Babies develop at their own pace, so it’s impossible to tell exactly when your child will learn a given skill. The developmental milestones listed below will give you a general idea of the changes you can expect, but don’t be alarmed if your own baby’s development takes a slightly different course.
Social and Emotional
- Enjoys social play
- Interested in mirror images
- Responds to other people’s expressions of emotion and appears joyful often
Cognitive
- Finds partially hidden object
- Explores with hands and mouth
- Struggles to get objects that are out of reach
Language
- Responds to own name
- Begins to respond to “no”
- Can tell emotions by tone of voice
- Responds to sound by making sounds
- Uses voice to express joy and displeasure
- Babbles chains of sounds
Movement
- Rolls both ways (front to back, back to front)
- Sits with, and then without, support on hands
- Supports whole weight on legs
- Reaches with one hand
- Transfers object from hand to hand
- Uses hand to rake objects
Vision
- Develops full color vision
- Distance vision matures
- Ability to track moving objects improves
Developmental Health Watch
- Alert your child’s doctor or nurse if your child displays any of the following signs of possible developmental delay for this age range.
- Seems very stiff, with tight muscles
- Seems very floppy, like a rag doll
- Head still flops back when body is pulled to a sitting position
- Reaches with one hand only
- Refuses to cuddle
- Shows no affection for the person who cares for him or her
- Doesn’t seem to enjoy being around people
- One or both eyes consistently turn in or out
- Persistent tearing, eye drainage, or sensitivity to light
- Does not respond to sounds around him or her
- Has difficulty getting objects to mouth
- Does not turn head to locate sounds by 4 months
- Does not roll over in either direction (front to back or back to front) by 5 months
- Seems impossible to comfort at night after 5 months
- Does not smile on his or her own by 5 months
- Cannot sit with help by 6 months
- Does not laugh or make squealing sounds by 6 months
- Does not actively reach for objects by 6 to 7 months
- Does not follow objects with both eyes at near (1 foot) and far (6 feet) ranges by 7 months
- Does not bear weight on legs by 7 months
- Does not try to attract attention through actions by 7 months
- Does not babble by 8 months
- Shows no interest in games of peek-a-boo by 8 months
- Experiences a dramatic loss of skills he or she once had
From CARING FOR YOUR BABY AND YOUNG CHILD: BIRTH TO AGE 5 by Steven Shelov, Robert E. Hannermann, © 1991, 1993, 1998, 2004 by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
