire a healthy brain by:
*Spending one on one loving your child

*Playing with your child

*Responding quickly and predictably to your child

*Touching and cuddling with your child

*Providing routines that establish patterns of caring response

*Talking to your child

*Reading and singing to your child

Only recently have researchers been able to show why these very regular behaviors are critical to normal development.

Fortunately, there are things that every adult who cares for child can easily do – knowledge that make feel less stressed out, guilty or confused about parent’s role in baby’s development.
Child Brain Development

Regulation of Body Rhythms

2009-05-27T17:49:00.000-07:00

Regulation of Body Rhythms
Infants at birth do not have regular patterns of sleeps, eating and elimination. Gradually with the parent’s help, they develop a regular pattern, which gives a beginning sense of predictability to the experience.

For example, a newborn sleeps about 16 hours a day, with the same proportion of sleep and wakefulness during the day and night.

By about 6 weeks, the circadian rhythms are becoming established and the infant is sleeping primarily at night, with well defined nap periods during the day.

Although this is primarily a biologically and maturationally based change, it is encouraged by the parents’ own sleep and wake cycles.

Young infants sleep for short periods of a few hours and often wake up briefly at night. They often wake sufficiently to need the parents’ help to go back to sleep. Gradually, they develop self soothing techniques.

Concurrent with the development of relatively regular sleep patterns, the infant, with the parent’s encouragement begins to eat primarily during the day.

By responding to the infant’s signs of hunger and at the same time establishing a general schedule of feeding times, the parent helps shape the infant’s experience of hunger, feeding, and satiation into regular pattern.

By 3-4 weeks, following a period of weight loss while feeding patterns were being established, the infant has regained his birth weight, which helps parents feel are succeeding.

As caregivers respond to the baby’s needs as well as shape his experience in accordance with their own needs and routines, the baby feels a sense of regularity and predictability.

As the baby’s rhythms of sleeps and wakefulness, feeding and elimination, become more regular she feels more predictable to the parents.

Parents describe that infants become more “settled’ in this way between 1 and 2 months. The parents’ perception that the baby is more settled is also based on the fact that the parents have spent enough time caring for the baby to get to know her characteristics and behavioral patterns.

For example, they have learned to distinguish between types of crying due to hunger, discomfort or pain, alarm and fretfulness related to tiredness or lack or regulation.
Regulation of Body Rhythms

Organize According to Key Cognitive Changes

2009-05-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

Organize According to Key Cognitive Changes
It means that we won’t find information packaged milestone-based groupings of birth to three month, three to six months, six to twelve months, and so on.

Instead we focus on the phases of cognitive (learning) changes that accompany neurological (brain) development.

Infant-Birth to 6 months
This is the period during which vision develops to nearly adult capacity; by six months, eyesight is well established and propped sitting aids in a new perspective from which to view the world, which creates a shift on what your child can learn.

Baby-6 to 18 months
This is the period of the emergence of language, which includes first words, first short sentences, early concept development.

The auditory system is rapidly wiring to both comprehend and produce language.

This is also a time of broader social interaction.

With increased social opportunities, a child’s personality noticeably emerges.
Independent mobility (both crawling and walking) opens a world of explorations that was unavailable as an infant.

Toddler-18 months to 3 years
This is the period during which opportunities to play and interact with other children (as well as adults) in playgroups or initial nursery and preschool groups influence a child’s cognitive growth in both receptive and expressive language development.

A child’s initial knowledge of concepts becomes elaborated as she has more and more experiences.

Just because parents know what various milestone a child is supposed to achieve, it doesn’t mean that they know what to do to encourage the child’s development.

Therefore the advice is to not to focus on the children’s action can or cannot do at specific times, but rather on adult behaviors that parents and baby caregivers can do that will eventually result in child achieving various milestone in her own good time.
Organize According to Key Cognitive Changes

Depression in Infancy

2009-04-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

Depression in Infancy
Can infants be depressed? It certainly seem impossible for infants to experience the sorts of cognition that are common among depressed adults – feeling of low esteem, guilt, worthlessness, hopelessness and so on.

After all young infants have not yet acquired the capacity for symbolic thought that would allow them to reflect on their experience.

Yet infants can exhibit some of the behavioral and somatic (or bodily) symptoms of depression – for example, loss of interest in activities, loss of weight, or disruption of normal sleep patterns.

Researchers dispute whether true depressive disorder can occur in infancy, but infants can and do experience depression-like states and symptoms.

These symptoms are most likely to be observed in infants who lack a secure attachment relationship or who experience a disruption of their all-important emotional bonds.
Depression in Infancy

Child Socialization Goals

2009-03-25T02:34:00.000-07:00

Child Socialization Goals
While infants must adapt to the physical and social environments in which they are raised, relatively few social demands are placed on them.

After infancy the demands increase and cultural differences in the kinds of experiences that children have become more striking.

Socialization is the process by which individuals acquire the beliefs, values, and behaviors judged important in their society.

By socializing the young, society controls their undesirable behavior, prepares them to adapt to their environments and function effectively in it, and ensures that cultural traditions will be carried on by future generations.

Parents, peers, schools, churches and other people and institutions contribute to the socialization process.

What is the hope for their children will learn? There is much disagreement within this society and much variation from society to society in socialization curriculum.

The expert believes that parents everywhere have three very broad goals for their children:

The survival goal – to promote the physical survival and health of the child, ensuing that the child lives long enough to have children of his or her own.

The economic goal – to foster the skills and behavioral capacities that the child will need for economics self maintenance as an adult.

The self-actualization goal to top foster behavior capabilities for maximizing other cultural values (for example, morality, religion, achievement, wealth, prestige and a sense of personal satisfaction).

Child Socialization Goals

Basic Principles of How Brains Grow and Operate

2009-02-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

Basic Principles of How Brains Grow and Operate
The newborn brain prefers an environment that mimics what it already knows.

Expert has defined the first three months of a newborn infant’s life as the “Fourth Trimester”. This refers to the idea that newborn’s life nervous systems, digestive system, temperature control system, and so on, are not quite “ready for prime time.”

What parents can best provide in this special first period of life outside the womb is to create care routines that mimic the environment inside the womb.

From a brain development perspective, what these suggestions draw attention to is that there are always to slowly introduce the baby to life in the outside world.

The idea that brains recognize the familiar is at the root of these suggestions. It has calming effect on the brain to know, at each and every stage of life, what to expect next.

It is a good idea that, in a world that is literally all new and infant can be “reminded” of easier days in the womb with the effortless comforts of not having to work hard in order to:

Get nourishment
Maintain perfect body temperature
Be comforted by the sounds of a regular heartbeat
Achieve effortless movement
Be soothed by a worm, secure environment

The brain main function is to keep us alive. That fact, combined with other main “operating principles” of brain function, can influence many decisions we make as a parent.

The brain is:

A survival organ
A pattern seeking organ
A pleasure seeking organ
A novelty organ
An energy conserving organ
A meaning seeking organ

Basic Principles of How Brains Grow and Operate

Mother-Infant Communication

2009-01-30T22:38:00.000-08:00

Mother-Infant Communication
Dynamic systems theory entails a new approach to the development of social relationship, in fact principles of non-linear dynamics, self organization and complexity may be used in a quantitative way and applied to various domains, like work on mother infant relationships, emotion development and motor and cognitive development.

In the study of child abuse it is easy to consider determinism and indeterminism an unanswered question, for example in the transmission of intergenerational abuse: nonlinearities in the dynamic systems model are responsible also for different kinds of relationships between antecedents and consequents.

If the development is to enable creativity and emergence of novelty, there remains a level of unpredictability from current conditions to future conditions, as well as the capacity to make predictions from the current conditions about the likehood of future conditions in the promotion of smoother interactions.

Determinism and indeterminism, acting together in social processes, lead to the development of relationships and communication.

Dynamic systems theory put on emphasis on the importance and the utility of the concept of frame as coregulated nonverbal communication and a prerequisite of human infants and also nonhuman species.

C0regulation emerges form in verbal and preverbal communication in both human and nonhuman species; it can be distingusked from simple synchrony, matching or attunement because it is defined by the same patterns of emergent novelty and mutual creativity that have been recognized in dialogical and narrative approaches to interpersonal communication.

Examples are the use of postural coorientation, kissing, courtship behavior, breaking and establishing mutual gaze, game playing and fighting. Infants and young children are capable of entering into these forms of creative nonverbal communication.

Through coregulated dialogical processes stable patterns called frames emerge as rituals, plots or routines, regularities in the social process to which participants return , keeping the same overall pattern of coactions against a background of variability. Examples of frames include parent-infant gamest, peer play rituals, unresolved disagreements and role relationships.
Mother-Infant Communication

Early Experience: Brain Development

2009-01-16T03:10:00.000-08:00

Early Experience: Brain Development
Brain development is most rapid during the first 2 years of life. During the last two months of gestation and throughout the first year after birth the brain grows rapidly through the production of synapses and dendrites.

The dense branching and outreaching of dendrites fibers links billion of individual neurons and, on a broader scale, the different regions of the brain.

This integration of the circulatory of the brain along with myelination of nerve pathways makes possible the development of sensory, perceptual, emotional, regulatory, motor, and cognitive functions.

After birth, brain growth and the particular ways brain functions are organized are subject to the influence of the infant’s environment. Experience which neural pathways will be strengthened, which will remain available, and which will atrophy.

Appropriate care-giving and stimulation enhance brain development, whereas under-stimulation and poor or traumatizing care-giving retard or shape brain functioning in maladaptive ways.

From the perspective of brain growth and its effect on subsequent development, the transactions between infants and caregivers take on critical importance.
Early Experience: Brain Development

Two Year Old Brain Development

2008-12-22T07:02:00.000-08:00

Two Year Old Brain Development
The importance of the first few years of life in shaping personality and emotional development has been acknowledge not only by psychologists but by the greatest thinkers and philosophers of history. Perhaps more than any other theorist, it was Sigmund Freud who awakened the world to have importance of early childhood as it affects the future personality of an individual.

It is commonly acknowledge that the parents’ handling of the infant - the manner in which they care for, smile, talk to, love and accept him – largely determines his attitudes and his expectations.

The infant who is raised in an atmosphere of emotional support will grow to trust his environment – he’ll be open to new experiences. With continued emotional support, the child will develop autonomy without experiencing unnecessary self doubt.

Some educational specialists claim that mental growth roughly corresponds to the brain growth. Such a connection reinforces the vital importance of the first twenty four months of an infant’s life as far as future intellectual development is concerned.

They concluded that brain growth like intellectual growth, occurs most rapidly during the first few years of life. A one-year-old’s brain develops much more rapidly than that of a three-year-old, and a three-year-old’s brain develops more rapidly than six year old’s.

Accordingly, a one year old stands to profit much more from enrichments than a three-year-old or six-year-old.
Two Year Old Brain Development

Baby Need Simple Things Consistently and Earlier

2008-11-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

Baby Need Simple Things Consistently and Earlier
Consistency of loving is one of the best examples of a simple thing that’s vitally important. Babies don’t need flashcards, but in the first three years they do need wonderful, consistent care from families who love them in order to help them thrive in kindergarten and beyond. That may sound too ordinary and very directly connected to success. Yes it is. Certain biological effects directly result from such elemental factors as who cares for a child, and how knowledge that person is, as well as what happens day-in and day-out that child’s life. Without a well laid ground work of security and attention, later classroom learning may be more difficult.

Focus on a child’s learning abilities used to begin at kindergarten, or later. Then during the 1960s, the values of early intervention program lead to a boom in preschool that began at age four. Yet low test scores continue to be a problem in public elementary schools. Why are so many kids not ready for school?

School readiness does not mean having already developed the academic content of schooling. It does not mean being able to recite the alphabet, count to one hundred. Or know the four sounds that the letter “A” can make when you are three, four, or five years old. Parents often exert a lot of effort and worry over the acquisitions of such skill, but the reality that they will be taught by experienced teachers in due course and there is little advantage to being able to do them sooner. “School readiness” instead refers to coming to kindergarten with a ready brain – a healthy, active nurtured brain that is capable learning.
Baby Need Simple Things Consistently and Earlier

What Baby Need is Simple

2008-11-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

What Baby Need is Simple
Sometimes parents interpret that the new brain evidence to mean that if you do more and more of the ‘right things’ with your child, she can become a genius. That’s not what the scientific finding suggests.

The data does not support the idea of brainy videos at six months, baby software at twelve months, and Chinese lessons at age two. Far from it. It turns out, a very young child’s future success depends less on “academics” than on such critical factors as whether your baby loves her babysitter, how often she hears bedtime stories, and how much time you spend on the cell phone or in front of the TV yourself. That’s right: Laptime is more critical than lapware.

The science suggest that there are always to purposely work with an infant or toddler that will encourage that child to attend better and longer, to be more emotionally connected to other, and to communicate better – each of which is truly important for future success. Chances are very good that you’re doing many of these things already.
What Baby Need is Simple

Risks of Infant Formula

2008-11-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

Risks of Infant Formula
Artificial baby milk has been referred to as one of “the largest uncontrolled in vivo experiment in human history”. Studies show that artificial feeding infants carries with it serious risks for infants, young children and their mothers.

The United States is not immune to the dangers of infant formula. The potential dangers of misuse are dramatic in any impoverished community with substandard conditions and low educational levels. Incorrect and in-adequate used of infant formula account for about one million deaths each year worldwide. Some of these deaths occur even in affluent communities with access to clean water and education, and in highly specialized intensive care nurseries, as it is intrinsically hazardous to deprive any infant of its mother’s milk.

Artificial baby milk can contain micronutrients or macronutrients in either excessive or deficient amounts. It may also be completely lacking in essential elements or contain contaminants. Infant formulas are deficient in essential fatty acids that are important to proper brain development and visual acuity.

No current formula has replicated human’s milk complex fatty acid pattern, even after adding fats derived from a variety of sources including fish heads, egg yolks, or genetically engineered marine algae. Vitamin D, which is toxic in high doses, has been shown to be excessive in many formulas. Some formulas have been found to be deficient in chloride. Any artificial baby milk that contains high levels of iodine could affect neonatal thyroid function.
Risks of Infant Formula

Time Proven Techniques to Get Your Baby to Sleep

2008-10-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

Time Proven Techniques to Get Your Baby to Sleep
Getting your baby to sleep is often the most difficult part of the day. Moms use traditional methods that are often helpful but not to the extent, they would have liked it to. It will be useful to know that there is no magic pill or method that works every time. You just have to try different approach to see what will fit your baby.

Techniques
One of the most effective and time proven technique is to set up a sleeping time and stick with it. An hour before you go to sleep, lay down with the baby and start pacifying. All moms have different approaches. You can either breast feed the baby, give her a warm bath or simply a bottle of milk will do.

Whatever you try, remember that the routine is not disturbed and is regularly carried out at the exact time of the night. This will let the baby know that it is bedtime. You can also use swaddling the baby. Babies like to be snuggled in the warm blanket. Wrap the baby in blanket and try it with the above mentioned techniques.

A few moms are cautious of babies sucking their thumbs. This is a natural tendency of a young child and you don't have to worry about it until the permanent teeth began to grow. Most babies might do it after you give them milk or a warm bath. Depending on the age of the baby, you can try lullaby or play a soft music.

It is also essential that you don't take the baby in your lap to cradle them. It will be almost impossible for the baby to sleep once you put them down on the bed or the bassinet. Yes, you can cradle the bassinet. Developing a sleeping time is not a cure for a good night sleep but it is the most vital step in getting your baby to start sleeping at night.
Time Proven Techniques to Get Your Baby to Sleep

Article written by Jax Chapton. Here you will get all the details you need on Getting Toddler To Sleep and you can also find the best info on Infant Sleep Help
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