Child development 6–9 months
You and your baby are starting to feel (and act) like separate people. He is starting to sit up, move by rolling, reach out, and act on the world. He worries that you might not come back when you go away and lets you know it. He will respond to you giving him lots of things to look at, touch, play with and safely put in his mouth.
Time playing on his tummy on the floor will strengthen his back and help him learn to crawl.
This topic may use ‘he’ and ‘she’ in turn – please change to suit your child’s sex.
Social and emotional development
There are some big emotional and physical developments in your baby that you will notice between 6 and 9 months. Your baby is becoming able to move around and take a much more active part in family life.
- Your baby begins to realise she is a separate person surrounded by her own skin (and finishing at her hands and feet). She no longer experiences floating in a sea of feelings and needs where the outside and the inside are all mixed together. Instead she begins to feel she has an outside and an inside and to know where the boundary of the outside is. She will start to understand that you are separate from her, and it will worry her when she can’t see you or feel you nearby.
- She begins to recognise and identify her own feelings and that they are different. For instance, she may know the difference between feeling hungry and feeling lonely and may be able to give you some clue as to whether she wants food or a cuddle. She knows this because you have helped her to recognise different feelings by responding to her hunger with food and her loneliness with cuddles, etc.
- Your baby will begin to have desires of her own, simple things she knows she wants, like wanting to hold an object or wanting to be picked up immediately. Her desires may not always be the same as yours and, for the first time, you may feel yourself clash with her tiny will!
- She will, during these months, come to recognise the important, familiar people in her world and will become sensitive to strangers. By 9 months she will be shy with strangers, and for a while she might not even want to be too close to people she knows, such as her grandparents, but this will change. With familiar people, it is a very sociable age and she will love playing and chatting.
Physical development
Your baby will put everything in his mouth. His lips and tongue are the most sensitive part of his body and will give him lots of information about texture, shape and taste. Also, you can swallow some bits of the world (such as food) but not others, and he is just learning this!
Safety is very important!
- He will start to take some mashed solids around this time, and later some soft finger food, such as toast (under your supervision).
- At first it is hard for him to work out the eating action because he is used to sucking, so keeping the food inside his mouth can be hard!
- Just because the mashed pumpkin gets spat out does not necessarily mean he doesn’t like it, he just may not yet have got the hang of keeping it inside his mouth and coordinating when to swallow. Different textures feel very strange to him at first.
Moving
At some time during these 4 months she will be able to:
- roll over, front to back and back to front
- sit alone for a few moments when you put her into a sitting position, then manage to sit by herself without falling over
- do push ups when on her tummy – lift her head and chest off the floor and support herself on outstretched arms
- start to move while on her tummy, first ‘commando’ style, pulling herself along on her arms, then crawl on all fours
- reach for a rattle and shake it
- swap a toy from one hand to the other
- find her feet, play with them and put them in her mouth.
Seeing
Your baby’s eye muscles will be working well and he will be able to focus on small objects. He also develops a perception of depth and therefore can be afraid of heights and falling. By 9 months he can not only see a change in floor level, but understand that it is scary. Despite this, some babies may let the desire to move overcome this feeling and try, for example, to roll off the change table.
Hearing
He will turn towards familiar sounds and voices and want to make sounds himself, not only ‘talking’ but by banging objects together.
Speech and language
While she has been cooing and babbling for many weeks, her sounds will now become more like real words.
- Your baby enjoys making sounds and she knows that she has made them.
- She will try different sounds, like clicks, lip bubbles and raspberries, as well as her word-like sounds, and copy sounds you make.
- She will use lots of different sounds to express different emotions, such as frustrated grunts, squeals and giggles.
- She will listen to you carefully when you speak to her, and she will talk back to you using her babbling sounds.
- She will probably be putting a vowel and a consonant together, as in ‘muum’ or ‘bubbub’.
- She might say ‘ma-ma-ma’ because she can, but she does not know that this sound is a word she can use when she wants her mother. These sounds will be repeated as she works out how to make the noises.
What to watch out for
You should check with your doctor or child health nurse if, by 9 months, your child is not:
- sitting up without help
- smiling and laughing out loud
- grasping, holding and shaking things
- reaching out for objects and putting them into their mouth
- turning towards you when you call their name
- beginning to try some ‘solid’ foods
- making lots of different sounds.
Summary
Social emotional
A baby at this stage usually:
- knows familiar people and starts to withdraw from strangers
- begins to turn around when her name is called
- starts to become anxious if the main caregiver is out of sight
- stretches up her arms to be picked up
- initiates gestures, such as cough, poking out tongue.
Talk with your doctor or child health nurse if your baby:
- does not show pleasure when she sees familiar people
- is not making eye contact
- cannot be reassured by mother or close carer.
Motor skills
A baby at this stage usually:
- takes objects to his mouth by 6 months
- starts to move around by 8 months (rolling, creeping)
- sits without support by 8 to 9 months.
Talk with your doctor or child health nurse if your baby:
- is not interested in, and reaching for, objects by 8 months
- is not sitting by 9 months
- holds his body stiff and cannot be put in a sitting position.
Daily activity
A baby at this stage usually:
- can hold a bottle to drink
- can start to drink from a cup, which is held by an adult, by 6 to 8 months
- holds a spoon, but cannot use it, by 7 months
- begins to try some ‘solid’ foods.
Understanding
A baby at this stage usually:
- looks for a fallen object by 7 months
- plays ‘peek-a-boo’ games
- cannot understand ‘no’ or ‘danger’.
Talk with your doctor or child health nurse if your baby:
- does not recognise her mother
- does not show interest in surroundings.
Speech and language
A baby at this stage usually:
- babbles by 6 to 7 months, making one and two syllable sounds, such as ‘da-da’
- listens to a person speaking then ‘answers’ in babbling sounds.
Talk with your doctor or child health nurse if your baby:
- does not babble, imitate or make other sounds when someone talks to her.
Children are different and may develop at different rates.
If your child does not do all the things in this topic, it may be because your child is working on some different area of his learning and development at present.
Children usually follow the same pattern of development and it is good to have reassurance that your child is developing normally in their own unique way.
If your child is very different from other children, you are worried about your child’s development, or if your child’s development seems to go backwards, you should talk with a health professional about your concerns. If there is a problem, getting help and ideas early will help. Remember that what matters is to support your child in moving forward from where they are now.
Child development 9–12 months
Your baby is now moving around. They’re ‘talking’ and making recognisable sounds.
They love you talking to them and looking at picture books together, pointing to objects they know. They’re putting sounds together by babbling, trying to copy or say first words, and saying ‘No’ with a shake of his head.
They may be clingy and wary of strangers, but they’re forming special relationships with you and other family members. Their personality is becoming clear to you.
Social and Emotional
It is usually during this time that your baby begins to understand their very special relationship with you and with friends and relatives.
- They will smile and babble, try to have conversations with you, and copy simple hand games like ‘clap hands’ or ‘bye bye’.
- They’re starting to know that when you go away you’ll come back again, and that you are still there even when they can’t see you. Unfortunately, this also means that they’re frightened when you leave him and may cling and cry. They will start to be wary of strangers. Talking to them when you are in another room can help them to understand this.
- ‘Peek-a-boo’ and ‘hiding’ are favourite games because they’re about familiar people coming and going. They’re beginning to understand that when they see you, you also see them. But they still think if they can’t see you, you can’t see them (which is why they puts their hands over their eyes to hide).
- They’re starting to understand that they’re a person and that the baby in the mirror might be them.
- They’re really starting to know what they like and doesn’t like. They may kick and resist nappy change time or other limits on their behaviour.
- They now understand ‘No’, though they’ll spend the next 18 months checking exactly what it means.
Moving around
Your baby is now moving around all on their own.
- They might pull themselves along with their arms, roll around, or crawl on all fours.
- They’ll start to pull themselves to standing while holding on to you, a chair or other furniture, and then begin to walk while still holding on.
- They might start to walk by themselves, or they might not walk for a few months yet.
It’s a big thing to see your baby ‘standing on their own two feet’, even if their holding on to something.
Becoming independent
Your baby’s fine motor skills are improving quickly.
- They can pick up an object with their thumb and fingers, rather than grabbing with the palm of their hand.
- They poke and point with their finger, bang things together and transfers objects from one hand to another.
- But they still can’t control putting things down and will often drop an object to release it from their grasp.
- They’re now able to sit on their own for quite long times, and enjoys exploring objects and the sounds they can make with them, while sitting on the floor.
- They can feed themselves in their high chair, although they’re often more interested in squishing and feeling than eating. They can only learn how to eat properly (such as using a spoon) by practising, so be prepared for some mess.
- They can drink out of a cup with a spout without help.
Speech and Language
Your baby now understands how conversations work (by taking turns).
- Although you might not understand their words, they will ‘chat’ away, imitating what a conversation sounds like.
- They may be saying simple sounds like ‘mummum’ and ‘daddad’.
- They know several words and may shake their head for ‘no’.
- They are not making the huge variety of sounds that they were earlier because they’re starting to make the sounds of their family’s language.
- They love music and rhymes and will bounce and sway to the rhythm. They love repeating songs over and over again.
Babies are usually very interested in picture books by now. Reading with your baby really helps develop their language.
Alert
Talk to your doctor or community health nurse if, by 12 months, your child is:
- NOT pulling themselves up to stand.
- NOT moving around.
- NOT changing objects from one hand to another.
- NOT looking up when you call their name.
- NOT copying simple sounds like ‘mum mum’.
- NOT showing signs of being especially attached to you (the person who looks after them most)
- NOT smiling, laughing, squealing and trying to attract your attention.
