1. The Baby’s First Year
Unit #3

2. Essential Question Journal Entry #U-3
Healthy Development:
Write a journal entry about one of the topics below:
How can a parent or caregiver help a baby grow up physically healthy?
How can a parent or caregiver help a baby develop trusting relationships with adults and siblings?
How can a parent or caregiver help a baby develop language skills?

3. Physical Development of Infants
Chapter #7

4. Learning Targets
40. Identify the four major influences on an infant’s growth and development.
41. Summarize how a baby typically grows in the first year.
42. Explain how to safely hold a baby.
43. Identify how to meet a baby’s nutritional needs.
44. Describe the best type of clothing suitable for a baby.
45. Describe how to bathe a baby.
46. Explain why checkups and immunizations are important for babies.

5. Essential Question Journal Entry #C-7
Growing a Happy Baby:
During the first year of life, babies grow and develop in many ways. Caregivers have many responsibilities to make sure a baby’s needs are met. For example, the caregiver must feed the baby and change the baby’s diapers. These are just two of the many physical needs. Infants also have emotional needs that must be met. Write a paragraph in which you describe what you think makes a happy, healthy, baby.

6. Infant Growth and Development
Topic #7.1

7. Learning Targets
40. Identify the four major influences on an infant’s growth and development. 41. Summarize how a baby typically grows in the first year.

8. Influences on Growth and Development
There are four main influences on a baby’s growth and development:
Heredity
Environment
Health

9. Growth During the First Year
Babies grow rapidly in the first year.
An infant’s growth and development follow many patterns:
Head to Foot
Near to Far
Simple to Complex

10. Development During the First Year
Physical Development
Senses
Voice
Reflexes
Motor Skills
Hand-Eye Coordination

11. Caring for an Infant
Topic #7.2

12. Learning Targets 42. Explain how to safely hold a baby.
43. Identify how to meet a baby’s nutritional needs.
44. Describe the best type of clothing suitable for a baby.

13. Handling a Baby
Caregivers need to know the proper ways of handling, feeding, and dressing a baby.
This will help keep a baby healthy.

14. How to Relieve Stress if a Baby Will Not Stop Crying
1. Put the baby down in a safe, place, go into another room, and take some deep breaths or look out the window to calm down.
2. Ask a friend or relative to care for the baby for a few hours.
3.Call someone and talk about the problem.
4. Call a parenting hotline or take a baby to a crisis nursery if available in your area.

15. Feeding an Infant
Feeding babies breast milk or formula meets the nutrition needs for the first six months.
Other foods should be introduced gradually.
Weaning:
Changing from drinking from the bottle or breast to a cup.

16. Expert Advice
“When you comfort your baby, you are letting her know the world is a safe place and that someone cares about her feelings.”
-Claire Lerner, LCSW; Amy Dombro, MS; Karen Levine, coauthors, The Magic of Everyday Moments: 0-4 Months

17. Dressing a Baby
A baby’s clothing should be comfortable and easy to put on and take off.

18. Infant Health and Wellness
Topic #7.3

19. Learning Targets
45. Describe how to bathe a baby. 46. Explain why checkups and immunizations are important for babies.

20. Keeping Baby Clean
Keeping a baby healthy involves bathing, diapering, and taking care of baby’s teeth.
Babies should be bathed regularly but never be left along in the bathtub.

21. Changing a Baby’s Diaper
Remove the diaper and clean the baby.
Put on a fresh diaper.
Dispose of used supplies.

22. Health Care A baby needs regular checkups and scheduled immunizations.
A shot of a small amount of a dead or weakened disease-carrying germ given so that the body may build resistance to the disease.
Vaccine:
The disease-carrying germ that usually in injected in the body.

23. Emotional and Social Development of Infants
Concept #8

24. Learning Targets 47. List six basic emotions that babies experience.
48. Explain the role of attachment in a baby’s social development.
49. Describe how temperament affects a baby’s social development.
50. Explain how the emotional climate of the home can affect a baby’s development.
51. Explain how a baby learns social behavior.
52. Identify how play and exploration help a baby develop socially.

25. Essential Question Journal Entry #C-8
Building Relationships:
From the first moment she is born, a baby begins to develop relationships with her parents or caregivers. Use free writing to describe your idea of a positive, healthy relationship.

26. Understanding Emotional Development of Infants
Topic #8.1

27. Learning Targets
47. List six basic emotions that babies experience. 48. Explain the role of attachment in baby’s emotional development. 49. Describe how temperament affects a baby’s social development. 50. Explain how the emotional climate of the home can affect a baby’s development.

28. Emotions and Emotional Development
Caregivers play a large role in babies’ emotional development, helping them learn to express feelings and develop a personal identity.
Emotional Development:
The process of learning to recognize and express feelings and to establish a personal identity.

29. Attachment and Emotional Development
Caregivers can help shape babies’ emotional development by providing consistent, responsive, and loving care.
Attachment:
A baby’s bond to his or her main caregiver.
Healthy Emotional Development
1. Building attachment through touch.
2. Building attachment through consistent care.
3. Building attachment through communication.
4. Reducing risk of Failure to Thrive.
Failure to Thrive:
-A condition in which babies do not
grow and develop properly.

30. Understanding Temperament
Babies’ unique temperaments and the emotional climate of the home also influence their emotional development.
Temperament:
A person’s unique emotional makeup.

31. Understanding Social Development of Infants
Topic #8.2

32. Learning Targets
51. Explain how a baby learns social behavior. 52. Identify how play and exploration help a baby develop socially.

33. Social Development Through Learning
Caregivers play a large role in a baby’s social development.
Social Development:
The process of learning how to interact and express oneself with others.
They help the infant learn to form relationships and feel comfortable in his or her world.
Babies learn social behavior by watching and interacting with others.

34. Healthy Social Development
Show Love
Model Appropriate Behaviors
Provide Stimulation
Allow Children to Play and Explore

35. Stranger Anxiety
One normal sign of social development is stranger anxiety.
Stranger Anxiety:
A fear of unfamiliar people, usually expressed by crying.

36. Expert Advice
“For infants and toddler, learning and living are the same thing. If they feel secure, treasured, loved, their own energy and curiosity will bring them new understanding and new skills.”
-Amy Laura Dombro and Leah Wallach, early childhood authors, The Ordinary is Extraor.dinary

37. Social Development Through Play
Babies learn about the world by playing and exploring.

38. Intellectual Development of Infants
Concept #9

39. Learning Targets
53. Describe how a baby’s experiences increase brain function. 54. Explain how the brain becomes organized. 55. List four abilities that show intellectual growth in infants. 56. Identify specific abilities that babies learn during Piaget’s first period of learning. 57. Name five ways caregivers can encourage learning. 58. Discuss how to choose toys appropriate for babies of different ages.

40. Essential Question Journal Entry #C-9
Understanding Babies:
Having a baby can be an exciting adventure for adult couples. You may know someone who has a new baby. Write a personal letter to a real or imaginary friend who has a new baby. Ask your friend questions that will give you a better understanding of the baby’s growth and development.

41. Early Brain Development
Topic #9.1

42. Learning Targets
53. Describe how a baby’s experiences increase brain function. 54. Explain how the brain becomes organized.

43. Structure of the Brain Cerebrum:
- Receives information from the senses and directs motor activities.
- Controls such functions as speech, memory, and problem solving.
- Most of the activities occur in the outer layer, called the cortex.
2. Pituitary Gland:
- Secretes hormones that control growth, metabolism, and sexual
development.
3. Brain Stem:
- Controls involuntary activities such as breathing, heart rate, and blood
pressure.
4. Spinal Cord:
- Transmits information from the body to the brain and from the brain to the
body.
- It controls simple reflexes that do not involve the brain.
5. Cerebellum:
- Controls muscular coordination, balance, and posture.
6. Thalamus:
- Relays sensory information from other parts of the brain to the cerebral cortex.

44. Developing the Brain
The information in babies’ brains develops as they acquire new skills.
This information evolves at a very rapid rate during the first few years of life.

45. Expert Advice
“Children need lots of practice doing things over and over again to succeed at a new skill. Think of the pride a baby feels when she can finally grasp the rattle and put it into her mouth by herself.”
-Claire Lerner, LCSW, Lynette Ciervo, authors, Getting Ready for School Begins at Birth: How to help your child learn in the early years.

46. Intellectual Development During the First Year
Topic #9.2

47. Learning Targets
55. List four abilities that show intellectual growth in infants. 56. Identify specific abilities that babies learn during Piaget’s first period of learning.

48. Early Learning Abilities
During the first year of a baby’s life, growth occurs in many areas.
These areas include:
Size
Intelligence
Motor Skills
Social Skills
Personality

49. Periods of Learning
Piaget said that all children go through four periods of learning.
During the sensorimotor period, children learn through their senses and own actions.
Sensorimotor Period:
Piaget’s first stage of learning and lasts from birth to about age two.

50. Developmental Milestones Ages 1-4 Months
Intellectual
Sensorimotor
Gains information through senses.
Practices inborn reflexes.
Makes eye contact.
Does not understand self as separate person.
Prefers faces to objects.
Combines two or more reflexes.
Can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar voices and faces.
Develops hand-mouth coordination.
Makes vowel-consonant combinations such as “ah-goo.”
Can tell a smile from a frown.

51. Helping Infants Learn
Topic #9.3

52. Learning Targets
57. Name five ways caregivers can encourage learning. 58. Discuss how to choose toys appropriate for babies of different ages.

53. Encouraging Learning
Caregivers need to recognize the importance of play and the development of communication skills.
Children communicate before they can talk.
Reading to a child promote vocabulary.

54. The Importance of Play
A child learns and practices new skills through play.
Appropriate toys can help babies learn.
Toys should be selected for children based on the child’s age and abilities.
Age Appropriate:
Something suitable for the age and individual needs of a child.

55. Appropriate Toys 0-3 Months: 10-12 Months: 4-6 Months: 7-9 Months:
Mobile
Picture Books
4-6 Months:
Teething Rings
Stuffed Animals
7-9 Months:
Blocks
Balls
10-12 Months:
Floating Toys
Push and/or Pull Toys

56. Bibliography
Brisbane, H. E. (2010). “The developing child.” Glencoe McGraw-Hill; Columbus, OH.