How active are newborns?

LBlankenship · Jul 3, 2012

I realize that first month might be a haze of sleep deprivation and stress, but what do you remember? Do they spend 95% of the time sleeping, or more like 75%? Wiggling a lot, or lying still? Anecdotes welcome.

I'm writing a gritty fantasy story that starts when the baby's about a week old and ends around the time he's a month old. He's healthy and being nursed fairly regularly (Mom has a busy life.)

Thanks!

Mr Flibble · Jul 3, 2012

They don't do anything much till about 6 weeks old IIRC. They have the Moro and other reflexes, but no real smiles, or reaching out for stuff (on purpose) till later.

Other than that, depends on the baby. My son was an eating/sleeping machine (doubled his birth weight in 6 weeks!), very contented and apart from occasional colic, rarely cried. Not much of a wriggler. My daughter wouldn't feed, wouldn't sleep. Was only happy in the baby sling. All she did was wriggle!

Shadow_Ferret · Jul 3, 2012

Depends. Our oldest had colic. We got no sleep for 3 weeks. I'd get in the car at 3am and drive him around. My MIL thought we were exaggerating how bad it was until we begged her to take him for the night so we could get some sleep. She became a believer real quick.

shadowwalker · Jul 3, 2012

Like the rest said - depends on the baby, health, weather, where you live. Some babies never get colic, others are very sensitive to outside noise (like traffic or dogs barking), some like to be held constantly, others not...

Katrina S. Forest · Jul 3, 2012

I don't remember percentages per se, but mine never stayed awake long. An hour and a half at most and then he'd doze off again. We had one of those baby wraps that are supposed to be oh-so-helpful to mommies. Walk around with your baby, that sort of thing. Yeah, we never used it with my son because he instantly fell asleep in it. (You want to encourage them to stay awake in daytime more so than nighttime, for obvious reasons. Not that you purposefully wake them up when they want a nap, but you don't do stuff that will put them to sleep when they aren't tired either.)

Newborns do smile, but it's random and not at all related to anything the adults do. I think the typical explanation is they're relieving themselves. My son's great-grandmother said they smile because an angel is tickling them. I liked that.

Newborns need to wake up and eat at least every 3 hours, especially in the first few days. Our son got jaundice and tried to sleep too much. We even had to drive to the hospital. Scary stuff for new parents. We also learned that getting new baby lots of sunlight helps.

Kado · Jul 3, 2012

I think for your story purposes you should keep it simple and have your baby doing nothing but sleep and feed, and cry in between. They all do that to varying degrees anyway for the first 4 weeks. They don't tend to stay awake during the day for more than 2 - 3 hours at a time. They take anywhere from 20 min to 45 min to finish one feed. Lots of day time naps (about 3-4). Wake up 3-4 times in the night.

It's ok to portray your baby as looking into mother's eyes (they do that), or even looking around by the fourth week. You could also have your baby lie on its belly and lift its head to look around by about 3 weeks (my first born was as strong as an ox and could do this by week 2, which isn't common), but my second born couldn't do this for about 3 months.

Just don't have it do anything like sitting up, rolling over, not having its head supported in any way, eat solid food, reach out to grab someone's hand, or show complex facial expressions (apart from scrunched up frown from either crying, or being irritable or hungry).

Smiling...hmm...you could probably get away with having it smile at the end of the fourth week, for your story purposes. It's not likely that a 4 week old would deliberately smile, but it's not impossible either.

Hope some of that helps.

icerose · Jul 3, 2012

Child development falls on a range rather than an exact date. It would probably be a lot easier to be a parent if we knew exactly what to expect and when. This is a pretty good month by month guide written for average babies with even a premie section.

http://www.ivillage.com/your-babys-first-year-newborn-development/6-a-127190?p=2

LBlankenship · Jul 3, 2012

Oh, good. I wasn't sure if such a young baby did *anything* but sleep. Being awake for even an hour and randomly smiling/wiggling will still help... mom is very detail oriented, she'll pay attention to that.

Squirrel on a Ledge · Jul 3, 2012

LBlankenship said:
Oh, good. I wasn't sure if such a young baby did *anything* but sleep. Being awake for even an hour and randomly smiling/wiggling will still help... mom is very detail oriented, she'll pay attention to that.

Babies generally don't smile until they are at about a month old (apparently they are far too serious for such things). They do make some interesting pooping faces, though.

Hootie821 · Jul 3, 2012

I'm a registered nurse and worked for many years in a newborn nursery. Mind you, the babies only stayed for a couple of days generally unless they were sick and then those stayed for maybe a week. So my experience with the general nature of babies is in the VERY newborn stage.

Many of them just ate and slept. That's all. They woke up to feed and then promptly fell back to sleep. There are some however, that would feed and then be very content to just lie in their crib, with their eyes open and stay awake for an hour or two before falling back to sleep--not crying or fussy, just awake and content.

They do wiggle their arms and legs with no purpose of course, but just to stretch. They gurgle, yawn, sneeze and they do make occasional involuntary smiles, even at that young age. They are not smiling at anything they see and most of the time they do these types of smiling gestures in their sleep. And yes, they make very funny faces when they are pooing!

If you have any specific questions, I'd be more than happy to help you further.

Katrina S. Forest · Jul 3, 2012

Kado said:
Just don't have it do anything like sitting up, rolling over, not having its head supported in any way, eat solid food, reach out to grab someone's hand, or show complex facial expressions (apart from scrunched up frown from either crying, or being irritable or hungry).

My son actually did roll over at a few weeks old, though not on purpose. We'd put him down for tummy time and he had his arms underneath him. He started to rock back and forth and suddenly, he rolled to his back. We were shocked and put him back on his tummy, same position, and he did it again. I'm glad I caught it on camera, because he didn't really do it again after that. In fact, when he was a bit older, he wailed through tummy time because he couldn't figure out how to flip when he actually wanted to.

Kado · Jul 3, 2012

Oh yeah there are always exceptions. My eldest son defied the newborns always sleep rule. He stayed awake for 5 hours after being born, took a 40 min nap, stayed awake for another 3 hours, then only slept for 3. Clearly he thought sleep was for the weak!

Mrs. de Winter · Jul 3, 2012

I have two kids. They both cried anytime I set them down as newborns. I thought I would be able to feed a baby, then lay it down in the crib and have a couple hours to myself while they napped--ha! They wanted to be held constantly. They would usually fall asleep on the boob. They did a lot of wiggling and looking around, especially at lights and people's faces. They pooped a lot. They nursed about every 2 hours for 30-60 minutes. My son slept so much the first month I worried there was something wrong with him, but my daughter was more awake and alert. Babies usually don't smile until they are one month + so you might not want to put a smiley baby in your story. HTH!

MMcDonald64 · Jul 3, 2012

Kado said:
I think for your story purposes you should keep it simple and have your baby doing nothing but sleep and feed, and cry in between. They all do that to varying degrees anyway for the first 4 weeks. They don't tend to stay awake during the day for more than 2 - 3 hours at a time. They take anywhere from 20 min to 45 min to finish one feed. Lots of day time naps (about 3-4). Wake up 3-4 times in the night.

It's ok to portray your baby as looking into mother's eyes (they do that), or even looking around by the fourth week. You could also have your baby lie on its belly and lift its head to look around by about 3 weeks (my first born was as strong as an ox and could do this by week 2, which isn't common), but my second born couldn't do this for about 3 months.

Just don't have it do anything like sitting up, rolling over, not having its head supported in any way, eat solid food, reach out to grab someone's hand, or show complex facial expressions (apart from scrunched up frown from either crying, or being irritable or hungry).

Smiling...hmm...you could probably get away with having it smile at the end of the fourth week, for your story purposes. It's not likely that a 4 week old would deliberately smile, but it's not impossible either.

Hope some of that helps.

My daughter smiled at 3 weeks. She was my third so I wasn't expecting a real smile that young as my other two smiled around 6-7 weeks. Her's was real though and when I took her to my mom's that same day, she repeated it for an audience. I was a proud mama!

jaksen · Jul 3, 2012

I had two quiet babies who slept a lot and one who had colic until she was six months. The colicky baby was always wiggling and making little sounds, like grunts. She fussed when she was fed, changed, held, rocked, moved, and so on. The two quieter ones were a joy just to carry around; they fell asleep easily, too.

Kafff · Jul 5, 2012

I noticed you are writing fantasy. Consider that in the Middle Ages (or where I live until the beginning of 20th century) the babies where tightly swaddled for several months, making them practically immobile (otherwise their arms or legs might fall out, among other things). Check one of the several links of this practice:

http://rosaliegilbert.com/births.html#swaddling

Katrina S. Forest · Jul 5, 2012

Kafff said:
I noticed you are writing fantasy.

I noticed that as well, but then I wasn't sure if it was high fantasy or contemporary fantasy. Good point about swaddling, though. It calmed my son down really well at bedtime. That and a pacifier, though he dropped it a lot.

If the story is high fantasy, Mom's finger can also act as a pacifier.

How active are newborns?

LBlankenship

VPXV 4EVA

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

shadowwalker

empty-nester!

Katrina S. Forest

Kado

icerose

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LBlankenship

VPXV 4EVA

Squirrel on a Ledge

Hootie821

Choosing to live my passion...

Katrina S. Forest

Kado

Mrs. de Winter

Eating cookies

MMcDonald64

jaksen

Caped Codder

Kafff

Katrina S. Forest