The Crucial First Year

"This book is far more than just a guide for parents; it is also recommended reading for paediatric nurses, midwives, students and doctors undertaking further training in paediatrics." Dr. med. Hartmut Bauer. "Die ungestörte Entwicklung Ihres Babys" ("Letting Your Baby Develop Freely") was a classic of the baby-care genre. A revised and expanded edition has now been published by Schmidt-Römhild. The book's illustrations and text will help you answer for yourself questions such as "Should I sit my child up?" or "Should I use a baby walker?". Through natural development, your child will learn to crawl, sit, stand, walk, and play without assistance. In its crucial first year, your child learns the full range of movement patterns important to its later development - all from a lying position. Sitting a child up prematurely prevents it from lying down again without help and leads it to bypass specific stages such as crawling. Your child's first year plays a decisive role in preventing postural problems. You will gain an understanding of the different stages of innate motor development through scientific insights from the field of development neurology. You can see how your child first "sits" and "walks" while still in a lying position, before sitting up and standing up on its own at the end of its first year. The 222 colour photographs allow you to follow your child's motor development on a monthly basis. The text and photographs give you a clearer understanding of where your child is in its development. The movement patterns are shown month by month, based on the developmental range observed in 90% of children, allowing you to assess your child's stage of development. Some children begin walking at 12 month; others do not start until 18 months Normal motor development can vary that much from one child to another. This means your child is developing normally even if, at 8 months, it still shows the coordinated movement patterns typical of a 6-month-old. With decades of experience in paediatric physical therapy, Barbara Zukunft-Huber advises you on when to consult your paediatrician about possible deviations in development and warning signs.