You’ve had your baby for a while and you’re starting to relax a little more. Your baby has started to move away from the foetal position and is testing out their arm and leg muscles. Maybe those little hands are releasing their grip. Your baby is spending more and more hours awake at a time, and is beginning to focus on you. It is around now that babies discover their hands and look at them in fascination. This is the first step towards realising where their body ends and the world begins.
Isn’t it amazing how quickly the day goes by when you have a baby? If you manage to get one task done a day – grocery shopping, running a load of laundry, or taking a shower – then you’ve actually achieved quite a lot. And that’s enough. Yes, it is absolutely okay to just stay home – every day and every night. It’s okay to know when your TV show starts. You might think it would be impossible to spend so much time sitting on the sofa with your baby nearby. But go ahead and do just that – and enjoy it. The truth is that the more you do this, the better. Infants and new parents benefit a great deal from a calm and cosy life in these first few weeks. In fact, we recommend it. This is the best thing you can do to help your baby settle down and sleep well, and to support breastfeeding, if you’re breastfeeding your baby.