What does your baby know?
Second month - fourth month
Your baby has crossed his first age limit - one month. At this age, he has already developed an individual mode of the day, the time of his waking up (and hence the time of communication with the world around him) has increased significantly, and communication is the main condition for proper development. What did your baby learn in the first month of his life and what he will learn in the next three months?
Congenital reflexes
Strange as it may seem, something a child does just... forgotten or will very soon forget. If at the beginning of the second month the unconditional reflexes are still pronounced, then gradually begin to fade away. The first of them (to one and a half or two months) undergo the reverse development of the support reflex and automatic walking reflex: put on the horizontal surface, the child is no longer leaning on the entire foot, but only on the outer edge of the foot. In doing so, the child sharply straightens his or her legs. If it tilts forward, it no longer "steps". Moms often worry that their child has stopped leaning on the legs and "walking", but this is a physiological norm. On the contrary, if these reflexes are expressed in two months and later (in a mature child), it is a pathology of the nervous system - consult a neurologist!
Most other congenital reflexes become significantly weaker by the end of the third month of life. So, for example, the grabbing reflex dies out approximately by two months: the finger of an adult baby embedded in the palm of the hand grasps loosely, and when trying to lift it opens the palm and releases the finger.
But the sucking reflex not only does not weaken, but is enriched with conditional (i.e. acquired, developed) reactions. Your baby starts to make sucking movements not only at hit of a nipple of a breast or nipples in a mouth, but also at a sight of a breast or a bottle with milk: the kid knows that now it will be fed! He has learned to recognize the attributes of feeding! He has learned to distinguish between sweet, neutral and bitter - he becomes a gourmet!
Psychomotor development
By the beginning of the second month the flexural tone in the extremities is reduced and the extensor tone in the neck muscles is reduced. Now, if the baby is put on the barrel, he does not throw his head back. The child begins to move much more actively: periodically unclenches his fists, stretches the handles apart, lifts them forward (two to two and a half months) and upwards - above his shoulders (two and a half to three months). In general, the end of the first and beginning of the second month of life is a turning point in the psycho-emotional and motor development of the child. The movements become more diverse, moreover, it is already quite possible to speak about "consciousness" of many movements: by the end of the second month the child starts to approach hands to a mouth, suck a finger, and by three months - to consider the handles, to rub eyes etc. These first lessons of arbitrary motor skills are the most important milestone in the child's psychomotor development. After all, the mental and physical spheres in the first year of life are a single whole. Delay in the development of psycho-emotional functions leads to a lag in motor skills (there is no incentive for their development); in turn, limited opportunities to learn about the world due to a delay in the development of motor skills, deprive the child of new stimuli for intellectual development. That is why harmonious psychomotor development is so important in the infancy, when every day should be marked by new achievements.
At the age of about two months, the infant, placed on the tummy, for some time raises the head, but it funny "hangs out" - holds unstable, so that most of the time he lies with the head down. And with two and a half months the child already confidently and for a long time keeps his head up. At three months, lying on his stomach, he rests on his forearms. Some mothers are happy to report that their baby turns from stomach to back in three months. If he "turns" invariably in one direction, it can be explained by the prevalence of extensible tone in one of the handles (ie, the child is not actively flipping over, and passively falls on his back). It is better to show such a baby to a neurologist.
By the end of the second month of life, the child begins to actively turn his or her head toward a bright object in his or her sight or in search of a loud sound source. By three months, the shoulders and then the torso turn around after the head. As a result, the baby turns to the barrel. To stimulate this kind of activity, it is necessary to pay attention of the baby more often to bright (sounding) toys. From the age of two months, it is useful to use a special "rocker" (round or trapezoidal stand, which can be installed in a crib, playpens, etc.). Toys are hung on it: part on the bar and part on the chains that fall down. From the place of attachment of this structure to the child's eyes should be about 35 cm. Rattles hanging from the chains are suspended so that the child can touch them by accident with spontaneous (yet uncoordinated) movements of the hands. In this situation, the child has