Six Weeks And Still Growing Strong

Well he's now 6 weeks old and is growing so quickly.

Since I last blogged, we celebrated his 5 week and one month birthdays and had our one month checkup with the pediatrician.

He's growing so fast he seems to have doubled in size already. The doc was surprised at how strong his neck was, because most babies necks get even more floppy at this age as many babies are not active enough.

I wasn't surprised. My boy gets floor time, tummy time and play time every day and it seems to be paying off as he grows strong and healthy.

Here he is just trying to crawl some more.

You'll notice he gets all his parts going, he just doesn't quite have them all going at once.



And here he is trying real hard to get himself going.



You'll notice he still fusses a bit from time to time when he's trying real hard like that. The important thing to note is that the fussing is normal and is definitely different from crying. I purposefully posted this video so you could see the difference, he really does like it on his tummy, I swear.

He's only 6 weeks old so he's not quite cruising around yet... but I'm proud of him.

By the way for those who read my previous post about getting your baby to sleep... I'd like to follow up with a little warning about not getting your baby down on the ground.

I shirked on his evening play time one night and we woke up every 3 hours versus the comfortable every 5 hours we were getting used to.

Here he is all tuckered out at the end of our play time today.



In my attempts to be the best dad, I'll try not to forget any more play time. It's just too important :)

3 weeks old - audio, visual and physical stimulation

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!!!

Well, my boy is now 3 weeks old and he's been working more on rolling over and crawling, as well as some new things.

Seems like ages since his first photo (shown below)

In today's video essay, I'll show some work we've been doing with light and sound stimulation. Lastly, I'll show you some rolling over that we practiced today.

It's really neat to see him learn with each day that we play, and it's fun to practice some of the things I learned at the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential.


LIGHT / VISUAL STIMULATION

In the following videos I'll show you some light stimulation we've been doing. Keep in mind that we've been playing with light since the day he was born.

The first day of life I took him into a dark room and turned on the lights... let his eyes adjust and then turned them off. I repeated it three times while telling him what I was doing. While I do not have video of this practice, I can say it was worth while and got him to recognize light, shapes and shadows right off the bat. The nurses even made mention of how alert he was and he seemed to see much more than babies are "supposed" to.

Anyway, back to what I DO have videos of.

In the following video I show you how I used a flashlight to stimulate his visual senses.

You should be able to notice him follow the light with his eyes and even move his head to find the light.

In this next video, he is clearly following the light move around him.

And in the next video we do a little more playing with the flashlight, blinking the light and counting to ten.

So not only is he getting his visual stimulation, but now he's learning his numbers too!!! Not bad for 3 weeks old. He makes it look as easy as 1-2-3.

SOUND / AUDIO STIMULATION

Next up we have audio stimulation using crackling sounds.

And in this video you can see him clearly react to the sound.

And here you can see him starting to find the noise maker all by himself.

This is part of the learning process and it's pretty cool to see him interacting.

It's pretty cool to see him figuring things out as we play.

SOUND AND VISUAL - PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Ok... so in this next video he follows the lights and the sounds. He even starts to reach for the noise maker himself.

With his improving vision and dexterity, he'll be reaching and grabbing for things in no time.

ROLLING OVER - 360 DEGREES

In the next video you'll see me assist him in rolling completely over and then all the way back to the other side.

Now in my last blog post you saw him roll all by himself. In this next video you'll see me assist him all the way over (360 degrees) and then him rolling half way over (180 degrees) all by himself.

Ok... that's it for today's blog.

I hope you enjoy the videos and our developmental progress.

I'm going to be a dad

Hi,

My name is ken, I am 34 years old and I'm going to be a dad.

In these first few post, I am going to try to catch you up to speed, as I am now in the process of becoming a dad for the first time.

My wife and I just went to the doctor and found out we are 8 weeks and 1 day into the process.

Since I'm already getting conflicting feelings and feedback to just about everything related to rearing a child, I am writing this blog as a public diary of what this process has been like for me in my attempts to become the best dad I can be.

That is why this blog's title is called Best Dad Blog. (If It were to be about the actual Best Dad, well that would have to be a blog about my father :)

Please feel free to comment on any of my posts to give me your feedback.

Ken -new dad in the making

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