Physical Growth

Your daughter is growing by leaps and bounds every day. She is gaining weight and growing in length at amazing speed. If she is feeding regularly without excessive vomiting or fussiness, she will grow as expected and right on track according to standard growth charts. In Appendix A you’ll find out how to access the growth charts your daughter’s doctor uses to keep track of her weight and length. You can plot your big girl’s growth on these charts. Just keep in mind that they are general averages and your daughter is unique. Always talk to your doctor about any growth concerns you have and use the charts only as a guide to compare your daughter with typical growth patterns.Your Girl’s Developing Senses The parts of the brain that process information from the sense of touch are more developed at birth than those involved in vision or hearing. So it’s touch that first gives your daughter a way to judge and react to her surroundings. Touch also gives her an emotional sense of security, and in this way becomes a most important component in the bonding process. Although touching your daughter is unavoidable in day-to-day care, that’s not the only kind of touch she needs. Take time to stroke your daughter’s skin while bathing and diapering. Learn more about the art of baby massage as a way of improving your connection with her. And keep in mind that each baby is unique in the way she processes stimulation. Some will immediately cuddle and coo and obviously enjoy being handled and stroked; others will stiffen and arch their backs and show other signs of being a noncuddler. Experimentation and practice will help you find when and how you can touch your daughter in ways that will make you both feel comfortable and attached.Emotional Development Your baby girl’s physical health is certainly a top priority, but don’t overlook the importance of nurturing her emotional health as well. To do this for your newborn, give her lots of love. Giving our children love enables them to value and love themselves. It teaches them how to love and relate to other people. And it allows them to become emotionally stable people. This strong emotional develop ment begins at birth and continues throughout childhood through the process of bonding and attachment. Child psychologists tell us that it is very important to bond with our babies so they can develop strong emotional attachments to us and become secure and confident adults. I’m sure this is absolutely true, but I’ve always found the word bonding to be a bit misleading. It gives the impression of an epoxy glue–type union that, in a moment’s time, adheres two together forever. Child psychologists tell us that’s not really what bonding is all about. Human bonding is a gradual process that begins before a child’s birth and continues throughout childhood. Some believe that there is a “critical” bonding period immediately after birth. This notion leaves many new parents feeling guilty and depressed when in the moments after childbirth they feel little more than exhaustion and a vague sense of fondness toward the newly arrived child. Quite commonly, truthful women admit, “I thought it would be love at first sight, but when I first looked at my daughter, ‘love’ was hardly my reaction.” This idea of instant bonding is also quite upsetting to adoptive parents who are not available to the child immediately after birth. It’s equally distressing to parents who are separated from their babies because either the baby or the mother needs prompt medical care. Fortunately for those parents who worry they’ve missed their chance to form a lasting attachment to their child, bonding does not happen in an instantaneous and magical moment. It happens each day in the routine interactions between a parent and a childnot in the perfunctory acts of feeding and changing diapers, but in the smiles, coos, and moments of eye contact that occur during these activities. It happens as parents learn about and respond to their baby’s patterns, temperament, likes and dislikes, and unique daily rhythms. And it happens as babies become aware of their parents’ smell, sound, and touch. Bonding doesn’t occur instantly, but it is very important that the process does occur. A secure parent/child relationship forms the basis for all later emotional attachments and it lays the groundwork that will enable your daughter to seek and achieve loving and secure relationships in adult life. Emotional attachment also contributes to her overall mental and physical growth. Studies repeatedly find that babies who are deprived of the opportunity for emotional attachment are at risk for suffering the failure to thrive syndrome. This is a collection of symptoms that occur for no apparent physical reason. They include loss of weight, failure to grow, and a disruption in physical and mental development. When later cared for by emotionally involved and loving caretakers who give the babies an opportunity to form a loving relationship, these infants resume normal mental and physical development. Like any love relationship, bonding develops in gradual stages and improves and deepens with time and attention. To nurture that bonding process with your infant try these three simple ideas suggested in the book Ages and Stages, which I wrote with Dr. Charles E. Schaefer: Consistently and immediately respond to your daughter’s cries of distress.Give plenty of physical contact. Babies feel safer, sleep better, gain more weight, and are more interested in being with people when they are often cuddled, held, and stroked. The importance of loving touch cannot be overemphasized. Play with your daughter. Even in the first few months of life, infants enjoy games like peek-a-boo and songs. This creates a pleasure bond that encourages affection and attachment. If the new dad in your house is keeping his distance from his newborn daughter, he’s probably feeling an uncertainty that strikes many dads. He’s looking at this precious child and thinking: I have no idea how to relate to this tiny female. Some dads will easily throw their infant sons up into the air, but will balk at the thought of even holding a little girl. They see her as too fragile, somehow “foreign,” and so keep their distance. Even though this fear of infant females affects many men, Daddy’s little girl needs the male in her life to hold her and love her; she needs to feel his admiration for her abilities and know he is interested in her. These feelings help her make a secure attachment that will last a lifetime. Alice Sterling Honig, Ph.D., professor emerita of child and family studies in the College of Human Services and Health Professions at Syracuse University and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Research in Child Development, has studied parent/child bonding. She’s noticed that it’s sometimes more difficult for new dads to bond with their daughters than with their sons. “I used to present a film to my students,” Honig remembers, “that showed a big, truck-driver father being taught by a very efficient nurse in the hospital how to bathe his infant daughter. The nurse was giving him good directions on bathing techniques, but the fearful look on his face and the tension in his muscles made it obvious that she was not giving all the information he needed. Dads need to know that baby girls are sturdy (in fact, physically, they are often sturdier than boys). Dads need to be assured that little girls won’t break with careful handling, and they need lots of positive encouragement when they do make the effort to get close to and provide for their daughters.” So dads, don’t hold back. Take your baby girl in your arms, stroke her cheek with your finger, and talk to her. Strike up a conversation, sing her song, tell her about your workday. You’ll find she’s a wonderful listener who will hang on every word you say. She will gaze into your eyes with unconditional devotion. This is just too precious an experience for you to miss and it offers the added bonus of helping your little girl grow secure and confident.