You have a 12 week old baby! Three months, the fourth trimester. You did it!
You’ve also made huge progress in your parenting journey and probably feel more confident understanding your 12 week old baby’s needs.
At the same time (if you haven’t already) you might be wondering about combining parenting with your return to paid work – and how on earth you will have time for all you need to do with newly limited hours.
If you’re in this situation, it will be helpful to read our article, Going Back To Work After Baby – 5 Tips For A Smooth Transition.
Your 12 week old baby
Most parents will tell you the first six to twelve weeks are the hardest. Whether this is true or not, surviving them is worth celebrating.
Your baby has made amazing progress since leaving the womb and has grown more quickly than he ever will again and you will see many more growth spurts within the next year.
Your 12 week old baby has now mastered holding his head up; during tummy time, many babies can do this for several minutes before tiring.
You’ll see a plateau in physical growth and baby’s weight for a while, as brain development takes priority in preparation for the next big challenge: mobility.
Wonder Week – leap three
If your baby was born on her due date, around twelve weeks he will experience the third Wonder Week. This leap is about the world of smooth transitions in baby’s life. Once again, you can expect the three Cs – clinginess, crankiness and crying – during this time.
You’re likely to notice this leap most in his physical movements. Because of a growth spurt, his arms and legs will seem less jerky and their movements more controlled.
His thinking will be a little more organised by the end of this leap too. He’ll know the things you do just before feeding him and might get excited or frustrated when he sees you prepare.
Formula and breastfed babies at 12 weeks
Your 12 week old baby is very efficient at feeding now and will sometimes finish a feed in only 5-10 minutes. You might start to notice he is more distracted during feeds and you can expect this to increase, peaking at around 4 months.
Night feeds continue to be important, although some babies have longer stretches of sleep between 3-4 months of age. This is usually temporary, though, and increased waking can be expected again during significant developmental leaps still to come.
As part of your planning to return to work after parental leave, you might be wondering whether you will continue to breastfeed or begin to move to infant formula, either partly or fully. A combination of working and breastfeeding is possible; many women find that the key is good preparation and planning.
You can start this process with our article Returning To Work And Breastfeeding – 8 Tips To Help.
Clean feeding equipment for baby’s health
Whether you use your own expressed breast milk, donor milk or infant formula, if you bottle feed it continues to be important to clean your feeding equipment correctly.
Breast milk expressing and feeding equipment needs to be thoroughly rinsed in cold water after each use and washed in hot, soapy water once every 24 hours. If you are expressing less frequently, then rinse and wash after each use.
If you are feeding your 12 week old baby with infant formula, the additional step known as sterilizing – using boiling, chemical or steam methods – is very important to minimize the risk of bacteria making your baby sick.
This should continue as long as your baby is drinking infant formula by bottle. It isn’t necessary to sterilize breast milk feeding equipment, due to the anti-infective qualities naturally found in live milk (unless otherwise directed by your baby’s doctor due to underlying health concerns).
Sleep and settling
You might wonder whether you should make any changes to where or how your baby sleeps, now that he’s three months old.
Family, friends or even your doctor or nurse might suggest your baby should start sleeping alone, or self-settling, or sleeping as much as twelve hours at night, or no longer needing breastfeeds during the night. It’s really confusing to hear so much conflicting information and trying to sort fact from opinion.
There’s a lot of outdated information about infant sleep that many people still believe to be true. Add to that the many self-styled sleep experts – or ‘baby whisperers’ – and others making money from parental uncertainty and it’s really hard to know what will work best for you.
Normal baby sleeping patterns
Thankfully, there is a wealth of current, evidence-based research to show us what normal infant sleep patterns look like – and what they don’t.
You can access the same qualified practitioners referred to by the BellyBelly team.
Find them in our article 6 Awesome Baby Sleep Experts Worth Following.
Sleep and breastfeeding
If you’re breastfeeding, people might be quick to tell you Your Baby Is Using You Like A Dummy! and caution you because he breastfeeds to sleep.
You might be worried your baby will never learn to ‘self soothe’ if you always pick him up when he cries, or wear him in a baby sling or carrier for naps. In fact, these are two of the few things that actually work.
Read more in Two Things Proven By Research To Reduce Infant Crying.
The most important thing is to do what works best for your family. No matter how many people have opinions on what you should – or shouldn’t – be doing, in the end it’s you and your baby whose opinions matter most. You’re the expert when it comes to your baby.
Play and Development
At 12 weeks, he now has better arm control and hand eye coordination and might have already achieved his goal of hitting his mobile or play gym toys. Next on his ‘to-do list’ is rolling.
Between 2 and 5 months of age, most babies will first roll from their tummy to their back. They need a bit more upper body control for the next stage in order to balance their body weight, rolling from their back onto their side around 4 – 5.5 months.
Finally, once they can move their arms and shoulders out of the way, back onto tummy is achieved between 5.5 and 7.5 months. Like everything, these are typical ages and each baby will reach milestones in their own time.
It’s important your baby gets plenty of floor time every day to work on the muscle and nerve development he needs for rolling. Too much time spent in ‘containers’, like car seats, infant seats, bouncers and strollers can not only lead to delays in milestones like rolling and crawling but can have ongoing impact on learning and development.
Equipment like strollers and car seats should be limited to their purpose: transport. Infant seats, bouncers and rockers should be used only for a few minutes each day for a few days.
Think of the floor as your 12 week old baby’s learning environment and make it the main place he spends his awake time. Time on his back and tummy will help him reach his developmental milestones.
If you need ideas to help him enjoy tummy time, you will find some in our article: Tummy Time For Baby – How To Make It Fun!
Baby in the fourth trimester
If you are choosing to vaccinate your little one, be sure to book an immunisation appointment for second dose vaccines. These might include the rotavirus vaccine (a liquid dropped straight into baby’s mouth) and the haemophilus influenza vaccine.
See your healthcare provider for a checkup on baby’s development at three months and for more information about vaccination.
