FIRST THREE YEARS

A 2-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but without a top on it.

—Jerry Seinfeld
The Newborn Baby
The neonatal period, the first 4 weeks of life,
is a time of transition from the uterus, where a
fetus is supported entirely by the mother, to
an independent existence.

Neonate - Newborn baby, up to 4 weeks old.

Boys tend to be slightly longer and heavier

than girls
firstborn child is likely to weigh less at
birth than later borns.
The Newborn Baby
In their first few days, neonates lose as much as 10 percent of their body
weight, primarily because of a loss of fluids.

They begin to gain weight again at about the 5th day and are generally back
to birth weight by the 10th to the 14th day.

Areas on their heads known as fontanels where the bones of the skull do not
meet until first 18 months.
BODY SYSTEM
After birth, all of the baby’s systems and functions must operate on their own.
Most of the work of this transition occurs during the first 4 to 6 hours after delivery

Moreover, a newborn needs more oxygen than before.

Most babies start to breathe as soon as they are exposed to air.
The heartbeat at first is fast and irregular, and blood pressure does not stabilize until
about 10 days after birth.

If a neonate does not begin breathing within about 5 minutes, the baby may suffer
permanent brain injury caused by anoxia, lack of oxygen, or hypoxia, a reduced
oxygen supply.
MEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL
ASSESSMENT
The Apgar Scale (Dr. Virginia Apgar 1953)
One minute after delivery, and then again 5 minutes after birth, most babies are
assessed using the Apgar scale helps us remember its five subtests:
appearance (color),
pulse (heart rate),
grimace (reflex irritability),
activity (muscle tone), and
respiration (breathing)

7 to 10—indicates that the baby is in good to excellent condition

below 5–7 means the baby needs help to establish breathing;
below 4 means the baby needs immediate lifesaving treatment.
STATES OF AROUSAL
An infant’s physiological and behavioral status at a given moment in the periodic
daily cycle of wakefulness, sleep, and activity

Babies also have an internal clock that regulates their daily cycles of eating,
sleeping, and elimination and perhaps even their moods.

Most new babies sleep about 75 percent of their time—up to 18 hours a day—but
wake up every 3 to 4 hours, day and night, for feeding.
Some infants begin to sleep through the night as early as 3 months.
By 6 months, an infant typically sleeps for 6 hours straight at night, but brief nighttime
waking is normal even during late infancy and toddlerhood.
A 2-year-old typically sleeps about 13 hours a day, including a single nap, usually in
the afternoon
Complications of Childbirth
Low-birth-weight babies (LBW) are those neonates born weighing less than
2,500 grams (5 pounds) at birth.
Feeding them breast milk can help prevent infection
kangaroo care Method of skin-to-skin contact in which a newborn is laid
face down between the mother’s breasts for an hour or so at a time after
birth.
preterm (premature) infants Infants born before completing the 37th week of
gestation.
small-for-date (small-for-gestational-age) infants, are born at or around their
due dates, but are smaller than would be expected.
EARLY PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
According to the cephalocaudal principle, growth occurs from the top down.
Because the brain grows rapidly before birth, a newborn baby’s head is
disproportionately large.
According to the proximodistal principle (inner to outer), growth and motor
development proceed from the center of the body outward.
EARLY PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
A boy’s height typically increases by 10 inches during the 1st year
by 5 inches during the 2nd year (so that the average 2-year-old boy is about
3 feet tall), and
by 2½ inches during the 3rd year
Girls follow a similar pattern but are slightly smaller at most ages

a 3-year-old typically is slender compared with a chubby, potbellied 1-year-old.

Teething usually begins around 3 or 4 months,

first tooth - 5 and 9 months, or even later.
1st birthday, - 6 to 8 teeth;
by age 2½, they have a mouthful of 20.
Breast-feeding should begin immediately after birth and should continue for at
least 1 year, longer if mother and baby wish.
THE BRAIN AND REFLEX BEHAVIOR
The brain’s growth occurs in fits and starts called brain growth spurts .
Different parts of the brain grow more rapidly at different times.

By birth, the growth spurt of the spinal cord and brain stem (the part of the
brain responsible for such basic bodily functions as breathing, heart rate, body
temperature, and the sleep-wake cycle)

The cerebellum (the part of the brain that maintains balance and motor
coordination) grows fastest during the 1st year of life

A newborn’s cries are controlled by the brain stem and pons, the most primitive
parts of the brain and the earliest to develop.

Beginning in the 2nd month (8 weeks) of gestation, an estimated 250,000

immature neurons are produced every minute through cell division (mitosis).
THE BRAIN AND REFLEX BEHAVIOR
Reflex behaviors: Automatic, involuntary, innate responses to stimulation.

Early Reflexes
at birth, primitive reflexes: are related to instinctive needs for survival and
protection or may support the early connection to the caregiver
2 to 4 months, infants begin to show postural reflexes: reactions to changes
in position or balance
Locomotor reflexes, such as the walking and swimming refl exes, resemble
voluntary movements that do not appear until months after the refl exes
have disappeared.

Most of the early reflexes disappear during the first 6 to 12 months. Reflexes that
continue to serve protective functions—such as blinking, yawning, coughing,
gagging, sneezing, shivering, and dilation of the pupils in the dark—remain.
EARLY SENSORY CAPACITIES
Touch and Pain: Touch is the first sense to develop, and for the fi rst several
months it is the most mature sensory system.
Smell and Taste: begin to develop in the womb. A preference for pleasant
odors seems (mother’s breast milk).
Newborns prefer sweet tastes to sour, bitter, or salty tastes
Newborns’ rejection of bitter tastes- bitter substances are toxic
Hearing: Hearing, too, is functional before birth; fetuses respond to sounds
and seem to learn to recognize them.
Sight: Vision is the least developed sense at birth, perhaps because there is so
little to see in the womb.
MILESTONES OF MOTOR DEVELOPMENT
Gross motor skills: Physical skills that involve the large muscles.
such as rolling over and catching a ball
Fine motor skills: Physical skills that involve the small muscles and eye-hand
coordination.
such as grasping a rattle and copying a circle.

Locomotion
After 3 months, the average infant begins to roll over deliberately
6 months average baby can sit without support
age 7 months baby can stand with support
8½ months. and can assume a sitting position without help by about
6 and 10 months creeping or crawling
11½ months can let go and stand alone well at about
few days after first birthday, the average child is walking fairly
2nd year, children begin to climb stairs one at a time; run and jump.
age 3½, most children can balance briefly on one foot and begin to hop.
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Language Development
PSYCHOSOCIAL DVELOPMENT
First Signs of Emotion
Crying is the most powerful way infants can communicate their needs. There
are four patterns of crying (Wolff, 1969):
the basic hunger cry (a rhythmic cry, which is not always associated with
hunger);
the angry cry (a variation of the rhythmic cry, in which excess air is forced
through the vocal cords);
the pain cry (a sudden onset of loud crying without preliminary moaning,
sometimes followed by holding the breath);

By 5 months of age, babies have learned to monitor their caregivers’

expressions
PSYCHOSOCIAL DVELOPMENT
Smiling and Laughing
1 month of age, smiles are often elicited by high-pitched tones when an
infant is drowsy
2nd month, as visual recognition develops, babies smile more at visual
stimuli, such as faces they know
Social smiling, when newborn infants gaze at their parents and smile at
them, develops during the 2nd month of life
Laughter is a smile-linked vocalization that becomes more common
between 4 and 12 months
By 12 to 15 months, infants are intentionally communicating to the partner
about objects.
Anticipatory smiling —in which infants smile at an object and then gaze at
an adult while continuing to smile—may be the fi rst step.
PSYCHOSOCIAL DVELOPMENT

When Do
Emotions
Appear?

altruistic behavior
Activity intended to
help another
person with no
expectation of reward.
PSYCHOSOCIAL DVELOPMENT
The Emerging Sense of Self
The self-concept is our image of ourselves—our total picture of our abilities and
traits. It describes what we know and feel about ourselves and guides our actions
By at least 3 months of age, infants pay attention to their mirror image
4- to 9-month-olds show more interest in images of others than of themselves
mergence of self-awareness —conscious knowledge of the self as a distinct,
identifiable being (15 and 18 months.)
Three-fourths of 18-month-olds and all 24-month-olds touched their red
noses more often (they knew they did not normally have red noses and
recognized the image in the mirror as their own)

self-regulation: control of her behavior to conform to a caregiver’s demands or

expectations of her, even when the caregiver is not present.
conscience, which involves both the ability to refrain from certain acts as well as to
feel emotional discomfort if they fail to do so.
PSYCHOSOCIAL DVELOPMENT
Maltreatment: Abuse and Neglect
Maltreatment, whether perpetrated by parents or others, is deliberate or avoidable
endangerment of a child.
Maltreatment can take several specific forms:
Physical abuse, injury to the body through punching, beating, kicking, or
burning
Neglect, failure to meet a child’s basic needs, such as food, clothing, medical
care, protection, and supervision
Sexual abuse, any sexual activity involving a child and an older person
Emotional maltreatment, including rejection, terrorization, isolation,
exploitation, degradation, ridicule, or failure to provide emotional support, love,
and affection