The first year of your baby’s life is such an incredible journey of development. From the first coos as an infant to watching them crawl for the very first time, it’s a time full of tremendous growth and change. Delight in your baby’s milestones and join us in a look at the most significant infant development stages from cooing to crawling.
1. Early Milestones: Cooing & Gurgling
Cooing and gurgling are amongst the first milestones in a baby’s development journey. For many parents, these two signs of a baby’s journey towards speech are sweet harbingers of joy.
Beginning in the womb, babies learn to make their very first sounds through cooing and gurgling. Even when they’re not yet able to vocalize, babies express joy, surprise, fear, and contentment through their new sounds.
- Joyous Coos: Babies melt hearts with their soft, joyous coos. The highest-pitched and most melodious of sounds, these coos express delight in a baby’s growing awareness of the external world.
- Hilarious Gurgles: Rich, throaty gurgles, often similar to bubbling water, tend to be less melodious but far more hilarious! They are often produced when babies are enjoying a bath or when they hear a cacophony of noises from their surroundings.
If your baby is cooing and gurgling, congratulations! It is a sure sign that their brain is developing well. Deeper connections are being made—a process that will eventually lead to rich conversations in the near future.
2. New Skills & Achievements: Rolling & Babbling
Achievement Unlocked: Rolling
In the first few months of baby’s life, a major milestone is achieved when they learn to roll. Babies show signs of rolling around as early as three or four months of age, and rolling usually increases in frequency and proficiency in the coming months.
Monitoring the baby’s progress with rolling can give parents and caregivers a great indication of the baby’s physical development. While rolling over only requires a bit of upper body and core strength, it’s an important step for further development. Reaching and pivoting, increasingly important activities in developing motor skills, will be practiced during the process of rolling.
- Encourage baby’s first rolling attempts by placing favorite toys in different sections of the play area or mat.
- Make sure the play space is safe for rolling, with no small objects or sharp surfaces around.
- Watch for signs that baby would like to practice rolling before you lay them down.
Achievement Unlocked: Babbling
Babbling is an incredibly important milestone in the development of a baby’s speaking ability. In the first six months, most babies start making sounds that sound like real language, like “da-da-da” and “ma-ma-ma”. By nine months, they start putting syllables together and making up their own “words”.
These are the foundations for future language learning, and the sounds help baby tune their vocal chords. Parents and caregivers can encourage babbling by making sure that they talk to their baby regularly and imitate baby’s sounds back to them.
- When it’s time for your little one to practice their vocal training, find a quiet space where baby can focus for a few minutes.
- Direct your conversation towards baby and encourage them to vocalize their own sounds back.
- Mimic their sounds and tones, and use bigger and more descriptive words as baby grows more adept at babbling.
3. Momentous Moments: Standing & Stepping
Standing
In life, standing reflects a rewarding moment. It signals that something special has been achieved, or that something new has been realized. Standing serves as an indication, as proof, that the challenges have been met, and that the goal of the journey has been attained. It can also symbolize the begining of the next chapter of your life.
Standing can appear in many different forms and be experienced in various circumstances. It can be physical, like standing to accept a diploma or light a candle during a ceremonial event. It can also be internal, like standing against injustice and oppression for a greater good, or standing up to make a personal sacrifice for someone else.
Stepping
Stepping may refer to those moments of transition in our lives, forging connections between the steps taken, while enabling us to take the next one forward. It marks the progression, the continued development, of our experiences and our lives, ultimately leading to the future that we envision for ourselves.
When we step, we act upon the knowledge we have gained, trusting that our next step will bring us closer to the desired outcome. It symbolizes strength, resolution and growth, reminding us that, with each step that we take, we are capable of setting our sights higher and further.
Our moments of standing and stepping are monumental, and truly indicative of the life journey we have made. In recognizing the great lengths we have gone to reach these milestones, we have the power to appreciate not only what they mean, but what they can become.
4. Amazing Accomplishments: Crawling & Cruising
As soon as your baby starts to feel ready, they’ll start to work on their crawling and cruising abilities! Crawling is a major milestone that helps them develop the coordination and strength they need to explore the world around them.
Crawling takes coordination and practice. To help babies, you can create an area with different textures on the floor for them to practice crawling on, or you can set up a mini obstacle course of cushions and other objects. Most babies learn to crawl between 6 and 10 months.
Once your baby has mastered the skill of crawling, they’re now ready for cruising! Cruising, or walking while holding onto furniture, is a big step for babies, and usually occurs before learning how to walk independently. To encourage your baby to cruise, set up toy stations along furniture in the house and see if they are able to pull themselves up while reaching to grab their toys. As they practice, babies will develop the strength and balance in their legs they need to walk independently.
Whether your little one is crawling or cruising, they are reaching new milestones. Celebrate the amazing accomplishments they have achieved and keep encouraging them along the way.
- To practice crawling: create an area with different textures on the floor for them to practice on
- To encourage cruising: set up toy stations along furniture in the house
Raising an infant brings its own set of unique joys and milestones. It can be a roller-coaster ride of learning and discovery as parents explore these moments with their children. From cooing to crawling, these early stages of infant development are unforgettable experiences that cement the bond between parent and child.
