Part 1

1. Introduce your new baby! Did you have a boy or a girl? What is your child's name? How did the delivery go? Include time and date born (when you created your child) and any other medical information that you feel is important about your child's birth. Describe your child's eating, sleeping and motor development (movement) in the first nine months. Begin at birth and describe how these things progressed through the first 9 months. Examples include how well your baby slept, how many hours at a stretch; was your baby breast or bottle fed? How was your child's tolerance for food? When did he/she begin solid food? When did your baby begin to sit up, crawl, stand and/or walk? How does your child's development compare to typical developmental patterns? How do you know? Support your response with evidence of typical developmental milestones described in the text.

2. Analyze your baby's temperament at 8 months and again at 19 months. At eight months was your child "easy," "slow to warm up" or "difficult" or a combinations of two of the categories based on Thomas and Chess' classic temperamental categories (textbook p. 141-142). On what do you base this judgment--give examples. At 19 months, how would you describe your baby in terms of the five aspects of temperament utilized by the Virtual Child program (activity, sociability, emotionality, aggressiveness vs. cooperativeness, and self-control) Give an example from each of these five areas. Has your child's temperament been stable over the first 18 months? Give examples. Explain how the concept of "goodness of fit" applies to your interactions with your child.

3. Were you surprised by anything in the 19-month developmental examiner's report? (Review the report at the end of the 19 month section by clicking on the timeline at the top of the program.) Does your perception of your child's physical, cognitive, language and/or social development differ from that of the examiner's report? Give a minimum of two specific examples of how your perception of your child's development is similar or different from that of the developmental examiner. Provide specific examples from the program. Since everyone can improve their skills, write about some aspects of your child's development that the need the most work. What could you do to help your child develop or enhance these skills? Based on what you have studied, do you think the areas of development you described are most likely the result of specific biological or environmental factors? Support your opinion with concepts from the text.

Part 2

Discussion Question

Why do you think most expectant mothers become emotionally attached to their unborn children during the third trimester? Support your opinion with information from the chapter describing developmental changes for both the mother and baby. Remember to use in-text citations
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