Your 8 week-old baby
How your baby's growing
Reading to your baby, even at this young age, will pay off. Hearing you read helps your baby develop an ear for the rhythm of language. Varying the pitch of your voice using accents and singing will capture your baby's interest even more. If she looks the other way or loses interest while you're reading, just try something else or give her time to rest. Take your cue from her responses.
You'll find plenty of good books to read to your baby. Choose board books that have large, bright pictures and simple text – or even wordless books that have pictures for you to describe. At this point you needn't be slavish to age guidelines. Books designed for older children can captivate a baby if they have clear, crisp images and bright colours.
Your life: handling unwanted advice
When you have a baby, everyone in the world seems to have an opinion about it: "Shouldn't she be wearing a jumper?" "He won't grow big and strong if you don't feed him solids now." "If you let her have a dummy, she'll ruin her teeth!" Whether the advice is right or wrong, it's the sheer intrusiveness of it all that can be so annoying.
How should you deal with it? First and foremost, don't take everything you hear seriously. There's no quicker way to undermine your confidence than to listen to every shred of information you're offered by friends, relatives and strangers. Do what you think is best.
Realise the advice is mostly well intentioned. People are drawn to babies. Sometimes they make "helpful" comments simply to have something to say. In response, say something non-committal like "thanks for your concern" or "I'll think about it." A good way to handle grandparents who have their own ideas about feeding or sleep is to enlist a third party: "Thanks, Mum. I'll see what my doctor says."
Author and photo: www.babycentre.co.uk
Article was read: 224 times
News...
0631/ 601 54