A newborn at 3 months

Your baby's growth, milestones and behaviour

Your baby is 3 months old already! Congratulations! Let's see how he's growing, what milestones he will reach over the third month, how he behaves and what toys get his attention.

Weight and length of a newborn at 3 months
The average weight for a newborn at 3 months is about 6-7 kg, and he will have gained about 10 cm in length since birth. These are mere estimates and won't necessarily coincide with the actual size of your baby; slightly higher or lower figures are entirely normal.

Psychological and motor development and milestones
You baby is finally starting to socialise and reaching the first gratifying milestones. He's starting to smile purposefully just to get mum and dad to smile back. He will also become more communicative and involved in the events of the day. Your baby is now capable of tracking a moving object with his gaze, and he can hold his hands partly or entirely open and produce babbling sounds. If you lay him on his back, he's able to lift his head. Despite the fact that his eyesight hasn't matured fully, an 3-month-old baby is able to distinguish a series of colours and is especially drawn to primary colours (green, red, blue). His depth perception and his ability to comprehend the size of three-dimensional objects are also improving.

You will have noticed your baby repeating certain gestures and expressions in specific circumstances. These movements can be used to understand his needs: a baby that kicks, raises a fist or becomes red in the face may be annoyed by something, a nappy, or the position he's in, for example. Is he rubbing his eyes and yawning? Then he's probably tired or needs to relax.

Babies at 3 months: actions
At 3 months infants start to show interest in their body and begin to interact with their environment and with the people around them. They express satisfaction by kicking and waving their arms and start to produce sounds to respond to mum and dad's voices! Here are some of their milestones:
- They're better at holding their head up straight
- If placed belly down they can raise their head and even raise their shoulders
- They are able to turn their heads voluntarily to look around
- They raise their arms, start grasping small objects and begin to develop hand-eye coordination

Toys to stimulate a 3-month-old baby
Your baby will begin to use his eyesight, hearing and sense of touch a lot over this period, and he's ready to develop hand-eye coordination. Stimulating and helping with these new experiences is therefore important: this can be done by providing little toys, such as rattles, that are easy to grasp, produce sounds to activate the sense of hearing and are made of different materials to encourage the sense of touch. As noted before, at this age infants are drawn to the human face: take a seat on a comfortable chair or couch, hold your baby in your arms or lay him down on your knees and spend time smiling and making different sounds and faces for him. You will notice him focusing intently on what you're doing.

Finally, when your baby is awake and with you present at all times, you can stimulate his motor skills by placing him belly down on a soft area, such as a play mat, in the classic tummy-time position.

This position will encourage your baby to raise his head, thereby strengthening the muscles of the neck and shoulders.