Physical Growth

Your daughter will double her birth weight by the time she is four to six months old and she will grow about one to one and a half inches each month. Overall, your daughter is beginning to look less like an infant and more like a person with her own distinctive appearance (a once-bald head may now be showing a bit of hair).By sixteen to twenty weeks, most infants can turn their heads to both sides, and between twenty-four and twenty-eight weeks they’ll lift their heads while lying on their backs. Between six and seven months, you’ll notice that the muscles in your daughter’s arms and legs are growing quite sturdy (the better to soon scoot all around your house with!). Her body proportions are changing as her lower body becomes bigger and stronger. This will allow her to start rolling from one place to another between eight and ten weeks, and then somewhere between six and nine months to creep on her stomach and drag her legs behind. If your daughter was born very premature, her gender may give her a growth advantage. A 2003 study out of Children’s Hospital in Ohio found that girls born about ten weeks early weighing less than three pounds were more likely than premature boys to catch up with their peers in growth by age twenty. It’s thought that the effects of female hormones that kick in when girls reach puberty may partly explain their catch-up growth. This same study also found that the premature boys were generally sicker babies than the premature girls, echoing previous research. As your daughter’s large muscles are developing to prepare her for action, her fine motor skills are also maturing so that she can better hold, handle, and manipulate things in her world.By six months, most infants can briefly hold on to an object like a small block and will soon learn to bang two blocks together. You’ll also see that, although the way she grasps things is a bit clumsy, she is fascinated by this ability. In fact, she’ll try to grab anything in her sight—even pictures in a book. By seven months, you’ll see that she can not only grab and hold an object, but let go of it, too. I remember the look of absolute joy when my daughter discovered that she could pick up her food, release her grasp, and drop it on the floor. It was a skill she practiced over and over again! At this time, your daughter can also move the object from one hand to another. So keep a few blocks on hand for her to grab and manipulate, place them just within her reach, and watch her fine motor skills grow.