BANGOR – Three-month-old Aidrian Baker lay on his tummy and his elbows, holding his head up to gaze intently at the pint-sized picture book in front of him. His bright eyes gleamed as the pages turned, each new image eliciting a little frown of concentration.

Jamie Baker, 21, allowed her son plenty of time to soak up the simple images. When he became restless and started swaying back and forth with a determined look on his face, she chuckled.

“Look,” she said, affection warming her voice. “He’s trying to crawl.”

Jamie and Aidrian Baker were among dozens of parents and children who attended a celebration of Home Visiting Week on Thursday morning at the Harlow Street offices of Penquis in Bangor. The program provides free in-home education and support services to first-time parents of infants and young children.

A pre-school teacher at a Bangor day care program, Jamie Baker said she appreciates the support she’s received from the home visitor program. Although she has personal and professional experience in caring for older kids, parenting a newborn is a whole new challenge, she said.

When a social worker at Eastern Maine Medical Center offered to refer her to the program right after Aidrian was born, she accepted immediately. A friendly professional has visited in her Bangor apartment several times already, offering information on developmental stages, nutrition, safety and other important aspects of responsible parenting. Especially as a single mother living alone, she said, the support has been invaluable. And if Baker wants, the helpful visits will continue until Aidrian turns 5.

Funded largely with money from the 1998 financial settlement between states and the tobacco industry, Maine’s Home Visiting program now offers services in every part of the state. In the Bangor area, it’s provided as part of the Parents Are Teachers, Too, program at Penquis, a social service organization active in Penobscot and Piscataquis counties.

According to program manager Wesley Neff, home visitors give guidance to about 5,600 families in Maine each year. Penquis employs eight home visitors, all of whom have at least a four-year degree in child development, education, nutrition or another related field. The visitors work closely with public health nurses who may also be checking in on young children and their mothers.

Visits may begin during pregnancy and include educating mothers-to-be about the importance of diet and exercise, the dangers of smoking, preparation for childbirth and support for breastfeeding. Later, visits may focus on appropriate activities for the new baby, basic health care guidance and safety measures.

First-time mother Peggy Johnson said she was pregnant and living in a special shelter for single mothers and young children when she started getting support from the home visitor program. At 42, Johnson said, she was significantly older than the other women in the shelter. And as a recent transplant from California, she didn’t have much of a social network. Home visitors from Penquis helped her prepare for motherhood. For example, they assisted her in making the move to subsidized housing in Veazie after her daughter, Lilly, was born.

When Lilly was just learning to sit up, Johnson said, home visitor Laurie Dunton suggested padding a laundry basket with a blanket and putting the baby inside so she would have something to hang onto and wouldn’t smack her head on the floor if she tipped over. When the time was right, Dunton also suggested Lilly be given plenty of time on the floor so she could practice rolling over.

Now 13 months old, Lilly was busy playing with her father, Bret McBreairty of Brewer. Watching her blonde, blue-eyed daughter roll blobs of yellow Play-Doh on a plastic table, Johnson said she’s inclined to be overprotective and anxious as a mother.

“It’s been a big help having this program in our lives,” she said.

Dunton, Johnson’s home visitor, said much of what she does is to teach parents to respond to developmental changes in their children. Dietary changes, potty training and other activities must be presented when the child is ready, for example. Inquisitive toddlers too young to understand the concept of “no” will be better protected by child-proofing their environments, she said.

But, Dunton added, her most important challenge is to build parents’ self-confidence about what they already know from reading, talking with other parents and their own upbringings.

“They want confirmation,” she said. “Parents really know their children better than anyone else.”

For information about the home visitor program at Penquis, call 973-3642 or toll-free, 800-215-4942.