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Your baby at 3 – 4 weeks: development milestones & what to expect
7 min
How are you doing? Two weeks in and you might still feel like you’ve been hit by a truck. Sleep deprivation is no joke. But alongside the aches and pains, the questions and panicked Googling sessions, there’s also the wonder of this tiny baby, the new member of your family, who by this point might be looking at you more and responding to their environment. Watching them grow and change is a delight (and its own kind of grief), but what can you expect at 3 – 4 weeks old? Let’s dive in.
Physical development milestones from 3 – 4 weeks
Your baby is getting bigger, gaining weight and growing longer each week. You can usually find a baby weighing clinic near you to find out just how much they’ve grown, and remember their growth is charted relative to their birth weight, not to how big your friends’ babies are.
Having been so curled up in your womb, you might notice them gradually unfurling now, stretching their arms and legs out and enjoying kicking and waving them about when they have some time on the play mat.
Tummy time, the name for placing your baby carefully on their tummy while they’re awake, is an important opportunity for muscle development and can be carried out from birth. You can lay them down on the (soft) floor, on your lap or chest, but bear in mind not all babies enjoy tummy time and no baby needs long periods of it at this age. Lifting their head off the floor is a real workout for their neck and back and they will tire quickly. Always stay with your baby during tummy time and don’t put them up on furniture they could roll off – even if rolling is not on the cards yet, some babies will surprise you!
Milestone checklist
- Getting bigger – Your baby should be gaining weight fairly steadily now. Talk to your health visitor if you’re concerned they’re not growing as they should.
- Wide-eyed – As your baby spends more time with their eyes open, they’ll appear more alert and interested in the world.
- Tummy time – Weight bearing is tough when you’ve got limited muscle mass! Get them off to a good start with the baby equivalent of exercise.
Child brain development at 3 – 4 weeks
Your little one’s vision is improving, though most babies can still only focus on nearby objects at this age. If you’re playing with them on the floor, try showing different shapes and colours to see if anything grabs their attention. Zig zags are apparently very stimulating when you’re only 3 weeks old! Experimenting with different textures and sounds can also be fun, though limit play time to short bursts to avoid overloading your little one’s senses.
Keep chatting to your baby through the day – not only is it a great way to bond, it also helps stimulate their own language development. You may find your little one chats back with their own lovely noises.
Social & Emotional Development
Just because your newborn is a little older now, doesn’t mean you need to stop skin-to-skin time. In fact, if they’re upset and you’ve ruled out the usual suspects, skin-to-skin contact (with either parent) can be a great way to soothe your baby. Feeling your heartbeat, your chest rising and falling, the warmth of your skin and the scent of their favourite person is all very comforting to a baby still scrabbling to come to terms with the outside world.
You might not feel ready to join any kind of structured baby group, but you can still get out and about if you’d like – in fact, it’s recommended. Keep your baby in a flat lying down position and facing you while in their pushchair to protect their developing bodies and reduce overstimulation. But don’t be afraid to pick them up from time to time and show them the world – it’s all good for bonding.
Sleep & Feeding
Rhythms and routines at this stage
By 3 – 4 weeks, your baby is unlikely to be in much of a routine, but you will be getting better at interpreting their demands. Feeding is still likely to be 2-hourly, though who could predict what your baby’s going to do from one day to the next. They may go for a 3-hour stretch, they may need a top-up after 20 minutes.
If you’re breastfeeding, you don’t get much sense of how much milk your little one is taking (unless you express), but be reassured as long as they’re putting on weight and producing plenty of wet and dirty nappies, you’re doing fine. Formula fed babies should still be fed on demand and may take anything from 40 ml – 85 ml every 2 – 3 hours. If you’re looking for advice on formula feeding and how to manage formula milk if you’re going out for the day, check out our advice pages here.
Feeding this often can put paid to a good night’s sleep – though babies of this age can still sleep up to 18 hours a day. But three weeks in, you might find you’re actually getting used to it. If you think your baby’s getting their nights and days mixed up, try exposing them to plenty of daylight while they’re awake. You could put them down for a nap in a different spot than where they sleep at bedtime, to distinguish between naptime and bedtime. And when they wake in the night, try to keep things quiet and dark as much as possible, so they get the hint that this is sleeping time, not waking time. That being said, some awake time in the night is inevitable at this stage. Sometimes it’s best just to give in to it and take yourselves downstairs for a cuppa rather than spend thankless hours rocking and bouncing without success.
Colic
Crying is your baby’s way of communicating, but if they’re crying for hours at a time, multiple times a week, for weeks on end, your little one might be suffering with colic. Colic is the name given to excessive crying – a deeply unsatisfying definition if ever there was one. But why are they crying, you might ask. Doctors aren’t sure, but it’s thought to relate to your little one’s developing digestive system. Certainly, alongside the crying you often see things like baby drawing their knees up to their chest or arching their back, which indicates discomfort in their stomach.
Colic usually resolves itself by four months and in the meantime, stay strong. Remember, it’s not personal, nor is it harmful to their health – though it can feel detrimental to yours. If the crying gets to be too much, it’s perfectly safe to put the baby in their Moses basket and leave them be for a few minutes while you take a breath.
Nappies
Have you experienced an explosive nappy yet? Babies of this age produce an average of four poos a day and your baby will probably get into their own routine for when this inconveniences you the most - in the bath, as you’re about to leave the house, during a feed… Enjoy!
Having started off black and sticky, your baby’s poo should have turned a yellowish shade by now, though breastfed babies’ poos are more variable in colour. Formula fed baby poo is more consistent and, apparently, stinkier.
Appointments in this period
All being well, this should be a quiet period for appointments, with nothing in the routine schedule for health visitor or GP visits at this age. With your partner likely back to work around now, and nothing official in the diary, this is a good time to arrange visits with family and friends. Don’t overdo it, though – you’re still recovering and likely very tired. But spending time with loved ones can be a good reminder of who you are outside of parenthood and provides the support you need at what remains a very vulnerable time.
Looking after yourself
Speaking of vulnerable, how are you feeling? It’s common to be in a rush to find your ‘new normal’ after birth, getting into the swing of baby groups and nap schedules, etc. But 3 – 4 weeks is still very early for all that and you’re unlikely to find a consistent day-to-day routine until at least 6 weeks and probably later. It’s important to take each day as it comes and remind yourself that in the olden days you’d still be in bed at this point! Every day you get dressed in real clothes is a win. (And actually changing from one set of pyjamas to another also counts.)
It’s not unusual to find parenting a newborn really hard – because it is. You’re operating under completely impossible conditions. Sleep deprivation, a new boss who talks a totally different language, a fairly abrupt end to life as you knew it before. These are all real struggles and shouldn’t be diminished. But if you’re struggling to find any joy in your days, your mood is low, your anxiety is high, check in with yourself. Do you feel hopeful that this is just a phase, or is it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel? If it’s the latter, consider speaking to a professional. You don’t have to wait for your 6-week check to see your GP.
A Note on Development Milestones
Developmental milestones are guides – not deadlines. If your baby isn’t ‘keeping up’ with your friends’ babies, it isn’t an immediate cause for concern. Every child develops at their own pace. That being said, your health visitor and GP are there to support you with any queries you might have and will always be happy to see you with your newborn if you have any worries.
