Starting from the first moment of his life, the child is constantly evaluated in terms of neurological standards. This is the first focus of the look, and voice tracking, and much more. And among these parameters, parents are most often concerned with the question: “When do children begin to hold their heads?” What is the value of this skill and how to help the baby master it? Let's try to figure it out.
Skill and its meaning
So why is it necessary to know when a child should hold its head? Pediatricians and pediatric neurologists believe that this skill indicates that the muscles are gradually gaining the correct tone, and the baby is already starting to show curiosity using sensory organs such as hearing and vision. In addition, the moment when the baby begins to hold his head confidently can tell doctors about his physiological and mental development. And therefore it is very important to record both attempts to realize this skill, and its successful final formation.
So, the following are traditionally considered the stages in mastering this ability:
- 3-4 weeks - the first attempts to raise the head to one level with the body;
- 6-8 weeks - confident raising the head to one level with the body;
- 2-2.5 months - the child holds his head slightly above the shoulder line;
- 3 months - the baby confidently holds his head and even turns it from side to side.
It should be noted that the presented stages only partially shed light on how much the child holds the head independently, give an average indicator. This reservation is based on the fact that parents can spur this process on their own.
Help in forming
Muscle weakness is a natural state of crumbs after birth. But this provision should be a signal to parents that they need to help their baby gently develop them, including the neck muscles.
To do this is quite simple, but, of course, provided that the rules of physical development are regularly followed.
So, the first thing parents are required to do in order not to find out when the children begin to hold their head in three months is to lay the child in the “lying on his stomach” position. Such procedures should be started no earlier than the moment when the umbilical wound heals completely. At the same time, the procedure starts from one minute and is brought to five. They should be carried out only when the child is not sleeping.
The second is a daily light massage and exercises prescribed and shown by a pediatrician, aimed at strengthening all the muscles of the body.
The third is the control over the position of the baby during sleep. In this case, parents distribute the load on different muscle groups, which gently stimulates their development.
These three types of activities will help parents see the correct development of their baby and not wonder about when the children begin to hold their heads.
Graphics crashes
Despite the fact that the above stages are considered conditional by pediatricians and neurologists, there are still cases when there are “failures” in the formation of this skill. All of them are considered pathological, which means that parents should know about them in order to eliminate the negative consequences in time.
The first case is an early independent head holding. The point in this case is that the baby under the age of a month fixes his head for a long time. This is a signal that the child may have increased muscle tone or intracranial pressure. So, you should seek help from a neurologist.
The second case is the inability to fix the head over the age of three months. In this case, we can talk about both physiological deviation and parental carelessness.
The question of when the children begin to hold the head and the answer to it, as demonstrated above, are really important. After all, how quickly he masters the rest of the skills: sitting, crawling and walking depends on the joint work of parents, doctors and the baby.