A Special Note to Mom and Dad

About this time, many babies seem to settle down. Some don’t cry as much, and they are easier to comfort. This makes you feel more confident as a parent. And the more confident you feel, the more you will relax.

By spending less time crying and fussing, your baby has more time to learn. She can get her hand to her mouth and suck on her fingers, but your baby still doesn’t have full control over her arms and legs. She may get angry or frustrated when she can’t make her body do what she wants it to.

If your baby reacts with fear or anger to new situations, adapts slowly to any change in schedule, or doesn’t keep a regular schedule… then you could easily get angry,impatient, or confused.

But your baby really needs you to:

• Be patient
• Introduce new things, gently and slowly
• Offer several chances to get accustomed to new things
• Make life simpler, quieter, and less stimulating

When you react in these ways, your baby can learn to deal with her feelings of fear or insecurity.

If you have a partner, remember you're in this together. The information in Parenting Partners can help you plan with your partner how to parent your baby. Go to http://web.aces.uiuc.edu/familylife/parentingpartners/.

Take Excellent Care of Yourself

When you’re on an airplane getting ready to take off, you will be reminded that in the event of an emergency, you should secure your air mask before you secure the mask for children.

When it comes to parenting, that basic idea of taking care of yourself so you can take care of others is likewise important. Unless you take really good care of yourself, you won’t have the energy, stamina, or creative brain power to meet the challenges that parenting brings.

Stress is contagious. Your baby is becoming aware of your moods. He will sense when you are tense, as well as when you are calm and happy.

Do everything you can to manage stress well. Have realistic expectations for yourself. Prioritize what you want to get done each day.

Exercise! With everything you have to do, exercise is one of the easiest things to leave out. But it’s one of the most important things you can do as a parent. It’s great to walk or swim, if you have someone to watch your baby. What exercises can you do without leaving home?

Here are two simple exercises that take just a few minutes and help to loosen up your body.

1. Lie on the floor, on your back, and point your toes.
   • Raise your right leg slightly and stretch your left arm toward your raised leg.
   • Repeat with opposite arm and leg.
   • Repeat six times.
2. Lie on the floor, on your back, with arms stretched out to shoulder level.
   • Bend your knees and lift your feet.
   • Swing bent legs toward right, making sure your shoulders and arms are flat on the floor.
   • Then swing legs to the left.
   • Repeat six times.

What’s It Like to be 3 Months Old?

How I Grow

• I hold my head and back pretty straight when you support me.

• When you hold me, I push with my arms and legs.

• When I’m on my tummy, I can lift my head, lean on my elbows, arch my back, and rock.

• When I’m on my back, I wave my arms and kick my legs.

• I like to put things in my mouth, so keeping things clean becomes even more important.

• I grab for things with both hands, but sometimes I miss.

• I like batting at things hung from a mobile or toy bar. I may have better aim with my feet than with my hands.

• I may get a thrill when you lift me to a standing position, but my legs are not strong enough to support my body yet.

• Don’t put me in a walker. I cannot control a walker and may get hurt. Help me learn to move but not with a walker.

• Make sure the air I breathe is smoke-free. Children whose parents don’t smoke have fewer colds and a lower risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

How I Understand and Feel

• I am becoming really interested in people. I don’t like to be left alone. Let me sit where I can watch you!

• I am learning that my actions can bring results and that I can count on you to help me when I need it.

• I’m starting to have a memory. I can remember that I like some toys better than others.

• I usually love to be held, rocked, and cuddled. If I’m very active, you may have to catch me when I’m tired, before I want to slow down long enough to cuddle. If I’m extra sensitive to lights and noises, you may have to turn everything down and then very gently hold me.

• I may make a big discovery soon. I will learn to recognize your face from a photo.

How I Talk

• When I see something I like, I squeal with delight.

• I coo simple sounds, such as "oy," "aah," and "ee."

• I answer you by gurgling and cooing.

• I say thank you by smiling and wiggling all over.

• I don’t cry as much as before. Have you noticed?

How I Respond

• I stare at the place where things drop, but I don’t watch where they go when they fall. Play peek-a-boo by hiding behind your hands or a blanket. I will love finding you when I see your face again.

• I follow sounds with my eyes.

• I like to listen. Talk to me in simple sentences — with real words.

• Read me a page or two from a book that has big pictures.

• I react with my whole body to familiar faces.

• I am really into sucking. I’m probably sucking on my fingers and fists. I stop sucking to listen to sounds or to look at things. Then I look and suck.

• I’m not always hungry when I’m sucking. A lot of the time I’m just learning about things by putting them in my mouth.

• I also use sucking to help me calm down when I’m upset. As I get older, I’ll grow out of my need to do so much sucking.

Is Your Baby Doing Enough?

Each baby grows and develops at his own rate. Some babies seem to be born talkers, while others are the movers. Some babies develop slowly in all areas. By respecting what is special, parents can help children develop at their own pace.

If you are concerned that your baby may be developing too slowly in some area, talk to your doctor.

Use the checklists from this month's newsletter and the past month's. Is your baby doing anything now that he wasn’t doing last month? Look for your baby’s growth in each area, and gently help him to learn new things. Use your baby’s due date, rather than the birth date, for keeping track of how your baby is developing.

Ask a friend who knows what infants are like to observe your baby and to help you decide if he really is or is not doing the activities listed. Take notes and date them. In a few days, ask another person who knows what infants are like to watch what your baby does. Again, keep notes. Compare the notes.

Write down your concerns. Show your doctor the list of concerns and the notes you took while watching your baby. Ask the doctor's office to make a copy of this information and add it to your child's file. Keep your set of notes where you keep your child's other health information.

Learning to Talk Helps Your Baby’s Brain Grow

• Be at your baby’s eye level. Get down to where you meet your baby's eyes or prop her up safely in an infant seat to make eye contact.

• Look into your baby’s eyes and talk to her. Repeat the sounds she makes. The two of you can play verbal pingpong. Your baby makes a sound. Then you make the same sound. Keep going back and forth.

• Each child will “talk” in different ways. Your job is to decipher your baby’s special ways of trying to talk to you. When you respond back to your baby, you help her refine her emerging language skills.

• Let your baby join in household activities. Tell her what you are doing. Let her see what's happening. Talk to her in complete sentences. For example: "After I fold these clothes, we're going to take a walk." When you label what is happening, you help your baby connect words with actions and feelings.

• Your baby doesn't use words yet, but she will understand the universal language called body language. You can tell your baby you love her by giving her a hug, singing her a song, or gently rocking her to music. You will find that she talks back by using her body. She will give you a smile, a giggle, a coo, a hearty chuckle, or a wiggle.

• Use both words and body language to tell your baby you care. She will learn to value the good things that happen when people enjoy talking to each other.

Good language skills help wire your baby’s brain in the most powerful way. Language skills are the key to social and emotional well-being as well as school success.

Feeding Your Baby

Breast milk or the formula recommended by your baby’s doctor are the only foods your baby should have now.

Your baby’s feeding schedule should be on demand. He senses what his body needs and adjusts his intake. Sometimes your baby will need more, sometimes less.

Your baby will have five to 10 feedings a day, drinking between 16 and 32 ounces of milk.

Be careful that your baby is not being fed too much. Interested friends and relatives may pressure you to "fatten him up." Fat does not equal healthy. Researchers believe that putting on too much weight during these early months may cause your child to be overweight later. Babies need to be fed the correct amount. If your baby isn’t hungry, don’t force him to eat.

Do not give your baby fruit juice. Fruit juices can lessen his appetite for what is really needed — breast milk or baby formula.

Babies don't need baby cereal until they are at least 4 to 6 months old. Feeding cereal to your baby does not help him sleep through the night. Your baby will sleep through the night when he is ready, usually when he weighs about 11 pounds, not because of what he eats.

Your baby may not be hungry every time he cries. When babies are fed too often, they eat less at each meal. Their stomachs empty more quickly, and empty stomachs soon make them hungry again.

Try to figure out why your baby is crying and soothe him in other ways. Giving him a bottle just to keep him quiet teaches him to connect food with being unhappy. This may lead to feeding problems later. If you think it is too soon for your baby to eat again when he cries, try playing with him or helping him become interested in another activity. If he is truly hungry, he will let you know by trying to suck on his hand, your shoulder, or anything he can touch.

Bottle Feeding

One of the most important parts of feeding is the warmth and pleasure your baby feels while being held and fed. Don't prop the bottle in your baby's mouth and leave her alone. Doing so can lead to serious health problems, such as ear infections and tooth decay.

Don't put your baby to bed with a bottle. There is a small opening or tube between your baby's throat and her ear. If your baby is lying down and sucking on her bottle, a small amount of formula may travel from the throat to the ear and cause an ear infection. The formula that stays in her mouth when she falls asleep with a bottle can cause tooth decay.

Keep extra containers of formula or breast milk cold. Bacteria grow rapidly in infant formula or breast milk that is not refrigerated. When you go out, take a bottle of formula or breast milk with you. Keep the bottle cold until your baby is ready to drink it. Pack the bottle in an insulated cooler with some ice.

Thumb or Pacifier?

While a pacifier or finger may help satisfy your baby's urge to suck now, she will outgrow this between the ages of 2 and 5 years old. When the time comes, you can help her find comfort in other ways, such as by singing to herself or holding a favorite stuffed toy.

The American Dental Association says that sucking on a pacifier or a thumb can be equally damaging after the permanent teeth come in. However, the ADA maintains that's it’s often easier for children to give up a pacifier than to give up thumb sucking.

Try other ways to comfort your baby, such as rocking her, singing to her, and gently rubbing her body.

If you use a pacifier, use it safely. Replace pacifiers frequently because they can fall apart. To avoid strangulation, do not put a pacifier on a string or ribbon around your baby's neck. Wash the pacifier if it falls on the floor.

Developing a Routine

Try to do some things at the same time each day so that your baby can come to expect what is going to happen. Activities that could be done at nearly the same time each day are: bathing, dressing, playing, going on outings, and going to sleep.

Your baby will let you know when he is sleepy or when he wants to eat. After a while, you will recognize a pattern in his eating and sleeping.

When you have tasks that need doing, such as preparing a meal, find something fun for your baby to do. This might include enjoying some time in the infant swing or playing with the crib gym. Just remember to keep your baby in a safe place where you can see what he is doing.

Try to save such activities for the times when you are busy. If your baby does them too often, he will get bored with them.

Babies do get bored. At 3 months, infants need more activity. When babies are bored they may get fussy, think they are hungry, or want to go to sleep (and keep a schedule that may be difficult for parents).

To keep your baby from getting bored, show him the pictures in children's books or play the learning games in this newsletter.

Keeping Your Relationship Strong

It’s time for a parenting break! New moms and dads need to make time for each other and to be with other people. After some time away from your baby, you can return refreshed to face the challenges of parenting.

Well-adjusted babies tend to have dads and moms who show that they enjoy and love each other. Are there ways you can make your partner feel special each day?

Try to show your love for your partner and your baby on a daily basis. Hugs and kisses are great ways to show you care, as is helping with household and child care chores.

Each day, tell your children and partner why you love them.

Preparing a Sitter

Ask someone you trust to care for your baby. The first time you have a sitter, ask the person to come 30 minutes before you leave so you can show the sitter around your house and tell her about your baby's routine.

Write down the following information about your baby and put it in a folder for the sitter:

• What usually happens at the time of day the sitter is present?
• What are your baby's favorite toys and activities?
• How does your baby tell you that she is hungry, sleepy, and wet?
• What do you do to calm your baby?
• How do you feed, burp, diaper, and place your baby in the crib? (You always place your baby in the crib on her back with no pillows or toys.)
• Where are all the things that the sitter will need for a diaper change, for warming a bottle, and for changing clothes?

Show the sitter around the house and where the following items are located:

• Telephones
• Flashlight
• Smoke detectors and fire escapes
• Emergency phone numbers
• Outside doors
• First aid kit

Provide the sitter these phone numbers:

• Where you can be reached
• Your baby's doctor
• Neighbors or nearby family members
• 911 or emergency response system (fire and police)
• Poison Control Center (800-222-1222); locate your nearest Poison Control Center at http://www.aapcc.org/findyour.htm
• Your house address
• Address of nearest emergency room
• A signed consent form authorizing medical care within certain limits if you cannot be reached.

Let’s Play … Help Me Learn

Help your baby discover her body.

To help her find her feet and hands:

• Put brightly colored or striped socks on her feet.
• Put brightly colored "scrunchies" (like the ones women wear in their hair) or sweatbands around her wrist or ankles.

To help your baby see herself:

• Place her in front of an unbreakable mirror.
• Tap the mirror to draw attention to it.

Safe Playthings

As your infant begins to put things into his mouth, be sure that he has safe things to play with.

Safe playthings:

• Are too large to fit into your baby’s mouth, ear, or nose
• Are light enough so they won’t cause harm if your baby drops them on himself
• Are nontoxic and made of nonbreakable materials — never glass
• Do not have spikes or wires in them and are not sharp
• Do not have pinch points that might catch your baby’s fingers, skin, tongue, or lips.

Begin now to inspect your child’s toys to make sure they are safe. Even at this young age, children can have serious accidents with toys. Infants can partially swallow rattles while sucking on them or by falling on them when rolling over. The rattles can get jammed into the throat, causing the child to choke.

Squeeze toys and other teething toys have also caused babies to choke. Make sure that no part or end of a rattle can fit into your child’s mouth. A baby’s mouth is very flexible and can stretch to hold larger shapes.

To keep your child safe:

• Take all toys out of the crib when your baby sleeps.
• Do not hang pacifiers or toys around your baby's neck and avoid hanging them from long strings above his bed. They can come loose and get tangled around his neck.
• Don’t give plastic bags to your baby as playthings.
• Remove stuffed toy animal eyes and buttons if they are loose or pinned on.
• Remove loose metal squeakers from squeak toys.
• Buy toys that are washable. Children suck and chew on toys, so the toys should be easy to keep clean.
• Regularly check to see that the toys are not broken or about to break.
• Use the safety straps on an infant seat and keep it on the floor, away from steps and other dangers. Your baby is now strong enough to wiggle out of an infant seat and tip it over.

You are Your Baby’s First and Best Teacher

Your child will learn more from you than anyone else during his lifetime.

Babies are born ready to learn. They are learning even before they are born. Research shows that when you talk to, hold, and care for your child, the brain is stimulated and the child learns to trust. He learns that you care. He learns that the world can be a good and safe place. The foundation you are building by forming a strong bond with your baby will help his brain and body grow in the best ways possible.

Parents tend to interact differently with boys and girls. Studies show that parents tend to imitate and encourage girls to be verbal, which may be one of the reasons girls usually talk earlier than boys. Parents tend to focus on motor skills with boys. It is important for parents to stimulate verbal development as well as physical development for both boys and girls. All babies need stimulation in all the different areas of development.

How to Play

Put your baby on the floor, in an infant seat or propped up enough to see you. Get your baby's attention by making eye contact and calling her name.

Show your baby a toy. Say, “Look what I have. It's a red rattle. Listen!” Then give the rattle to your baby. As she plays, talk about what she is doing. Say, “You can make it rattle. How does it taste? Is it hard? “

Allow your baby time to play and explore what she can do with the toy. When she is bored, show her how to do something else with the toy. If it is a rattle, show her how to move it up and down. Give her the rattle to try.

Another time, try this: Hold the rattle or toy and get your baby’s attention. Move it from one side to the other, up and down, and in circles. This helps your baby learn to use both eyes well. Your baby will let you know when she is tired of playing.

It is your job to match the amount of play to your baby's needs. If your baby wants to play some more, try playing another game. If your baby is fussy and tired, it's better to stop and play again later.

Why Play?

Playing helps babies learn. They learn how to tell the difference between objects by looking, feeling, tasting, smelling, and hearing.

Play encourages your baby to explore the world. He explores by using different body motions, such as banging, mouthing, dropping, and rubbing. He will do a combination of motions and compare the differences.

Playing with your baby shows him how to play when he is alone.

First Toys

Rattles

Have three or four rattles available. A baby will play with rattles for about the next three months. See the safe playthings section for tips for picking safe rattles.

Feely Toys

Find safe, clean objects that are square, round, hard, soft, fuzzy, long, and short. Show them one at a time to your baby. Let her examine them with her hands and mouth.

Batting Practice

Your baby waves her arms and legs and enjoys batting at objects. She likes brightly colored, different-textured, lightweight objects. Use a cradle gym to help your baby practice these skills. Be sure objects are safe. Before you know it, this random batting will turn into reaching, then grasping, and then putting the objects into his mouth.

Brothers and Sisters Need to Feel Needed

When you have a new baby, it’s normal for brothers and sisters to be upset at the way their family has changed, especially if they’re younger than 5 years old. A toilet-trained child may go back to diapers for awhile. Good eaters may lose their appetites. You may notice other changes, too.

Everyone is affected by having a new family member. Encourage the children to talk about both the good and bad parts of having a new baby.

Don’t leave your baby alone with a child younger than 4. Young children can’t always control their actions. They may hurt the baby accidentally.

Spend time with your other children. Try not to let the new baby become the total focus of attention. Read books to the siblings about babies joining families. Involve the children in caring for the baby. Praise them when they do well. Teach them how to hold the baby and how close to sit. Help them recognize how the baby responds to them.

Help everyone learn how to handle your baby gently. It may be tempting to hear your baby giggle after tossing him in the air or bouncing him vigorously on your knee, but don’t. Babies can be injured this way. Rapid movement can damage blood vessels in a child’s brain, resulting in blindness, brain injury, or even death. Effects may not be noticed until later, when learning problems occur. Don’t take a chance! Never allow anyone to spank, shake, hit, throw, toss, or swing babies or young children.

Want to Learn More About Child Care and Development?

Check out this Web site: http://www.zerotothree.org Zero to Three for Parents on development in the first three years of life.

If you have questions, contact your local Extension office. Find the nearest office at: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/qlinks/partners/state_partners.html.

When reading this newsletter, remember: Every baby is different. Children may do things earlier or later than described here. This newsletter gives equal space and time to both sexes. If we write he or she, we are talking about all babies.

Credits: This newsletter was adapted from Extension Just In Time Parenting Newsletters in California, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Tennessee, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.