Amazing Baby Facts

Newborn babies are so adorable and fascinating. Prepared to be amazed at some of these newborn baby facts.

Newborns have no kneecaps

Babies have no kneecaps! Yes, you heard right. Babies are born without kneecaps, which start to develop at approximately 6 months old.

Babies are sleeping champs

Newborns are sleeping champions, sleeping between 16 – 17 hours per day. Have you ever wondered what your baby is dreaming of when they make those cute ‘sleeping baby’ faces?

Babies are night owls

Babies are born without an internal body clock meaning that they wake at the most inopportune times (5am anyone?) Newborns are not governed by a circadian rhythm, an internal clock that tells the body to sleep at night and to be awake during the day. Babies start to differentiate between night and day at approximately 3-5 months old.

Is your baby a leftie?

Most newborns are more likely to turn their heads to the right than to the left. There is no explanation for this, it’s just one of those mysterious baby things.

Famous premature babies

Some famous premature babies include Stevie Wonder, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Mark Twain.

She had how many?

The largest number of babies born to a woman is 69. According to contemporary church records, a Russian peasant woman, Mrs Vassilyev, gave birth to 16 sets of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets from 1725 to 1765.

Your baby’s first smile

A baby’s first social smile appears approximately 4 – 6 weeks after birth.

Born with a fur coat

Babies have gills, tails and fur. No, your baby is not an alien 🙂 At about 4 weeks gestation, babies have gills in their neck (known as pharyngeal arches). These will develop develop into your baby’s jaw and ear bones. At about the same time a tail can be seen and this will recede to form the tailbone (coccyx). An all over covering of fine hair or fur, called lanugo, can be present up to and even after birth. This fine downy hair is needed as insulation and usually disappears within the first weeks after birth.

Twin baby boom

Between 1980 and 2009 there has been a 75% rise worldwide in the birth of twins.

Yoga babies

Have you ever wondered why babies are so flexible? It’s because babies are born with 300 bones (compared to an adult’s 206) and as they grow some of their bones will fuse together to form larger bones thus reducing their overall number of bones.