Before your baby turns one, you probably can’t wait to know when your little cherub should reach these major milestones, so you don’t miss a thing! But it’s important to remember not all babies are the same and you should expect your child to hit their first-year milestones at their own pace. Some babies may say their first word at nine months, while others might not speak until they have turned one. With this is mind, here’s our guide of what your baby may be doing during their first year…
1-3 Months
During the first stages of a baby’s life their body and brain is learning to adapt to the great big scary world! You can expect:
- Smiles: After a few months of sleepless nights you have probably witnessed a lot of tears. But at around the 2 month mark, you can expect your baby to be smiling in response to you! This can be triggered by your voice, or just them seeing you and it is the most heart-warming, loveliest experience!
- Tracking Objects: Your baby will begin to follow things with their eyes and recognise people at a distance.
- Open and closes hands: I loved when this happened with Katie as it felt like she wanted to hold my hand.
- Different cries for different needs – you will start to notice that different cries from your baby mean different things, for example them needing a nappy change, or being hungry or unwell.
4-6 months
- Laughter: this was one of my favourite first baby milestones for Katie, especially after all the crying! Her laughter was one of the sweetest sounds I have ever heard and it was mostly triggered by tickling and games of peek-a-boo!
- Reaching for Objects: during this stage you must be very alert as they’re grabbing for everything, most of which are things they shouldn’t be! Katie always grabbed my hair, so I had to tie it in a ponytail!
- Roll over from front to back, or back to front: with Katie she mastered front to back rolling first!
- Babble: at this stage your baby will start to make sounds which sound like they are trying to have a conversation with you.
- Sit up with Support: just be careful they don’t fall backwards.
- Sleeping through the night: when Katie had her first full-nights sleep at 5 months old, it was one of the best night’s of my life as I woke up not needing five cups of coffee! Although it wasn’t every night, just a few of these was pure bliss!
7 to 9 months
- Crawling: some babies may skip crawling altogether, but if your baby does crawl they should do so around 8 months old. At this stage you need to be on full alert in order to keep your little explorer safe!
- Sit without support: you may want to be on close-hand to catch them though!
- Respond to familiar words: During this stage Katie started responding to her name and she also understood the word ‘No’.
- Playing Games: we enjoyed playing peek-a-boo and Katie also loved to clap along to music!
- Pointing: Katie kept pointing at lots of different things, especially the lights and also our dog Lottie! Katie also started to wave when I used the words ‘bye-bye’.
10 to 12 months
The last developmental stage of a baby’s first year is something you won’t forget as they start to act more like a toddler.
- Control over hands and fingers: Your baby will now be ready to feed themselves (although very messily)! However it won’t be just food they like to pop into their mouths so be careful what they are reaching out for!
- Banging and Shaking: I remember having a headache quite a lot during this time as Katie loved to bang her cup on the table and also throw things too!
- Say a few words: You can expect one to three spoken words by your little ones first birthday, mama and dada being the most common. When Katie called my name it melted my heart and was music to my ears!
- Taking their first steps: some babies can start to walk as they reach the age of one years old, but don’t worry if they don’t. The normal range is anywhere from 9 to 17 months.
Just remember to watch your child closely and enjoy the ride! It is one of the best journeys you will ever experience!
