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Milestones during the first year of your child’s life
Your child will develop and grow throughout their infant, childhood, and teenage years.
Whilst the terms infancy, childhood, and teenager express and communicate long periods of time where stages of change and development occur. The generalized term “baby” hides the fact that your child will pass many development milestones in their first year alone.
Every milestone in your baby’s first year broadens experience and changes their outlook on the world. The following list summarizes several key milestones in your baby’s early development:
From birth your child will start learning language and communicating with you. (Gopnik, Meltzoff and Kuhl 1999).
From around four months, you can expect your child to be able to develop the pincer grasp and start fine tuning their motor skills.
From around six months, you can expect your child to be able to sit in an upright position, as well as begin to start eating solid foods.
From around six months, your child will start trying to recreate sounds through babble (Johnson and Blascoe 1997).
From around six to nine months, you can expect your child’s personality to become ever more apparent. And your child will begin to distinguish more between people, emotions and relationships. (Johnson and Blascoe 1997).
From between nine to twelve months, your child’s behaviour and social interactions become ever more intentional and goal-oriented.
Every child is unique, and follows their own unique development path. Therefore, and only naturally, your child may experience milestones sooner or at later times than those offered in this guide. Genetics, temperament, family and culture are all influences that help shape your child’s development and determine the speed with which your child progresses (Johnson and Blascoe 1997).
Sources:
Gopnik, Alison and Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl. 2001. “The Scientist in the Crib: What early learning tells us about the mind.” Harper Collins, NY.
Johnson, C. and and Peter A. Blasco. July 1997. “Infant Growth and Development” Pediatrics in Review, Vol. 18, No. 7
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