Your KidsChild Growth & Development
Babies grow and develop quickly in their first year of life. It's helpful to know what to expect through the ages and stages and how or where to get help if something doesn't seem quite right.
CK Public Health's Healthy Babies Healthy Children program provides education, support, advice and service referrals for expectant parents and families with children up to six years of age.
Crying is normal for your baby. It is your baby's way of communicating with you. Your baby may cry because they:
- Are hungry or thirsty
- Have a dirty diaper
- Feel tired
- Are too hot or too cold
- Are in discomfort or pain
- Are over stimulated
- Need to be held, cuddled, rocked
To make your baby feel better, you can try some of the following:
- Feed your baby
- Burp your baby
- Change their diaper
- Hold your baby close, try skin-to-skin contact
- Rock or sway your baby gently
- Walk, talk and sing to your baby
- Getting out and going for a walk with your baby
- Turn on some white noise (including a vacuum or dryer)
Period of Purple Crying
It may feel like your baby cries more often but:
- 2-week-old babies start to cry more often each week
- Babies usually cry more during their second month than any other time
- Crying begins to decrease after two months of age
This is known as the Period of Purple Crying and there is an end in sight!
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Sleep is very important for your baby's growth and development. Creating a safe sleep environment for your baby lowers the risk of injury and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). A safe sleep environment includes:
- Where your baby sleeps
- Your baby's sleeping position
- The type of crib, cradle or bassinet your baby sleeps in
- The type of mattress used
- Environment factors including smoke exposure
For new parents it may be difficult to know how often and how long your newborn should sleep. The Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years recommends:
| Age | Recommended Number of Hours of Sleep |
|---|---|
| 0-3 Months | 14-17 hours of sleep, including naps |
| 4-11 Months | 12-16 hours of sleep, including naps |
| 1-2 Years | 11-14 hours of sleep, including naps, with consistent bedtimes and wake-up times |
| 3 years | 10-13 hours of good quality sleep, which may include a nap, with consistent bedtimes and wake-up times |
You can help your baby sleep by recognizing signs that your baby is getting sleepy. These signs include:
- Rubbing eyes, pulling on ears or twirling their hair
- Yawning
- Looking away or zoning out
- Being cranky or irritable
Every sleep wake cycle will vary among newborns. Hang in there! Keep in mind there is no day/night pattern in the first few weeks.
For More Information:
- Public Health Agency of Canada – A Baby’s Safe Sleep Environment
- Health Canada – Safe Sleep for Your Baby
- Canadian Paediatric Society - Healthy Sleep for Your Baby and Child
Why is Tummy Time Important?
Supervised tummy time is an important activity that needs to be part of your baby's daily routine. It helps prevent baby flathead and tight neck muscles. It is also important in promoting your baby's development.
How Much Tummy Time?
Research recommends an hour of supervised tummy time each day, while your baby is alert and awake.
How to Include Tummy Time in Your Routine
- Start our slowly with a few minutes at a time throughout the day from the time of birth and build up to a full hour by 3 months of age
- Get down face to face with your baby
- Give your baby a mirror, book or toys to look at while on their tummy
- Cuddle chest to chest, in a semi-reclined position
- Put a rolled-up blanket under your baby's chest at armpit level to help support them
- Encourage your baby to look in both directions by changing the position of mobiles and toys for your baby to look at
- Roll your baby onto their tummy for a minute or two after each diaper change
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For the first six months the only food your baby needs is breastmilk to grow and be healthy.
When your baby is around six months of age, and is showing signs of readiness, begin to offer solid foods to meet their nutritional needs. As you introduce solids, continue to breastfeed.
You'll know your baby is ready for solid foods when they can:
- Hold their head up on their own
- Sit up and lean forward
- Open their mouth wide when you offer solids
- Try to pick food up and put it in their mouth
- Keep food in their mouth without pushing it out with their tongue right away
- Turn their head away when full or if they don't want food
- Show interest in food when others are eating
For more information about signs of readiness read Feeding your Baby in the First Year.
First Foods
When your baby is showing signs of readiness for solid foods, start with iron-rich foods such as:
- Beef
- Chicken
- Turkey
- Lamb
- Pork
- Fish
- Eggs
- Tofu
- Legumes (Beans, Lentils, Chickpeas)
- Iron-Fortified Infant Cereals (Oat, Wheat, Barley or Rice)
The traditional approach to starting your baby on solid foods is to offer a variety of textures (such as pureed, mashed or ground foods) from a spoon and gradually progress to lumpier textures and finger foods.
Other Foods
Once your baby is eating a variety of iron-rich foods at least twice a day, you can start to offer other foods such as:
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Grain Products
- Milk Products
Avoid giving your baby:
- Honey (pasteurized or unpasteurized until they are 12 months of to prevent infant botulism (a rare form of food poisoning)
- Cow's milk to replace breastmilk or infant formula until they are nine to 12 months old. You can offer milk in foods and cheese before nine months.
- Processed foods high in sodium
- Sugary drinks and food
For more safe feeding tips, visit Health Canada’s Infant Nutrition page.
Baby-Led Weaning
The best way to ensure your baby has a healthy relationship with food is to let your baby set the pace from the start. Baby-led weaning is a different approach that allows your baby to feed themself soft-cooked cut up finger foods. Your baby makes the decision on which foods to eat (from what is offered) and how much to eat.
Baby-Led Weaning:
- Allows babies to explore food themselves, helping them to gain independence
- Exposes your baby to a variety of food and textures
- Baby-led weaning allows you to offer your baby the same foods that the rest of the family is eating
- Helps your baby learn to listen to their hunger and fullness cues
There is not enough evidence to recommend one feeding style for starting solid foods over another. Whether spoon feeding, or using the baby led weaning approach, there are important things to know about each method. If you would like to try baby-led weaning, don't feel like you need to feed everything in this way. You can use a combination of both (spoon feeding and baby-led weaning) methods in a way that feels comfortable for both of you.
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TVs, computers and cell phones are a large part of our lives. However, we know that too much screen time can have a negative effect on families. To help your child develop healthy habits:
- Introduce good television and technology habits
- Limit screen time. The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends that children under the age of two should not have any screen time whatsoever. For older children, limit daily screen time to no more than two hours per day.
- Set a good example by limiting your own screen time
- Be with your children when they watch TV or use the computer to ensure the content is age appropriate
- Have technology-free time to do family activities like reading, physical activity and playing
- Turn TV and devices off during play and meal times. Eating together as a family is an important time for children to learn social skills, and it encourages language development and strengthens family bonds.
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Keeping your child safe and reducing injuries is one of the largest roles of parents and caregivers. Injuries are the leading cause of death for children and youth, and most child-related injuries are predictable and preventable. The good news is there are steps that can be taken to avoid these injuries and protect our children.
Car Seat Safety
Choosing and installing the correct car seat or booster seat is the best way to keep your child safe in your car and significantly decrease the chance of your child being hurt or killed. Our local child passenger safety technician offers private car seat safety checks in partnership with The Child Passenger Safety Association of Canada by appointment only. Email or text: cpst.tamara@hotmail.com / 519-401-4007.
Please note: The CK Public Health Unit no longer holds car seat clinics.
For More Information:
- Child Passenger Safety Association of Canada (CPSAC)
- Transport Canada - Child Car Seat Safety
- Parachute – Car Seats
Sun Safety
Chances are your child will be spending a lot of time outdoors. Unfortunately, too much sun can be harmful. As little as one blistering sunburn in childhood doubles the risk of developing melanoma as an adult. Visit Health Canada's Sun Safety Tips for Parents page for useful sun safety tips for babies, children and teens.
Toy Safety
Play is very important for your child’s growth and development along with being such a great way to continue strengthening your special bond with them. Below you will find helpful tips provided by Health Canada to keep your child safe while playing with their toys:
- Purchase age-appropriate toys.
- Look for sturdy, well-made toys.
- Promptly remove and discard all packaging such as plastic bags and wrapping.
- Check toys often for hazards like sharp edges, loose or broken parts and be sure that plastic eyes and noses are firmly attached.
- Avoid toys with cords that are long enough to wrap around a child’s neck.
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Your child's early years are very important for healthy growth and development. During this period, your child's brain and body develop at a rapid pace. Research tells us that a child's early years set the foundation for the rest of their life.
Growth and development milestones tell you what you should expect from your child in these five areas:
- Physical growth
- Cognitive development (thinking and reasoning)
- Social and emotional development
- Sensory and motor development
- Language development
Visit the Government of Ontario’s Early Child Development page to learn about the developmental milestones you can use to help monitor your child’s development at 6, 9, 12 and 18 months.
Ontario's Enhanced 18-Month Well-Baby Visit
18 months is an important milestone in your child's growth and development. To ensure that your child's development is on track, it is important to visit your health care provider for your child's 18-month well-baby visit to:
- Monitor your child's growth
- Check your child's development using the Looksee Checklist.
- Discuss safety and nutrition
- Address parenting and concerns
- Get the 18-month immunization
Parents are no longer advised to take a "wait and see" approach when concerns are identified. Linking children to specialized services early on helps to ensure that they don't fall behind, enabling them to develop to their full potential.