At one week old, a baby looks quite different from the smooth, round newborns you see in movies. Their skin is likely peeling, their head may still be elongated from delivery, and they spend most of their time sleeping, roughly 16 to 17 hours a day. Here’s what to expect when you look at your one-week-old.
Head Shape and Soft Spots
A newborn’s skull bones are soft and flexible, with gaps between the plates of bone. If your baby was born headfirst through the birth canal, pressure during delivery can mold the head into an oblong or cone-like shape. In some cases, the skull bones even overlap slightly. Fluid or blood can also collect beneath the scalp, further distorting the shape. By one week, this molding is already starting to resolve, but the head may still look slightly uneven.
Babies born breech or by cesarean delivery typically have rounder heads from the start, since they didn’t experience that birth canal pressure.
You’ll notice two particularly large soft spots on your baby’s head, one toward the front and one toward the back. These are fontanelles, gaps where the skull plates haven’t yet fused. They’re completely normal and may pulse slightly. They feel soft to the touch but are protected by a tough membrane underneath.
Skin: Peeling, Blotchy, and Changing
All newborns go through a peeling phase during the first two weeks of life. At one week, you’re right in the middle of it. The peeling is most noticeable on the arms and legs but can also show up on the belly, back, or buttocks. The outer layer looks dry and flaky, but the skin underneath is typically moist and healthy. This is simply the skin adjusting to life outside the womb, where it was protected by a waxy coating called vernix. That coating is usually wiped away shortly after birth.
Your baby’s skin color may also look blotchy or mottled, especially on the hands and feet. Many one-week-olds develop some degree of jaundice, a yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes caused by the liver still learning to process a waste product from red blood cells. Physiologic jaundice typically appears on the second or third day of life and is common enough that doctors check for it before you leave the hospital. In most cases it resolves on its own, though some babies need light therapy to help clear it.
Eyes at One Week
Most newborns are born with dark, slate-gray or blue-toned eyes, regardless of their eventual eye color. True eye color doesn’t start changing until somewhere between 3 and 9 months, often around the 6-month mark, and it can take up to three years to fully settle. At one week, your baby can focus on objects roughly 8 to 12 inches from their face, about the distance between your face and theirs during feeding. Beyond that range, the world is a blur. You may notice their eyes occasionally cross or drift, which is normal at this stage as the eye muscles are still developing coordination.
The Umbilical Cord Stump
One of the most distinctive features of a one-week-old is the umbilical cord stump clipped to their belly. At this point, it’s drying out and changing color, going from yellowish-green to brown or black as it shrivels. It looks a bit like a small, darkened piece of dried tissue. The stump typically falls off between one and three weeks after birth. In the meantime, you may notice clear or blood-tinged fluid seeping around the base, which is normal. When it does fall off, a small amount of bleeding is common, similar to a scab coming loose.
Swelling From Maternal Hormones
Some features of a one-week-old come as a surprise to new parents. Both baby boys and girls can have noticeably swollen breast tissue by the third day after birth, caused by the mother’s hormones still circulating in the baby’s body. In some cases, a small amount of milky fluid leaks from the nipples. This breast swelling typically disappears by the second week.
Newborn girls may also have puffy labia and a white vaginal discharge, or occasionally a small amount of vaginal bleeding. These are all hormone-related and resolve on their own within the first two months.
Size and Weight
Your baby at one week is actually a little lighter than they were at birth. It’s normal for full-term infants to lose up to 7% of their birth weight in the first few days as they shed excess fluid and adjust to feeding. So a baby born at 7 pounds 8 ounces might weigh closer to 7 pounds at the one-week mark. Most babies regain their birth weight by around day 10, and from there, you’ll start to see steady gains.
In terms of proportions, a one-week-old’s head is large relative to the body, making up about a quarter of their total length. Their limbs are curled close to the torso, still holding the tucked position from the womb. Hands are usually balled into fists.
Movement and Reflexes
A one-week-old doesn’t move with any intention. What you see are reflexes, automatic responses hardwired into their nervous system. If you stroke your baby’s cheek or the corner of their mouth, they’ll turn their head toward your hand and start making sucking motions. This is the rooting reflex, and it helps them find the nipple for feeding. Once something touches the roof of their mouth, the sucking reflex takes over.
If you place a finger in your baby’s palm, they’ll grip it tightly. Put a finger below their toes, and the toes will curl around it. A sudden loud noise or the sensation of falling triggers the Moro reflex: the baby flings their arms out wide, then pulls them back in. You’ll also notice the blink reflex when they encounter bright light, and sneezing when something irritates their nasal passages. These aren’t signs of distress. They’re simply the involuntary movements of a brand-new nervous system doing its job.
Sleep, Alertness, and Expression
At one week, your baby sleeps roughly 16 to 17 hours a day, split fairly evenly between daytime and nighttime in stretches of one to three hours. When they do wake up, they cycle through distinct states. The one most parents find captivating is the quiet alert phase: the baby lies very still with wide-open eyes, taking in faces, objects, sounds, and movement. This is when your newborn looks most “present,” and it’s the best window for bonding and eye contact.
Outside of those quiet alert moments, a one-week-old’s face can look scrunched, wrinkly, and not particularly expressive. Their features are still puffy from delivery. Social smiling won’t appear for several more weeks, so the expressions you see are mostly reflexive: grimaces, fleeting half-smiles during sleep, or the wide-mouthed rooting face when they’re hungry.