One month old: can hold its head up about an inch when lying on stomach.
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| Baby Growth First 6 Months |
Two months: can lift its head to 45 degrees when on stomach. Otherwise, still as floppy as an inadequately stuffed soft toy.
Three months: can lift shoulders. And turn its head when it hears your voice, and express pleasure by waving arms and kicking legs. Can keep head up steadily now for a few seconds.
Four months: can sit up. But only if you put it in the sitting position and hold it there. Can also cross its feet, and will start reaching for its toes. Which are currently too far away.
Five months: can push up on its arms for about a second and a half. Then clump! hits the floor and bursts into tears. Also starting to put things in its mouth. Full control of head.
Six months: can sit up without support. For about a second and a half. Then roils over, hits the floor and bursts into tears. Can hold its bottle or beaker, transfer small things from one hand to another, take telephone messages, vacuum the carpet.
This may not seem like particularly swift progress, and compared to most animals it isn't. By the time they are six months old many farm animals have already been eaten. But if you are watching your child develop from day to day, every small step he or she makes feels like a giant leap for mankind.
Most days bring something new, even it's only a particular look on Junior's face when you are trying to change a nappy. Needless to say you become enthralled by all this and can't stop yourself telling everyone about it. The system works well, for while the parents are congratulating themselves on every tiny new skill their baby acquires, Junior is actually concentrating on his or her core activities: eating, farting, pissing, shitting, vomiting, gurgling, wriggling, making silly noises, crying, sleeping, failing to sleep and (if you are lucky) looking adorable. Not to mention growing. Compare a four-month-old child with a newborn and they seem like different species. A twelve-month-old is incomprehensibly huge. Baby's priorities are clear: size first, skills later.
And how about you, six months down the line? How are you feeling? I believe it takes most fathers at least four months after the birth to remember that they are still alive. (It may take them longer to stop wishing they were dead, but that's another matter.)
Scarcely recognizing the elderly heavy metal vocalist in the mirror in the morning, you may start to take stock of the situation. We must try not to generalize too much here: by six months babies are already demonstrating an extraordinary variety of behavior patterns and personality traits. Some parents will now be past the worst, while others will still be knee deep in it, and finding it impossible to wash off in the shower every morning.
What should be apparent, though, is that mentally and spiritually, Junior is now very much with us. Very tiny babies have a slightly unworldly quality - 'trailing clouds of glory', as Wordsworth put it. They are in the world, but not quite of it yet. Some cultures believe that their spirits join us only gradually, from wherever they were before. (Before fatherhood I couldn't have read that sentence without laughing, let alone written it. After two children, I can almost see what they mean.)
But by six months the mind is fully engaged, and your baby is lying there just as you or I would be, wondering idly where the next meal is coming from. You, of course, have rather more to worry about. To find out more, you can check out Baby Growth First 6 Months.