During the first month, your baby may sleep nearly all the time, when he isn’t being bathed or fed. Another equally healthy baby may be awake for several hours a day. Like grown ups, babies also vary in their need of sleep. It does not hurt babies to cry for the part of the day, except that he/she may swallow a lot of air, and make him/her self uncomfortable. It is hard on adult nerves to hear a baby crying, if you have no one to help you and are alone to take care of your baby; it is a better idea to go see your doctor, if the baby continues to cry even if you have used all tactics to soothe him or her. If he/she is awake soon after being fed, and cries, don’t feed him again. If he/she is warm not too hot, and you have changed his nappy, he/she maybe happier near you, with the sounds of you finishing off with the household chores.
Babies learn faster in the first month, than at any other time in their lives. At first, the baby’s eyes focus best on objects one foot away. This is, of course, the distance between his face and his/her mother’s when she is feeding him or cuddling him in her arms.
His brain cannot receive information through his tightly closed eyes or through ears when all he can hear is his own screams, so crying time is time wasted as far as the learning process goes. The sense of smell is well developed at the time of birth. Babies less than a week old have been shown to prefer the smell of their own mother’s breast milk on a cotton pad to the milk pad from another woman.
The experience of breast feeding means more than just supplying a small person’s stomach with needed nourishment. The smell and taste, the cuddling and warmth, the sight of her face and the sound of her voice all build up the concept of Mother in the baby’s brain. Similarly, he will build up a mental image of dad, a different, but also a very important and a loving person.
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