$Unique_ID{PAR00210}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{6 Months to 1 Year:  How Your Child Develops}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Editors of Consumer Guide
Mendelson, Robert A
Mendelson, Lottie M
Meyerhoff, Michael K
Ames, Louise Bates}
$Subject{Months to Year Child Children Developed Develops Developing growth
grow grows growing crawl crawls crawling Cruise Cruises Cruising walking walk
walks steps climb climbs climbing stairs muscle skills dexterity sensorimotor
senses physical abilities ability intentional behavior behaviors object
permanence find finds finding remember memory recognize recognition knowledge
understand understanding receptive language expressive word words babble
babbles babbling vocalization vocalizations vocalizing speech speak speaks
speaking dependent dependence emotional bond bonds strangers stranger anxiety
self-esteem pride PREMATURE DEVELOPMENTAL DIVERGENCE}
$Log{
Expect your baby to start "true" walking as early as 9 months*0060002.tif
Many babies have a "pre-crawling" stage, pushing themselves across a floor*0051701.tif
You can expect your baby to start true walking around the first birthday*0051601.tif
Your baby will push himself into a walking position when ready*0052101.tif
Between 8-14 months, your baby will be able to climb heights of 12 inches*0052301.tif
Between 8-14 months, your baby will begin "cruising"*0052401.tif}

The New Parents' Question & Answer Book


6 Months to 1 Year:  How Your Child Develops


     How much physical growth can I expect to see in my baby during the
second half of his first year?

     Although your baby's rate of growth will start to slow down a little,
you will continue to see rapid progress during this period.  By the time he is
a year old, your baby probably will weigh roughly three times as much as he
did at birth and be one-and-a-third times as long.  You will also notice that
he has "grown into his body" to a major extent.  A lot of development will
have taken place in the lower portions of his body, so his head will no
longer appear so disproportionately large.  He is likely to have several teeth
at this point, and he may have started to grow hair that will have fairly
permanent color and characteristics.  It is important to remember, however,
that while babies come a long way in physical growth during the first year,
the distance they travel is relative to where they started.  Therefore, if
your baby was at the lower end of the normal range in weight and/or length at
birth, it is still too early to expect that he will have caught up to the
averages.


     When will my baby begin to crawl?

     You can expect your baby to start crawling at almost any point during
this period (and you should prepare for it by safety proofing your home).
Some babies begin crawling at six months of age or even slightly earlier,
others don't begin until they are a full year old.  Typically, the onset of
crawling can be expected at roughly eight months of age.  However, during this
period and increasingly as your baby gets older, you will be able to rely less
and less on "typical" expectations.  The normal age ranges for the onset of
physical abilities get wider and wider.  Therefore, it will become much more
difficult to try and predict precisely when your baby will start doing various
things by consulting a developmental chart or by comparing him to another
child.  As if to prove this point, some babies never crawl--they go directly
to a more advanced activity.  Many babies go from scooting (propelling
themselves with their arms), to pulling themselves up, to cruising (see
question below), and then to walking without spending any time crawling at
all.  If this happens with your baby, you should know that it doesn't seem to
signify anything special about overall development, so it's nothing to get
overly excited or concerned about.  Of course, if you ever suspect that your
child is not developing normally, consult your pediatrician.


     How will I know my baby is getting ready to crawl?

     You probably won't.  A lot of babies go through a "precrawling" stage in
which they propel themselves short distances by rolling over or pushing
themselves across the floor.  Others spend a few days or even weeks pushing
themselves into a crawling position without going forward before they actually
begin to crawl.  But these are by no means universal phenomena.  There are
many babies who seem to be just lying on the floor one day, then crawling like
crazy the next.  As is the case with any development that has serious
implications for safety and educational opportunities, it is a good idea to be
well prepared for crawling long before it happens.  If you wait until your
baby actually starts crawling or try to anticipate the onset of this skill too
closely, you may be unpleasantly surprised by how much trouble he has already
gotten into before you can safety proof his environment.


     What is meant by the term "cruising"?

     Cruising refers to a baby's ability to walk while holding on to
something, such as the edge of a sofa.  Sometime between eight and 14 months
of age, your baby will become capable of grabbing on to something and pulling
himself up into a standing position.  Shortly after that, it is likely he will
begin cruising.  Cruising constitutes an important stage between crawling (or
scooting) and walking.  It allows the baby to move about in a full upright
position without subjecting himself to the difficulties and dangers of walking
unaided (a skill for which he isn't quite ready).  Some parents make the
mistake of equating cruising with walking, and they move their baby away from
any props because they fear he'll continue to use these things like crutches.
Actually, the opposite is true.  Cruising allows a baby to practice skills and
build confidence so that the act of true walking will come along more easily
and effectively.


     When can I expect my baby to start walking on his own?

     You can expect your baby to start true walking as soon as he is ready,
which is as early as nine months of age for some babies and as late as 18
months for others.  Typically, babies achieve this major milestone sometime
around the first birthday.  Unfortunately, parents often tend to place more
emphasis on the onset of walking than it deserves from an overall
developmental perspective.  They may "brag" about how soon their baby started
walking or "bemoan" the fact that their baby is over a year old and still
hasn't started.  The fact is that the age at which a baby starts to walk, as
long as it is within the very wide "normal range" noted above, is no
indication of lasting physical prowess, intelligence, or anything else.  So
while it is traditional for parents to do so, you should try not to compare
your baby's progress in this area to the progress of other children.


     Will my baby be able to walk up and down steps before his first birthday?

     Actually, it will be quite some time before your baby becomes adept at
"walking" up and down steps.  However, sometime between seven and 11 months of
age, typically at about nine months, you can expect your baby to begin
"climbing" up the stairs.  Unfortunately, it probably will be about two or
three months later before he becomes equally adept at climbing down the
stairs.  Although stairs probably will be the favorite subject of his climbing
activities, once your baby has demonstrated this ability, he will be capable
of and interested in climbing anything up to about six inches in height.  In
other words, his climbing interests may include a few pieces of furniture in
your home as well as several of the barriers that you may have put up to keep
him out of danger when he first learned to crawl.


     How adept at climbing furniture and other things will my baby become
during this period?

     Sometime between eight and 14 months of age, typically at about ten
months, your baby will become capable of climbing things up to roughly 12
inches high.  It may not be obvious, but this means he probably will be able
to climb up onto most pieces of furniture in your home.  For instance, it may
be three full feet from the top edge of the sofa to the floor, which would
seem, therefore, to be out of his reach.  However, at this point, he may be
able to climb from the floor to the seat of the sofa, then from the seat to
the arm, and finally from the arm to the top ledge.  Consequently, when you go
about figuring out precisely what your baby will be capable of conquering with
his increasing climbing skills, make sure, you divide the large pieces of
furniture into any smaller increments that he may be able to conquer.


     Will my baby's small muscle skills develop rapidly during this period as
well?

     They certainly will.  In fact, you probably will be amazed at how adept
your baby becomes at manipulating things with his hands and fingers each
passing month.  Of course, his dexterity still will be somewhat limited.  For
instance, anything that requires him to turn a knob, twist off a cap, or wind
up a ratchet-type device is likely to remain outside his skills during this
period.  However, he will be quite able to pick up very small objects, such as
raisins and bits of cold cereal, and to operate simple mechanisms, such as
push buttons, levers, and hinges.  He also will become very deliberate and
accurate when it comes to moving small objects and fairly coordinated with
regard to throwing or banging them around.


     Since he will be so physically active, will my baby have a chance to
learn a lot during this period?

     Once your baby starts to crawl, he will have embarked on the greatest
period of learning in his entire life.  He is still within the "sensorimotor"
period of intellectual development, which means he depends on his senses and
physical movements to learn.  Consequently, with each new physical skill he
acquires, he will become that much more able to expand his horizons, add to
his experiences, and increase the amount of information entering his mind.  In
the space of just a few short months, he will have gone from being familiar
with little more than his own body and the items in his immediate surroundings
to having knowledge of innumerable objects and areas throughout your home.


     How will my baby's senses and physical abilities help him to learn?

     During the first months of life, your baby spent a lot of time just
acquainting himself with what his body could do and with the basic qualities
of objects he encountered.  Now, as he goes about his more complex and
numerous activities, he will discover that he can do a lot more interesting
things and that objects have a lot more fascinating qualities.  As a result,
he will be able to gain enough information to begin building a basic
classification system in his mind.  Early on, your baby will merely apply his
new skills at random.  For instance, he will first suck on something he finds,
then shake it, then throw it.  Eventually, as his various actions produce
different results or different degrees of the same result, he will start to
develop a simple sense of how to sort out his world.  By hearing a toy make a
rattling sound, watching a ball roll, and feeling the soothing effect of a
teething ring, he will learn that some objects are "things to be shaken,"
others are "things to be thrown," and still others are "things to be sucked."
He also will learn some essential principles about the relationship between
actions and things, such as harder, faster, louder, etc.


     Will my baby only understand "what" happens, or will he understand "how"
it happens as well?

     At first, your baby will not have a true understanding of cause and
effect.  All he will realize is that his behavior has some "magical" power.
Thus, for example, he may notice that banging on his crib rails results in
the crib bumpers flapping; and, enjoying that event, he will repeat his
banging to make it happen again.  Later, he may notice the window curtains
fluttering in the breeze, and he may very well bang on his crib rails in the
expectation that this will cause the curtains to move again.  By the end of
this period, however, your baby probably will have a much better sense of
cause and effect.  As a result of using his simple strategies over and over
again in different situations, he will have learned a great deal.  He will be
able to start coordinating his strategies to cope with more complex
challenges.  For example, earlier on, if he saw a toy on a table but couldn't
reach it, he might have been stuck.  He might have waved his arms or kicked
his feet, but all to no avail.  Now, there is a good chance he will crawl over
and pull the tablecloth, causing the toy and everything else to tumble down to
where he can reach it.


     Is my baby now capable of "intentional" action?

     In the most basic sense of the word, your baby is now indeed capable of
"intentional" action.  By using one object to reach another, he is
demonstrating that he is capable of simple problem solving and is engaging in
truly purposeful, goal-directed behavior.  However, it is important to
remember that your baby still is a long way from what could be called
"premeditation."  In other words, when presented with a given set of simple
circumstances, he will be able to "figure out" what to do and "plan" a course
of action accordingly.   However, his ability to do so will be limited to
things that are immediately available to his senses and movements, and only
his needs and desires of that moment will be factored in.  Therefore, although
your baby may display some strong and distinct intentions, be careful not to
read too much into what he is doing at this stage.


     What is meant by the term "object permanence"?

     Object permanence refers to a baby's capacity to hold an image of
something in his mind after it has been removed from direct contact with his
senses.  During the first months of life, if your baby dropped, threw, or
otherwise lost something with which he was playing, that was it--out of sight
was out of mind.  Starting at about seven or eight months of age, you will
notice that your baby will look around a bit for items he has just lost.  This
indicates that he can now retain a picture of the item in mental form.
Interestingly, however, the manner in which he uses this new capacity will
remain closely tied to his physical experiences for a while.  For instance, if
you hide a toy under a pillow, your baby will look for it and may eventually
find it there.  Then, if you put the toy under a different pillow, even though
he sees you doing it, he may immediately look for the toy under the first
pillow instead.  To him, the act of "finding" is still limited to the initial
experience.  In other words, although your baby will be developing some major
mental abilities, it will take him some time to learn how to use them
effectively in various situations.


     Does this mean my baby will remember everything from now on?

     This does mean that your baby probably will "remember" most of what he
encounters, but he won't "remember" any of it for very long.  The capacity to
retain a mental image in the mind does indicate that the function of memory is
now in place.  At first, however, that memory is extremely short-term.
Consequently, if your baby loses something, he will look for it.  If he
doesn't find it within a few seconds, however, he will forget about it.  With
each passing week, his memory will become a little longer.  Even by the end of
this period, though, the mental images that he forms probably won't hang
around for more than a minute or two.  Keep in mind that this doesn't mean
your baby won't be able to "recognize" things.  He definitely will react in an
appropriate manner to many things with which he is familiar.  However, for the
time being, those things will still have to be directly available to his
senses for the most part in order for his "knowledge" of them to be activated.


     Even though he isn't talking yet, my baby seems to understand some of
what I'm saying to him.  Is this possible, or am I imagining things?

     One of the more common misconceptions about babies is that they don't
start language learning until they start to talk.  The fact of the matter is
that "receptive" language development (understanding spoken words) usually
begins well before "expressive" language development (saying words).  Although
he may not speak for several months yet, sometime between six and eight months
of age your baby will start to understand the meaning of his first words.  By
the time he is a year old, you can expect him to understand up to a couple
dozen words.  These first understood words will relate to things with which he
is very familiar--"bottle," "spoon," "diaper," and his own name are typical
examples.  He also is likely to understand a few simple instructions at this
point, such as "wave bye-bye," "give a kiss," and "stop."


     My baby has started to do a lot of babbling, but he hasn't really said
anything intelligible yet.  Is something wrong?

     Not at all.  Babies are fascinated with sound, whether or not it is
connected to language.  Earlier on, you may have noticed your baby gurgling
and otherwise entertaining himself in his crib.  Now that his ability to make
sounds is getting more refined, he will enjoy producing speechlike
vocalizations, even though he really isn't trying to "say" anything.  Since
he is developing the capacity for imitation as well, you may notice that he's
starting to mimic your voice tones and inflections.  Listening to him
"talking" like this without hearing him say anything intelligible may be
disconcerting.  Keep in mind, however, that at this point he is producing
sounds largely for the purpose of "play" rather than specifically for
communication.


     When can I expect my baby to actually say his first words?

     The normal range for the onset of speech is incredibly large.  Some
babies say their first words at almost the same time that they begin
understanding words (between six and eight months of age).  Others hardly say
anything until they are almost two years old.  As is the case with walking,
parents have a tendency to put more emphasis on this milestone than it really
deserves.  As long as your baby displays an ever-progressing understanding of
words during this period, you should not worry about whether or not he is
speaking.  There is no evidence whatsoever that ultimate levels of language
skill, intelligence, or anything else are tied to the age at which a baby
begins to talk, so try to avoid making inappropriate comparisons between your
baby's performance and that of other children in this regard.


     Since he's now getting around on his own, is my baby becoming less
dependent upon me for emotional support?

     On the contrary.  Your baby is now capable of getting around on his
own--or at least capable of doing so comfortably--because he has you for
emotional support.  Although it may seem like a contradiction on the surface,
the fact is that your baby can begin to move away from you only when he is
confident that you will still "be there" for him when he needs you.  Babies
who are insecurely attached to their parents have a lot of trouble moving out
to explore the world because they lack such trust; instead, they must keep
trying to establish an emotional bond with the key people in their lives.  The
fact that your baby is eagerly venturing out on his own means his bond with
you is strong enough to sustain brief but significant separations.  However,
at this point, the formation of that special bond is still some distance from
being complete.  So while he's certainly going out on his own a lot, you'll
notice that he is rarely going very far for very long.  And while he's
certainly interested in exploring new things, you are still his favorite
target of interaction.


     All of a sudden, our baby has started getting upset when he is approached
by anyone other than us--even by his grandparents.  Is this normal?

     Episodes of this "stranger anxiety" during the second half of the first
year are quite normal, although they are by no means universal.  When babies
first develop social awareness, they tend to be extremely gregarious and
accept approaches from just about anyone.  Now, however, as they strengthen
key emotional bonds and develop a greater sense of social interactions, they
tend to focus on the key people in their lives--typically, their parents.
With many--but not all--babies, this focusing of affection results in a
strong exclusion of almost everyone else.  This produces alarming rejections
which can be quite disturbing to people--such as grandparents--who were
readily accepted just a couple of months earlier.  Whether or not a child
experiences these episodes of stranger anxiety doesn't seem to make a
significant difference in overall development.  In any event, they usually
diminish a great deal and may even disappear completely by the first birthday.


     I've heard that the roots of self-esteem are formed before the first
birthday.  Is this true?

     It certainly is.  What your baby thinks about himself comes primarily
from two sources--what he can do, and what other people think about what he
does.  During this period, your child will be spending a lot of time and
effort struggling to crawl, pull to stand, climb, walk, etc.  Whenever he
finally accomplishes one of these tasks, he will actually feel a sense of
physical relief.  The good feeling that comes with eventually achieving what
he has set out to do is the earliest form of "self-satisfaction."
Furthermore, whenever he achieves one, of these new skills, he usually
witnesses an outpouring of enthusiastic applause and genuine excitement from
his parents.  These parental responses gradually become internalized, and they
serve as the foundation for your baby's "pride" in his own achievements.


WHAT ABOUT BABIES WHO ARE BORN PREMATURE?

     During the past decade or so, medical science has made tremendous strides
in the areas of prenatal and perinatal medicine.  Many premature babies who
previously would not have survived more than a few hours or days are now being
saved.  Unfortunately, it will take a while before psychologists and educators
have enough experience with such children to be equally expert at predicting
their rates and patterns of development during the early years.  Clearly, if
the extent of the prematurity is severe and there are serious physical
deficiencies or complications at birth, there will be directly related
developmental problems.  However, for those children who are essentially
healthy, the picture is a little cloudy.  The research simply is not extensive
enough at this point to make any broad, declarative statements.  The general
consensus among child development specialists, however, is that parents of
premature babies should use their baby's original due date--as opposed to his
actual birth date--as a standard for measuring his progress against the usual
standards and norms.  In other words, if the average age of onset for a
particular ability is eight months of age, and your baby was born two months
premature, you can expect him to achieve that ability somewhere around ten
months of age instead.  Again, this is simply a general rule of thumb.  In
addition, it appears that the older the child gets, the less likely there are
to be any substantial differences between what can be expected of him and what
can be expected of a full-term child, so this rule of thumb may be applicable
for only two or three years.


THE DAWNING OF DEVELOPMENTAL DIVERGENCE

     The abilities that emerge during the first six months of life apparently
are so essential to survival that they hold up remarkably well to changes in
environmental conditions.  In other words, as long as a baby is exposed to
anything resembling a "standard" environment during the first half year, his
developmental progress is not likely to be in jeopardy.  However, during the
second half of the first year, this picture starts to change dramatically.
The optimal development of many skills is clearly sensitive to outside factors
from this point on.  As a result, it is during this period that noticeable
differences in rates and patterns of progress begin to surface fairly
regularly among different groups of children according to gender, race,
ethnicity, etc.  Of course, the debate about whether or not these differences
are largely due to genetic heritage and chromosomal makeup has raged for
decades, and probably will never cease completely.  But research
overwhelmingly indicates that nearly all of these differences can be explained
by such changeable factors as socioeconomic status, cultural traditions, and
child-rearing styles.  For example, perhaps the most consistent gender
difference that has appeared over the years is the fact that the language
development of girls proceeds more quickly than that of boys.  However,
extensive studies have shown that parents routinely talk a lot more to their
female babies than they do to their male babies.  Research also shows that
baby boys tend to suffer more ear infections than do baby girls.  Both of
these factors could have an effect on language development.  Therefore, even
though child-development specialists admit that there are gender, race, and
ethnic differences in development, this does not mean that they accept them as
unalterable.