Newparent Milestones: A Guide to The First Three Months

Congratulations! You’re a newparent. As with any newparent, you’re probably wondering how your development should progress. Here’s a general guide to week-and-month milestones through your first three months. Note: all newparents develop at their own rate, so you may not reach these milestones within the approximate timespan. If more than one or two days were spent in the hospital, these developmental milestones may be delayed by that number of days/weeks. If you’re concerned about delayed newparent development, please call a friend with a newborn baby and compare notes.

The First Week
By the end of the first week, you should:

• Know your baby’s name;
• Recognize you are no longer pregnant*;
• Be certain that leaving the baby unattended will result in its instant suffocation;
• Fall into an extended fit of crying over something seemingly trivial, such as losing a blanket*;
• Have eaten breakfast at least twice;
• Thank your lucky stars for Vicodin*;
• Realize you have too many of one baby item and not enough of another;
• Get annoyed with someone who laughs at your lack of sleep;
• Wonder what you got yourself into.

The Second Week
By the end of the second week, you should:

• Understand how to button and unbutton a sleeper effectively;
• Have a babycare pattern set up with your newparent partner;
• Have eaten lunch at least twice;
• Bathed the baby;
• Cried over something not-so-trivial, such as Nonspecific Infant Fussiness (NSIF);
• Purchased baby items online that were not bought for the shower*;
• Reconsidered 15% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
• Reorganized the changing table so it’s sensible for 3 AM diaper changing;
• Been peed and/or pooed on at least once;
• Realized your family now has three people, not two, and that you may never have another uninterrupted meal with your newparent partner;
• Send a birth announcement by email and Facebook;
• Heard “Welcome to parenthood” at least once;
• Wonder what you got yourself into.

The Third Week
By the end of the third week, you should:

• Have argued with a grandparent over the proper grooming/feeding/holding/changing of the newborn;
• Reconsidered 30% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
• Welcomed at least one visitor to your home who stands no nearer than five feet to the baby;
• Thrust the baby into the arms of said visitor for a photograph;
• Uploaded photos to a website;
• Thought of your baby as its name, instead of as “the baby” or another nonspecific nickname (Tadpole, Peanut, Little One);
• Leave the house without the baby at least once;
• Be able to nap at will.

The Fourth Week
By the end of the fourth week, you should:

• Begin to recognize your baby’s various cries;
• Suspect that leaving the newborn unattended in a safe place will not result in instant suffocation, and possibly even leave the baby unattended for up to ten minutes at a time, broken up by one check for breathing (this includes sleeping);
• Reconsidered 45% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
• Begin surfing online for miracle baby solutions, and buy at least one;
• Realize that not only do you not own a baby sunhat, but that it’s autumn and they are nowhere to be found;
• Be able to feed the baby whilst half-asleep
• Make dinner at least once;
• Cleaned up a major diaper blowout at least once;
• Wonder when you’ll have time to/feel like having sex again;
• Leave the house with the baby at least once.

The Sixth Week
By the end of the sixth week, you should:

• Realize rationally that leaving the newborn unattended in a safe place will not result in instant suffocation
• Be able to leave the baby unattended for up to forty minutes at a time, and only check for breathing twice (this includes sleeping);
• Have reconsidered 60% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
• Try out miracle baby solutions, and reject at least one;
• Have bathing the baby down to a science;
• Be able to feed the baby whilst asleep.

Two Months
By the end of the second month, you should:

• Realize emotionally that leaving the newborn unattended in a safe place will not result in instant suffocation
• Be able to leave the baby unattended for up to 90 minutes at a time, and only check for breathing twice (this includes sleeping);
• Have reconsidered 75% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
• Taken the baby to a childfree home and been embarrassed when the baby cried/threw up/pooped its diaper;
• Called the baby by its name;
• Paid the first of many hospital bills;
• Gotten around to picking up your baby’s birth certificate;
• Cried through your newborn’s first vaccination.

Three Months
By the end of the third month, you should:

• Realize that not only will leaving the newborn unattended in a safe place not result in instant suffocation, but that the last eight weeks were spent freaking out for no good reason, except that doctors and nurses enjoy hazing new parents;
• Not only be able to leave the baby unattended for up to 180 minutes at a time, with no breath checks, but hope for those 180 minutes all day, every day;
• Performed at least one panicked breath-check when the baby slept from 4 AM to 8:30 AM, and you didn’t wake up once;
• Have reconsidered 95% of the advice received whilst in the hospital/from baby books/from relatives;
• Taken the baby on an overnight trip and realized the sheer amount of luggage and small creature requires;
• Begun realizing how many clothes you’re really going to go through in the first year, as you’ve already filled up two bagsful of clothes the newborn has outgrown;
• Begun swaying back and forth, whether or not you’re holding the baby;
• Paid the fourth, eighth, and tenth of many hospital bills;
• Know exactly how to make your baby smile and laugh, thus guaranteeing that you are willing to hold, burp, feed, change, and clean her up on an hourly basis.

*Female and/or formerly pregnant newparents only