Babies 4 to 12 months

It is a good time to baby-proof your home to avoid preventable accidents for your young explorer.

At four months, your baby’s eyesight will start to improve – as well as his/her hand-eye coordination, allowing the grasping of objects. By one year, even a mobile over the crib could be a choking hazard.

WellStar can help you keep your baby’s first year healthy with well baby checkups and screenings.

Milestones

Around four months, your baby will discover the principle of cause and effect: that some things, such as bells and keys, make interesting sounds when moved or shaken.

• Finds partially hidden object
• Explores with hands and mouth
• Struggles to get objects that are out of reach
• Rolls both ways
• Sits with and without support of hands
• Supports whole weight on legs
• Reaches with one hand
• Transfers object from hand to hand
• Uses raking grasps
• Enjoys social play
• Interested in mirror images
• Responds to expressions of emotion
• Often appears joyful

Soon your baby will make another major discovery: that objects continue to exist when they’re out of sight—a principle called object permanence. Infants assume that the world consisted only of things that she could see: when you left the room, you vanished; when you returned, you were a whole new person.

But sometime after four months, your baby begins to realize that the world is more permanent. The block that you hid under the can did not actually vanish after all. By playing hiding games like peek-a-boo and observing the comings and goings of people and things around him/her, your baby will continue to learn about object permanence for many months to come.

8 to 12 month Milestones

• Gets into sitting position without help
• Crawls forward on belly
• Assumes hands-and-knees position
• Gets from sitting to crawling position
• Pulls self up to stand
• Shy or anxious with strangers
• Cries when parents leave
• Enjoys imitating people in play
• Prefers certain people and toys
• Tests parental response
• Finger-feeds himself
• Walks holding on to furniture
• Explores objects in different ways
• Finds hidden objects easily
• Looks at correct picture when the image is named
• Imitates gestures
• Begins to use objects correctly