Care of baby

Infants cry as a form of basic instinctive communication.[7] A crying infant may be trying to express a variety of feelings including hunger, discomfort, overstimulation, boredom, wanting something, or loneliness.

Breastfeeding is the recommended method of feeding by all major infant health organizations.[8] If breastfeeding is not possible or desired, bottle feeding is done with expressed breast-milk or with infant formula. Infants are born with a sucking reflex allowing them to extract the milk from the nipples of the breasts or the nipple of the baby bottle, as well as an instinctive behavior known as rooting with which they seek out the nipple. Sometimes a wet nurse is hired to feed the infant, although this is rare, especially in developed countries.

Adequate food consumption at an early age is vital for an infant's development. The foundations of optimum health, growth, and neurodevelopment across the lifespan are established in the first 1000 days of life.[9] From birth to six months, infants should consume only breast milk or an unmodified milk substitute. As an infant's diet matures, finger foods may be introduced as well as fruit, vegetables and small amounts of meat.[10]

As infants grow, food supplements can be added. Many parents choose commercial, ready-made baby foods to supplement breast milk or formula for the child, while others adapt their usual meals for the dietary needs of their child. Whole cow's milk can be used at one year, but lower-fat milk is not recommended until the child is 2 to 3 years old. Weaning is the process through which breast milk is eliminated from the infant's diet through the introduction of solid foods in exchange for milk.[11] Until they are toilet-trained, infants in industrialized countries wear diapers. The transition from diapers to training pants is an important transition in the development of an infant/baby to that of a toddler. Children need more sleep than adults—up to 18 hours for newborn babies, with a declining rate as the child ages. Until babies learn to walk, they are carried in the arms, held in slings or baby carriers, or transported in baby carriages or strollers. Most industrialized countries have laws requiring child safety seats for babies in motor vehicles.

Common care issues

Baby colic

Bassinet/crib

Cradle cap

Day care

Diaper rash

Infant massage

Immunization

Pacifier

Paternal bond

Swaddling

Teething

Benefits of touch

A baby being hugged by a soldier

Experiments have been done with infants up to four months of age using both positive touch (stroking or cuddling) and negative touch (poking, pinching, or tickling). The infants who received the positive touch cried less often and vocalized and smiled more than the infants who were touched negatively. Infants who were the recipients of negative touch have also been linked with emotional and behavioral problems later in life. A lower amount of physical violence in adults has been discovered in cultures with greater levels of positive physical touching.[12]

Language development

An infant holding a space-themed baby book

Caregivers of an infant are advised to pick up on the infant's facial expressions and mirror them. Reproducing and empathizing with their facial expressions enables infants to experience effectiveness and to recognize their own actions more easily (see mirror neurons). Exaggeratedly reproduced facial expressions and gestures are recommended, as they are clearer forms of expression. The baby's babbling should also be picked up and repeated. By imitating each other's sounds the first simple dialogues are initiated.[13] Accentuated pronunciation and melodic intonation make it easier to recognize individual words in a sentence.[14] However, it is not advisable to use simplified "baby talk" (e.g. "Did you 'ouch'?" instead of, "Did you hurt yourself?").[15]

Even if parents cannot yet understand infants' babbling, a timely response by parents to babbling leads to faster language acquisition.[16] This was confirmed by researchers who first studied mothers' behavior towards 8-month-old infants and later tested the infants' vocabulary when they were 15 months old.[17] A first important development of infants is the discovery that they can influence their parents through babbling (development of intentional communication).[17] Parents can encourage this by engaging with their infants in babbling. This in turn promotes further language development, as infants then turn to their parents more often.[16]

Previous studies have shown that the infant's speech is encouraged when parents, for example, smile in the infant's direction or touch the infant every time the infant looks at them and babbles. It also helps if parents respond to what they think their baby is saying (for example, giving a ball or commenting when the baby looks at the ball and babbles).[16] Responding to sounds produced when the baby looks at an object (object-directed vocalizations) thus provide an opportunity to learn the name of the object. In this way, babies also learn that sounds are associated with objects.[17] However, language development is only achieved if parents react positively (e.g. smile) in response to the infant's babbling. A high response rate without a connection to the infant's utterances does not lead to language promotion.[17] It is detrimental to language development if a mother instead tries to divert the infant's attention to something else.[18]

Sleep

Main article: Infant sleep

A sleeping infant

A 2018 review analysed 146 studies on infant sleep behavior and listed several factors that show an effect on sleep duration and the number of night wakings. For example, stimulating daytime activities, reading aloud before sleeping, early bedtime, a sleep routine, and avoiding television and media exposure before bedtime are associated with longer sleep duration and fewer nighttime awakenings.[19]: 24 

Furthermore, strong parental involvement at falling asleep is associated with shorter sleep duration, slower falling asleep and more frequent night-time awakenings in the studies analysed. Strong parental involvement is understood to include parental presence, cradling, or breastfeeding at bedtime, as well as carrying the infant to sleep and then putting the infant down. Strong parental involvement has a negative effect on infant sleep because the infant cannot develop the ability to self-soothe. On the other hand, low parental involvement at bedtime gives the infant room to learn self-soothing and self-regulation.[19]: 24 

In 2020, a Finnish study established (according to the research leader) for the first time a reference value for infant sleep quality based on a large data set (about 5,700 babies).[20][21] Almost 40% of the participating parents with eight-month-old babies said they were worried about their sleep. In fact, sleep problems were common; however, children fall asleep faster, wake up less often during the night and stay awake less late at night the older they get. At the same time, total sleep time decreases.

The study was also able to determine reference values for normal sleep (see table). Children who sleep significantly less than average would usually benefit from supportive measures, for which a number of methods would be available (a discussion with the pediatrician or see, for example, the article on sleep training).[16]