Have you started feeding your 23 week old infant some baby food yet? Are you still deciding whether to buy store bought baby food, or simply blend your own? Of course store bought baby food comes with additional convenience and time savings, and there are some commercial baby food without additives but with added costs.
However, we decided to not go with store bought baby foods, and started our kids with our own homemade baby food consisting mostly of blended vegetables. With fresh vegetables from my husband's garden, our babies ate a lot of fresh vegetables. I liked to use veggies such as cucumbers, squash, zucchinis, some leafy vegetables, carrots, chayote squash, and many others. I chop them up into smaller chunks, steam until their nice and soft, and then blend it up in to a very light and naturally slightly sweet baby food that our kids loved to eat.
Granted, it does take more time and effort than store bought baby food, but considering how fresh the food is and how healthy and tasty it is, it was well worth my time. Besides, my husband is very happy when I make good use of his vegetable garden for our kids.
Our daughter at 6 months old.
Size and Weight
An average baby at 23 weeks old will weight around 15.5lbs and measure around 25.5 to 26 inches. Generally, babies will double their birth weight by about 6 months old, we are quickly approaching that mark here. A quick visit to the family physician, and they'll let you know how well your baby is developing. With the gradual increase in size, babies also grow stronger and more sturdy. By this time, they should have better developed neck strength to hold their head steadily, and is able to sit for a short period of time with his or her back propped.
Your Baby Movements
A 23 weeks old baby will be moving a lot more often. He or she will be rolling from side to side, and will be able to propel themselves forward by kicking their legs against a flat surface. He or she may also be moving around, and rolling around in all directions as well, as they still don't have full control of their bodies just yet. By this time, you baby may become shy to strangers, and begin to cry when someone they're unfamiliar with tries to carry him or her. Your baby may also begin to take some interest in seeing his or her own reflections in the mirror.
Babies at this time begin to make longer sounds and also makes a wider variety of different sounds. They try to mimic your mouth movements, and begin to experiment with different volumes and pitches of sounds. Sometimes, babies will even get startled and amused by the sounds they make themselves!
With improvement in their language abilities, babies are also learning to communicate and developing better understanding of the different sounds they hear. They will pay more attention when you are speaking to them, and will even try to carry on a "conversation" with you through cooing and gurgling sounds that he or she is able to make. We certainly had a lot of fun with our children when they tried to "talk" to us making all types of different sounds.
Watch a 2 year old toddler read, and see how this child's reading skill develops at 3 and 4 years old.