As your baby turns three months old, we mark the end of this period informally known as The 4th Trimester. This gentle introduction to life outside the womb has supported your baby through this most vulnerable period. Like a bridge between womb and world, they are now more ready to begin exploring the world.

As you approach the end of this first three months you might be feeling like life is becoming more predictable. Your baby has a rhythm to their day and might be having some predictable times for feeding and sleeping. Or not. Some babies have nothing like a routine to their day and that is very typical. Breastfed babies will be feeding more efficiently and some feeds will be quick while others are long and leisurely. You might be told your baby is “snacking” and this implied as being a bad habit. Your baby’s shorter sleep periods might be described by others as “cat naps” and also said as though this is not a good thing. These comments often come from friends or family members who enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit every couple of hours and regularly “rest their eyes” in front of the computer at work!

Who does your baby take after? By now you might be seeing similarities with their maternal or paternal family members. Their grandfather’s chin. Maternal aunts eye shape. Genetics connect people across the generations and grandmothers love to dig out baby photos and compare. It can be fun to see who your baby takes after.

Your baby is increasingly developing skills which are useful in a world filled with sights and sounds. Their hearing has developed and they are beginning to track the movement of objects with their eyes. Movements are less jerky and they are gaining control of their head and neck. You will soon see indication they are working on intentional movement of their hands and moving their hand to their mouth on purpose. The central nervous system is developing down their spine and begin the coordinated movements so necessary in the second six months.

After two months outside the womb, your baby is spending more time awake and taking in the world around them. Newborns are hard-wired to look into the eyes of anyone who stops to chat and both children and adults are hard-wired to look into babies eyes and engage with them. The infant facial features are just what attracts us and it is very hard not to respond when a baby looks at you and smiles their brand new smile. And when faces don’t fit the standard design a baby expects - facial hair, glasses, masks and other variations - you will see your baby’s eyes scan and frown as they process the unexpected. Gradually widening your infant’s social circle and sharing simple books featuring faces and different expressions will help them build their mental catalogue of what people look like.

Most women will have had a postnatal check-up with their midwife or obstetrician by now. Ideally this will have included an examination to confirm you are physically healing from any tears or wounds from the birth. If you had a straight-forward birth without complications, you are probably feeling something like your pre-pregnancy self. With the all-clear, you can resume exercise with a modified program. Kangatraining is a babywearing exercise workout designed for parents with babies and toddlers. There are parent-child yoga and other classes available too. Do check the qualifications of instructors to be working with women who have recently been pregnant and birthed. There is specialised training available for practitioners to support pelvic floor health.

Breastfeeding mothers might notice a significant shift in how their breasts produce milk over the coming weeks.

In the first weeks of breastfeeding, breasts fill with milk between feeds, becoming fuller and firmer until the release of the next feed, when this filling cycle begins again. This stage of lactation probably has some protective factor while breastfeeding is being established in the early weeks, protecting the supply while your baby masters effective attachment and removal of milk.

Just when you might be starting to feel a bit more confident about caring for your baby - nature has a surprise for you!

Welcome to Wonder Weeks!

As well as a physical growth spurt, common around 4-6 weeks, this week will see significant brain development underway. If your baby was born on her due date, around five weeks she will experience the first Wonder Week.

An uncomplicated start to breastfeeding will be paying off at this stage, with your milk supply well-established and your baby efficiently feeding directly from the breast. Some mothers might even find they have too much of a good thing. With an abundant milk production and a strong let-down reflex, they have babies who struggle with the flow and experience discomfort from overfull tummies. These babies tend to have above average weight gain, frequent, gassy bowel motions and sometimes bring up excess milk from distended stomachs.

As your baby approaches the first month anniversary of their birth, you will already see significant changes from how they appeared that first day. Although some babies still like to be curled up as though they are still held tight within the womb, most babies are getting used to having arms and legs they can stretch out and straighten. Those curled up little legs can make positioning your baby in a baby carrier a challenge when you are starting out, as you struggle to position them in the recommended M position with the carrier supporting them “knee to knee”. As they begin to unfurl like a blossoming flower, this gets easier and you will also find dressing them a little easier too.

Sometimes the pathway to breastfeeding involves supplementing breastmilk with your own expressed milk, donor milk from another mother or infant formula. If exclusive breastfeeding was your goal then you might feel disappointed, frustrated or even angry that this hasn't been possible for now. However temporary mixed feeding doesn't mean you will need to do so permanently and it helps to understand you have options to try.

This can be the week when you can hit the wall so be gentle with yourselves and call on any offers of help. But the help you need isn’t someone to sit holding the baby while you do housework and make them a cup of tea! So be selective about who you invite into your space and say no when you need to.

The first week of your baby’s life can pass in a bit of a blur. If you haven’t birthed at home, transferring there after a few days in hospital can seem surreal but in the second week you will begin to adjust to caring for your baby in the environment you carefully prepared for them.

After around 40 weeks, your baby has outgrown the available space inside the womb and relocated to the outside world! Pregnancy and birth retreat to the past as your whole focus becomes a week of firsts for this new person in your life.

From the vital first hour and the first breastfeed to the first nappy of around 2000 changes in the first year alone - strap on those training wheels as there is a steep learning curve ahead of you all!