Appointments – What's coming up in the 5th month?

The intervals between well-child checkups at the pediatrician are now getting longer. After the first exhausting months many mothers feel eager to get out – baby playgroups and crawling groups, parent meetups or even exercise classes specifically for mothers are a good opportunity to exchange experiences and to get out of the house. There are privately organized groups, offerings from midwives and maternity clinics as well as from sports clubs and institutions such as the AWO. Look around and feel free to ask other mothers and fathers.

Important developmental milestones in the 5th month

• Seeing: In the fifth month the baby's sense of sight is fully developed. Color differences, contours and distances are no problem for baby eyes now. Good vision also awakens curiosity: your baby delights in exciting discoveries.

• Facial expressions: Your child has by now learned quite a lot from you parents and, alongside its voice, also uses facial expressions to convey its emotional state: with smiles, surprise, joy or a scowling face the range of its expressions grows every day.

• Perception of voice: Hearing is now fully developed and your child can now also recognize other people's emotional cues through their voice. Its own voice is used increasingly through babbling and a variety of sounds.

• Basic trust: Your child gives you its complete trust. It reaches out its arms to you and begins to <LINK>cry as soon as you leave the room. Many babies now hesitate when in contact with strangers, which can increase in the coming months.

• Motor skills: The baby's hemispheres are increasingly connecting and its coordination keeps improving. Because your baby can now better judge distances, it can grasp more precisely. The <LINK>fine motor skills continue to develop steadily. When the child reaches for an object, the non-involved hand and the feet often execute the grasping movement as well. Exciting toys such as rattles or Sound and musical toys promote the grasping movement.

• Rolling onto the back: Your child is probably so flexible that you will be amazed more than once. It takes its toes into its mouth and discovers its own body. Many children roll from their tummy onto their back for the first time in the fifth month of life.

• Exploring objects: Children in the fifth month mainly use their tongue and mouth to explore objects. Especially many nerve endings come together here – sensing with the mouth is much more intense than with the hand. Small parts that can be swallowed should therefore be kept out of reach of children.

How much should my child weigh in the 5th month?

Since your baby now moves a lot, its muscles are getting stronger and it can already support itself on its forearms or perhaps even on its hands. Its body weight has since birth almost or already completely doubled and is between 6.900 and 7.500 grams. The body length is about 64 to 66 centimeters.

Image credits

Modern baby scale on the table and a blurred woman with a child in a house © New Africa - stock.adobe.com