Your Baby Is 13 Weeks Old: The Developmental Milestones

The biggest growth spurt of the baby so far has led to your offspring growing intensively and gaining up to one kilogram. Your child’s back, neck and arm muscles are becoming stronger and stronger and help to lift the head.

His emotional world is now particularly intense and your offspring may even start “strangling”. Learn more about the growth spurt and the development of your baby at three months.

Your Baby At 13 Weeks: The Most Important Steps In Physical Development

When your baby turns 13 weeks old, he or she is probably still in the midst of the so-called “12-week growth spurt”. This does not have to be fully completed at the beginning of the 13th week of life.

Your offspring now grows up to three centimeters and gains about one kilogram in weight. Baby’s growth sp urt promotes both physical and cognitive development. Learn more about the growth spurt and milestones in reflexes, motor skills and senses.

Baby’s Development At 13 Weeks: Reflexes And Motor Skills

In the last few weeks, your baby has been working on his back, neck, and arm muscles. A strong neck helps him to independently hold his head in an upright position. In the supine position, your child will now also be able to lift his head.

And even in the prone position, your little one is busy lifting his head. However, this still requires a lot of effort and will only work effortlessly with time. For a short time, your offspring will even manage to lift himself up with both arms in the prone position. This is important training for later crawling excursions.

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The growth spurt in babies means that a lot is happening in the fine motor area: the parietal lobe, which is responsible for hand-eye coordination among other things, is developing rapidly. The baby’s own hands are now its favorite toy.

He spends a lot of time with them and looks at them in detail. So that it can perceive its hands even better, they end up in the mouth. The mouth is still its most sensitive tactile organ at this time.

It may seem playful, but this process promotes hand-eye coordination as well as hand-mouth coordination. This is the best way to prepare your little one for purposeful grasping.

This Is How Sensory Perception Changes

When your baby turns 13 weeks, he or she makes important developmental leaps in the area of the senses. Abilities such as seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling are now increasingly well-developed.

Sight

Your little darling can see from the very first second. However, the ability to see is still weakly developed at the beginning. Your child sees the world blurred and is not yet able to recognize and distinguish colors. This is why your baby prefers light and dark tones in the first few weeks.

Strong contrasts, such as a checkerboard pattern, are therefore particularly exciting for them. When your baby turns 13 weeks old, he or she makes a big leap in vision: He learns to see with both eyes.

In this process, the information provided by both eyes merges into one overall image. This enables your child to see spatially. Your child is now also able to distinguish between faces. He recognizes familiar faces and clearly prefers them.

Hearing And Speech

Hearing and speech are closely linked. This is because functions such as hearing, speaking and understanding are very close together in the brain. The temporal lobe is responsible for these functions and develops in leaps and bounds from around three months of age.

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Your child now recognizes familiar voices and can associate environmental sounds. This is because the temporal lobe is now more alert and receptive to these stimuli. Your child’s hearing is improving steadily and you can now start reading aloud.

In this way, you promote the baby’s sense of language and development. You can also use everyday situations, such as the weekly shopping trip, to explain things to your baby again and again.

Sense Of Smell And Taste

Your baby is 13 weeks young and has particularly sensitive taste and smell nerves. However, pediatricians and midwives do not recommend the first complementary foods until the baby is six months old.

But you don’t have to worry about your baby getting bored with breast milk. Even if the taste buds are very sensitive right now, the need for different tastes is not yet present.

Just make sure you don’t use heavily scented lotions and shower gels, as your baby has a particularly sensitive nose.

The Sense Of Touch

When your baby is 13 weeks old, the sense of touch also develops further. Your offspring now perceives touch intensively and can better control its own tactile sensations. During this time, tactile books with different materials are especially beneficial.

Baby At 13 Weeks: The Most Important Steps In Mental Development

The growth spurt of the baby in the 12th week has caused an important developmental leap: Your child now shows social behavior. Your offspring interacts with you more often and beams back when you smile at him. Learn more about social and communication development in baby’s 13th week.

Emotions Change, Too.

Your baby is 13 weeks young, and it’s getting easier and easier for him to express his emotions. Whether it’s anger, joy or curiosity – your baby expresses all these feelings with the help of his facial expressions and gestures.

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Your baby is not only concerned with his own facial expressions, but also with the facial expressions of the person opposite him. He observes your mouth and the reactions in your face very attentively. In this way, it eventually recognizes the connection between its own behavior and the facial expressions of other people.

Social Behavior And Communication

Due to the baby’s growth spurt, there is now much more social interaction. Your child is more alert and active and wants to communicate with you. Talk to your baby and you will notice that he or she tries to answer you. Your offspring will find it easier and easier to make sounds. The social smile will also appear more and more often.

How To Encourage Your Baby Through Play

When your baby turns 13 weeks old, he or she has just passed the 12-week stage or may still be in the middle of it. This growth spurt in babies promotes physical and cognitive development. Thanks to your baby’s newfound abilities, new opportunities open up for you in nurturing your treasure.

Encourage A Sense Of Language

Read aloud to your baby. There are great cardboard and cloth books with large, friendly pictures. Many of these books are accompanied by simple text. But you can also make up an exciting story yourself. You can also develop your baby’s sense of language by telling him what you are doing over and over again.

Play Bow Or Baby Trainer

With the so-called play bow, many different toys are attached to a bar. Your child can play with them while lying on his back. Don’t be surprised if the joy of playing is short-lived.

It is quite normal if your child gets tired of playing with the baby trainer after 10 to 15 minutes. After all, he is diligently training his back and his hand-eye coordination.

Developing The Sense Of Touch

You can do this very easily by giving your baby tactile books to touch. Also give him animals made of fabric, wood and plastic to play with. Touching the different materials is a great exercise.

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An Overview Of Baby’s Development At 13 Weeks

  • Baby’s growth spurt at week 12 promotes physical and mental development.
  • Your baby grows up to three centimeters and gains about one kilogram.
  • Your offspring’s favorite toy is his hands.
  • Hand-eye coordination is trained during this phase.
  • Your baby is 13 weeks young and is preparing to grasp things.
  • Independent holding of the head in an upright position is already working.
  • Lifting the head in the supine position is also successful.
  • Lifting the head in the prone position is a real feat of strength and works for a short time.
  • Spatial vision develops from month 3.
  • Your baby hears better every day.
  • The baby’s growth spurt causes social behavior.
  • Your baby begins to make sounds and wants to communicate with you.
  • Emotions such as joy, anger and curiosity are expressed.

Conclusion

The growth spurt of the baby in week 12 has caused it to grow intensively and gain weight. As a result, the parietal lobe has also matured further. This is responsible for hand-eye coordination, which is now becoming more and more successful.

Your baby is 13 weeks young and is getting ready for purposeful grasping. Independently holding the head in an upright position and lifting the head in a supine position are no longer a problem.

Your three-month-old darling sees and hears better every day. In the meantime, the information provided by both eyes is merging into one overall picture. Recognizing and distinguishing faces is also becoming increasingly easier.

Your baby can now better process ambient sounds and is able to distinguish between voices.

The baby’s growth spurt in week 12 has done something amazing: Your child is now exhibiting social behavior. You can look forward to more interaction, joyful smiles and babbling dialogues during this phase.

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