Your Baby and You: Week Twenty Five
YOUR BABY
Physical Development: Teeth
Around six months of age you may find your baby's first tooth breaks through the first step to that toothy grin! Babies' teeth tend to appear in a relatively predictable order, but at unpredictable ages: as with many areas of development, there is a huge variation. Some babies are born with a tooth, others babies will not get their first teeth for another six months. In total your baby will cut 20 teeth (10 on the top, 10 on the bottom). Most children have all 20 teeth by the time they reach 2 and half years of age. Your baby's first tooth is usually one of the two central teeth that are located at the front of his bottom gum. They may come through looking a little crooked at first. Don't worry; this is no indication of how they will appear in later life, so there's no need to book a visit to the orthodontist just yet!
Care Advice: Teething and brushing
Just as there is a huge variation in when babies' first teeth appear, so too is their reaction to Teething. Your baby's first teeth may cut through with no fuss or fanfare. For other babies, the days before a tooth appears may coincide with unhappiness, inflamed (swollen, red and sore) gums, dribbling, the need to chew (on teethers or anything else they can put in their mouths) and disturbed sleep. Experts disagree on whether fretfulness, a high temperature and diarrhoea (often coinciding with Nappy Rash) are symptoms of teething, or whether it is more likely that your baby is poorly by coincidence at the same time.
To help ease any discomfort, offer your baby something clean and sugar-free to bite down on, such as a teething ring or a teething biscuit. You may be able to offer some relief by gently rubbing your finger over the swollen, painful area of your baby's gum. If your baby is still distressed, always check with your doctor about medicines or topical gels that may help.
It is recommended to start brushing twice a day as soon as a tooth starts to emerge. Brush each tooth and around your baby's gums, using a pea-sized amount of toothpaste suitable for your baby's age. By starting early, your baby will consider brushing her teeth as a normal part of her daily routine.
Behavioural Development: Cause and effect
By 25 weeks it is likely that your baby will now understand that his hands are connected to his arms. He is likely to have good control over his movements and will be learning about cause and effect: 'if I shake this toy it makes a noise'; 'if I push these blocks, the tower falls over'. He will love getting to grips with his environment by grabbing, dropping, knocking and stroking anything he can get his hands on.
Ways to Entertain Baby: Cause and effect games
To help your baby learn about 'cause and effect' give him toys that he can drop on the floor and listen to the noise they make. Give him a wooden spoon to bang on a saucepan as an improvised drum. He will really enjoy banging on the table during feeding times too! Give him a pop-up toy like a jack in a box, or a toy with buttons to press or turn: the result of his action is to hear music or to see different characters pop out of a hatch.
Speech and Communication: All smiles
By six months of age, your baby will delight in the time she spends surrounded by her favourite people. You will often find that she produces beaming smiles when you are interacting with her, and giving her lots of eye contact and attention.
Feeding: Spotting food allergies or intolerances
Now that your baby will be Weaning to Solids, you may wonder how you would know if your baby developed Food Allergies or sensitivity to certain foods. If your baby develops a food allergy this can trigger a number of different symptoms. Reactions such as a rash, eczema, sickness and/or diarrhoea, tummy pains, swelling, or even a runny nose are all possible resuts of food allergies or intolerances. It can be very difficult to be sure that it was a certain food that triggered the reaction. Happily, many children outgrow their food allergies or intolerances by the time they are 3 years old, but some allergies will remain. The only way to combat the allergy is to avoid the food culprit by excluding it from your baby's diet, but it is advisable to get advice from your GP too.
Common or Serious Ailments: Urinary Tract Infections
Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) happen when the urinary tract (the parts of the body that make and get rid of urine) becomes infected, usually by bacteria. If your baby is well hydrated and drinking plenty of milk but has strong, darker-than-normal urine, and if her urine has an unusual smell, she may well have a UTI. Other symptoms in babies and infants include a high temperature (of 38°C or above), sickness, irritability and being lethargic (looking floppy and sluggish). Although UTIs do not usually cause serious illness, they should be properly treated. Always take your baby to the doctor to be checked over and, if you can, take a wet nappy with you as a sample.
Don't Forget: Shaking
Never jiggle or shake your baby (even for play), or throw your baby into the air. If you feel frustrated or irritated at any point, never shake your baby; try to take a step back, some deep breaths and count to ten. Remember that although your baby now has better control over his head, it is still large and heavy in comparison to the rest of his body. If your baby is shaken, his head will jerk forwards and backwards. Shaking could cause your baby's brain to knock against his hard skull, which could lead to bleeding or blood clots forming in your baby's brain. Shaking can cause lasting damage of blindness, deafness, fits or even death.
ALL ABOUT YOU THIS WEEK
Your Body: Healthy diet
There's no denying that by maintaining a healthy diet, you will feel fitter and have more energy to get through those sleep-deprived days of motherhood. It is also great for your baby to see you eating a rich and varied diet.
A healthy, well-balanced diet should include all of the main food groups:
- Fruit and vegetables: aim for 5 portions a day to lower your risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer and osteoporosis.
- Carbohydrates: give you lots of energy and nutrients. Carbohydrates are found in starchy foods. Try to eat wholemeal bread and wholegrain rice, pasta and cereals.
- Protein: helps your body grow and repair itself. Protein comes from meat, fish, eggs and beans. Aim to eat mainly lean meats with the occasional red meat indulgence (such as a steak, which is rich in iron).
- Dairy: choose low-fat milk (skimmed or semi-skimmed), unsweetened yogurts and small quantities of cheese.
- Only a very small amount of foods high in sugar and fat (such as cakes and biscuits)
About one third of your daily diet should be carbohydrates. Another third should be fruit and vegetables. The final third should be made up of protein and dairy foods.
Activities: Ladies that lunch!
Plan to meet up with a friend for lunch. There are plenty of baby-friendly restaurants and pubs around, or cafes in garden centres and coffee shops can be brilliant places to meet up too. Go prepared with your baby's weaning foods, a spoon, bib and baby wipes so that you can feed your baby lunch while you catch up with your friend.
YOUR WEEKLY CHECKLIST
Weekly checklist: Work and childcare
Are you starting to think about going back to work? If so, you may be considering the range of childcare options available to you. This week we ask: why choose childminding? Read our Childminders article, for advice on when (and when not) to choose a childminder, and how to go about finding one.
