Early Motherhood

Irritant Diaper Rash

Although frustrating for parents, most children get at least one diaper rash, and many get them over and over. If your child gets frequent diaper rashes you might change the type of diaper you are using (cloth vs. disposable diapers), change brands of disposable diapers and/or baby wipes, apply a barrier cream after each diaper change, like Aquaphor or a cream with zinc oxide, and keep a symptom diary to see if you can link the rash to something that your child is eating or drinking.Other things that parents do to prevent diaper rashes include:

• frequent diaper changes

Steady now
This month, your baby may be able to lift his head and hold it for several moments, or even longer, while lying on his back. If sitting with support, he should be able to hold his head steady and erect. When he’s on his stomach, you might see him lifting his head and chest as if he were doing mini-pushups. You can offer encouragement by sitting in front of him and dangling a toy.

The first real smiles
This month your baby will reward all your loving care with a beaming, toothless, just-for-you smile. This will probably disarm you, even if you’ve just had your worst night yet. For Ron Heckman, a new father in Piedmont, California, that first smile from his 6-week-old daughter, Hadley, brought tears to his eyes. “It was a lousy day at work,” he recalls. “I was sleep-deprived and the commute traffic that day was incredibly thick. When I finally got home and my wife handed me the baby, who looked straight at me and smiled this gorgeous all-gums grin, I remember thinking, ‘She knows me’ — and nothing else mattered.”

Head’s up!
Your baby’s neck muscles are getting stronger, which allows him to hold up his head for short periods. He can hold it up for a few moments while lying on his stomach, for example, and he may even be able to turn it from side to side. He may be able to hold it up when he’s in a car seat or front carrier, especially if he has lots of support and you use special baby headrests designed to help him in those situations.

Babies can do math before they can walk and talk

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences seems to show that by the age of seven months infants have an abstract sense of numbers and are able to match the number of voices they hear with the number of faces they see. According to scientists, that means that babies are doing math before they can even talk. Those same scientists hope that their research could be useful in devising methods for teaching basic maths skills to the very young, you know, so your 3-year old can perform all those real life applications of the quadratic equation your algebra teacher was always talking about.