Difficulty: Moderately Challenging
Step1
Learn how your child is growing before he or she is even born. Wonderfully-illustrated books depict fetal development month-to-month during pregnancy. You can watch in amazement, learning when your growing baby gets a heartbeat, moves its fingers and toes, gets eyelashes and more. You'll feel more connected to the process knowing how the baby is developing through the pregnancy. In addition to books, you can view similar images online.
Step2
Subscribe to an e-mail service that sends you regular updates related to your child's fetal or infant development. Fetal development programs tend to send you weekly messages, since so many changes are rapidly influencing your child's growth; new things are happening all of the time. You can continue subscribing after the baby arrives, allowing you to look for signs of development and milestones that occur each month as the baby grows.
Step3
Read books that track prenatal and postnatal development. These can offer some of the most thorough descriptions, allowing you to pace yourself and absorb all of the information necessary to understand your child's development. Many have actual charts to follow, and you can record advancements with your child on a calendar.
Step4
Consult your obstetrician or pediatrician to learn more about appropriate baby development. Examinations of your body, before the child is born, and of the baby, once he or she has arrived, are helpful for the physician to determine normal, or abnormal, development. Ask what type of development tracking these doctors recommend.
Step5
Keep a pregnancy journal or start a baby book that records important changes during pregnancy, such as the first time the baby moves, or during the infant's new life, such as the first smile, first trip, first time sitting up alone, etc. These trackings are helpful to share with your physician, and they also create wonderful memories to share with the child when he or she gets older.
