From helpless newborn to active toddler: It takes just 12 short months for your baby to undergo this incredible transformation. Babies grow and change at an astounding pace, and every month brings new and exciting developments.
New mums and dads often wonder what to expect next and how to know if their baby’s development is on target. Instead of focusing too much on developmental milestones, however, it’s important to remember that babies all develop at their own pace. There’s a fairly wide window for when it is normal for a baby to reach a particular developmental stage.
If your baby reaches one milestone sooner, she may reach another one later, because she’s so busy perfecting the other skill.
Some babies may say their first word at eight months, while others don’t talk until a little after the one-year mark. And walking may start anytime between nine and 18 months.
Keeping those kinds of variations in mind, here is what your baby may be doing during each three-month stage of the first year.
Baby Development: 1 to 3 Months
During this first development stage, babies’ bodies and brains are learning to live in the outside world. Between birth and three months, your baby may start to:
- Smile. Early on, it will be just to herself. But within three months, she’ll be smiling in response to your smiles and trying to get you to smile back at her.
- Raise her head and chest when on her tummy.
- Track objects with her eyes and gradually decrease eye crossing.
- Open and shut her hands and bring hands to her mouth.
- Grip objects in her hands.
- Take swipes at or reach for dangling objects, though she usually won’t be able to get them yet.
Baby Development: 4 to 6 Months
During these months, babies are really learning to reach out and manipulate the world around them. They’re mastering the use of those amazing tools, their hands. And they’re discovering their voices. From 4 to 6 months old, your baby will probably:
- Roll over from front to back or back to front. Front-to-back usually comes first.
- Babble, making sounds that can sound like real language.
- Laugh.
- Reach out for and grab objects (watch out for your hair), and manipulate toys and other objects with her hands.
- Sit up with support and have great head control.
Baby Development: 7 to 9 Months
During the second half of this year, your little one becomes a baby on the go. After learning that he can get somewhere by rolling over, he’ll spend the next few months figuring out how to move forward or backward. If you haven’t baby-proofed yet, better get on it!
During this time period, your baby may:
- Start to crawl. This can include scooting (propelling around on his bottom) or commando crawling (dragging himself on his tummy by arms and legs), as well as standard crawling on hands and knees. Some babies never crawl, moving directly from scooting to walking.
- Sit without support.
- Respond to familiar words like his name. He may also respond to “No” by briefly stopping and looking at you, and may start babbling "Mum mum" and "Dad dad dad."
- Clap and play games such as patty-cake and peek-a-boo.
- Learn to pull up to a standing position.
Baby Development: 10 to 12 Months
The last development stage in baby’s first year is quite a transition. She isn’t an infant anymore, and she might look and act more like a toddler. But she’s still a baby in many ways. She’s learning to:
- Begin feeding herself. Babies at this developmental stage master the ‘pincer grasp’ -meaning they can hold small objects between their thumb and forefinger.
- Cruise, or move around the room on her feet while holding onto the furniture.
- Say one or two words, and "Mum" and "Dad dad" become specific names for parents. The average is about 3-5 spoken words by the first birthday, but the range on this is enormous.
- Point at objects she wants in order to get your attention.
- Begin “pretend play” by copying you or using objects correctly, such as pretending to talk on the phone.
- Take her first steps. This usually happens around one year, but it can vary greatly.
Should I Be Concerned?
Remember, that it is not exactly when your baby sits up by himself or says his first words that is important; it’s that he’s moving forward in his development. Don’t look at the time as much as the progression, and see that your child is changing and growing. It’s not a race. Nobody’s going to ask you on a college application when your child first walked or said ‘dad dad’.
Your Child’s Development - Month by Month
This table shows common developmental milestones that babies reach each month during their first year, in four major categories. Keep in mind that all babies are different and every baby grows at his own pace. There's no precise time that most of these skills first appear. If your child hasn’t reached a milestone by the month it is listed on this chart, it is usually a perfectly normal variation in child development. Watch for progress, not deadlines.
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Copyright Louise Shalders
