The baby is actively growing and exploring everything around him, and all the baby's organs are improving and developing. The baby already recognizes the mother, gives her his conscious smile and greets her with movements of the whole body. Let's find out what else a two-month-old baby can do and how parents can help the development of an infant of this age.
Physiological changes
- By the age of two months, the baby's salivary glands begin to work fully. And although their functioning is not so active as to cause the formation of a large amount of saliva, the baby becomes more comfortable sucking on the breast. In addition, due to the tighter contact between the baby's mouth and mother's breast, the baby swallows less air, which reduces the manifestation of colic.
- The baby's digestive system is actively developing. In a two-month-old child, digestive juices and enzymes are more actively produced, a beneficial microflora in the intestine develops, and the stool changes.
- Physiological hypertonicity begins to fade away. First, it goes down in the upper limbs, and a little later in the legs. The crawling reflex also disappears - if you place your palm under the feet of the baby lying on his stomach, the child will no longer push off.
- By two months, communications that were in the child's heart during intrauterine development begin to close. Changes also take place in the formula of the child's blood.
- Your baby's eyesight improves - the baby already sees everything better at a distance of 50 centimeters, but objects that move quickly are not yet able to fix the baby's eyes.
- The baby urinates at least 6 times a day, and the baby's stool is affected by the type of feeding. A baby who receives mother's milk can defecate from 1 time in a few days to 12 times a day, and the frequency of fecal discharge in artificial children is on average 1-4 times a day.
Physical development
The height, as well as the weight, of a two month old baby can vary greatly. A child can grow in the second month of life by 3-5 centimeters or add only 1 centimeter in height, and this will be a variant of the norm.
On average, in the second month, children gain about 800 grams of weight, but some toddlers can gain less, while others - more. The average increase in chest volume is 2 centimeters, and the head circumference is 1.5 centimeters.
If in doubt and worry, find out the boundary indicators of the main physical parameters of the child's development, which we noted in the table:
Insufficient weight gain (if a 2-month-old boy weighs less than 4.3 kg, and a girl less than 3.9 g) should be a reason for consulting a pediatrician. Too much increase in head circumference should also cause concern - this is a good reason to show the baby to a neurologist in order to exclude problems with cerebrospinal fluid outflow.
You can use the calculator to calculate norms for your child... The calculator is based on the standards for height and weight from the World Health Organization (WHO).
What can the kid do?
- A two-month-old baby responds with a conscious smile to her mother's affectionate speech and games. The range of the baby's emotions becomes very extensive - the baby can be happy, offended, indignant, laugh silently, flirt, attract attention, protest against the actions of an adult.
- The gaze of the crumbs of this age, due to the improvement in the function of the eye muscles and the increase in the ability to concentrate, became studying and attentive. The baby recognizes mom's face and examines it carefully. The baby is also attracted to various bright objects. He fixes his gaze both when they are motionless, and when they move slowly in space.
- The baby is already better at recognizing different sounds, while distinguishing the mother's voice and turning his head towards it.
- In the position on the tummy, the baby raises its head more confidently and is able to hold it for about a minute. In this case, the baby's shoulder girdle comes off the surface. For the same long time, the baby can already hold its head when the mother holds it vertically in her arms.
- The humming of a 2 month old baby has become louder and more frequent. The sounds made by the baby become clearer. They are mainly vowels - "e", "i", "y", "o", "a".
- If you put fingers or toys in the palms of a toddler for 2 months, the baby will reflexively grab them.
- Lying on its side, the baby has already learned to turn into a position on its back.
- The child began to understand some of the connections between cause and effect. For example, the baby has already realized that his crying becomes the reason for the appearance of his mother next to him. At this age, with the help of crying, the baby still informs the parents about any discomfort.
Development activities
To stimulate the physical development of the baby, parents should use:
- Massage and light gymnastics.
- Air baths. The baby needs to be laid on the changing table and completely undressed, leaving him without clothes. Start with 1 minute of this bath and then gradually work up to 10 minutes.
- Outdoor walks for 2-4 hours daily (duration depends on weather conditions).
- Frequent laying on the tummy so that the child trains to hold his head.
Carry the baby in your arms, holding it in a "column", showing the surrounding objects and introducing the baby to other people. Allow your toddler to explore the faces and voices of adults and other children. Provide an opportunity for the baby to study his own body, as well as the face of the parents by touch.
In order for the child to learn to hold objects, improve tactile sensitivity and motor skills, small balls of different materials (wood, rubber, plastic, etc.) with different weights are regularly put into his pens. These balls can be soft and hard, smooth or embossed. You need to put objects in the open palms of the child and make sure that the baby grabs them reflexively. The balls can be tied to ribbons and lowered to the child, and when the kid grabs objects, pull them towards him, thereby stimulating to grab the balls tighter. The balls can be replaced with sticks (smooth or ribbed) and inserts of different fabrics.
Try to do the exercise "Here is a gift for the baby", which is shown by Tatyana Lazareva in the next video.
To develop a baby's hearing, use quiet classical music, rattles and bells. Put the baby on the back, take the bell in your hand and, holding it 60-70 centimeters from the baby's chest, make a few bells. After waiting for the sound to fade, make two or three more calls. You can also tie a fishing line to the bell and move it, encouraging the baby to look for the source of the sound with his eyes. Such hearing training can be done several times a day, but after 3-4 days of training, it is worth taking a break for a week.
To stimulate the organ of vision, put on bright clothes for the baby and surround the baby with objects of different colors. Hang bright toys about 50 centimeters from the baby above the baby's bed. The baby will not only look at them, but will also start trying to grab them.
Have a kind of dialogue with the baby, copying the humming of the toddler. The kid will hear himself from the side and repeat after you, while training articulation and speech. Children also really like it when mom imitates animal sounds (meows, hums).
After introducing your baby to a regular massage, try using objects for this procedure that can be rolled over the baby's body, for example, smooth sticks, small balls, pencils. If you took a large object for such a massage, roll it only on the back of the baby, and small objects can be used to stroke the whole body of the little one.
For "self-massage", you can sprinkle cereals (millet, rice, buckwheat, beans) on the changing table and lay the baby back down on it. If the handles of the crumbs are not yet very dexterous and cannot grab the grains, you can spread them on the crumbs and on the tummy. Moving along such a massaging material, the child will develop tactile sensitivity.
Daily regime
Many babies develop their own daily routine by the age of two months. It is important for parents to take into account the baby's biorhythms and adjust the main regime moments for them (walking, developing activities, bathing).
A two-month-old baby spends most of the day in a dream. The baby sleeps for about 11 hours at night, and in the daytime 4 times for 1.5-2 hours. It will also be normal if a few daytime dreams last up to 3 hours, and the rest will be very short (half an hour each). The periods of wakefulness at this age are still short-lived. On average, there are 4 of them lasting from 1 to 1.5 hours.
The number of feedings in 2 months is 6-7, and the interval between them is about 3 hours. There is no night break at this age in feeding, while during night feeding the baby no longer wakes up completely.
Care
A two-month-old baby should not be left alone - let the baby always be under the supervision of an adult. Taking care of the baby, you need to wash the child every day, wiping his eyes, nose, ears and face. The baby is washed under running water after each excretion of feces and after several urinations.
Daily bathing of a child of 2 months should last 5 minutes in water at a temperature of 36-37 degrees.
A 2-month-old baby's head is washed two to three times a week.
Nutrition
The best food for a baby at the age of 2 months is breast milk. It provides the baby with the necessary nutrients and changes simultaneously with the growth of the baby. The best option for breastfeeding is called on-demand feeding, when the baby is applied as many times as it needs.
The baby can apply up to four times per hour to suckle for several minutes, and fully feed on mother's milk with an interval from 40 minutes to 2 and a half hours. A baby of two months usually always asks for breast after waking up and during falling asleep. At night, the child is applied mainly from 3 to 8 in the morning.
But for the nutrition of artificial children, there are strict standards. If the child is fed with a formula, then to calculate the daily amount of food, the weight of the crumbs is divided by 6. Having learned the total volume of the mixture per day, it is divided by the number of feedings (6-8). On average, a child at this age eats 900 g of the mixture per day - this is about 130 g per feeding, if there are 7 feedings.
Frequent problems
- Colic. Despite the maturation of the digestive tract, many babies two months of age still suffer from colic. To prevent discomfort and pain, pediatricians recommend using physical methods - holding the baby in a column after feeding, laying the baby on his stomach before eating, taking breaks in sucking, allowing the little one to regurgitate air.
- Oral thrush. This problem may appear in infants due to infection with candida from the mother or with reduced immunity. Having noticed a white coating in the baby's mouth, you should show the baby to the doctor.
- Prickly heat. Overheating of the child leads to its occurrence, and proper hygiene and clothing for the weather will serve as the prevention of such a problem. To quickly eliminate the appearance of prickly heat, add chamomile infusion or a decoction of oak bark to the bathing water.
- Diaper rash. Their appearance is associated with infrequent diaper changes, poor washing, and infrequent air baths.
- A rash on the face. At 2 months of age, it is often associated with the elimination of maternal hormones from the infant's body, which come with milk. Such a rash goes away on its own by 3 months and it is not required to treat it, they recommend only bathing in decoctions of herbs.
To reduce the increased muscle tone on the hands at 2 months, we recommend doing a massage, which is shown in the next video by Nikolai Nikonov, a leading doctor and massage therapist in Russia.
