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Home > My Child > Ages and Stages > Birth to 6 Months > What to Expect


My Child
What to Expect: Birth to 6 Months

Developmental milestones describe what most children are capable of doing at a particular point in time. Developmental milestones also provide a snapshot of the new skills many children will be starting to master in the upcoming months or year. Knowing what children are capable of, and what they will be practicing, can help you provide appropriate experiences to enhance your child's development.

Remember, developmental milestones only provide benchmarks. Each child develops at his or her own pace. So, in any particular child some skills may emerge early, while others may appear later.

If you have any concerns about your child's development, consult your child's physician.



Social

Typically Can:
  • Respond to her own mirror image
  • Offer a toy to another person
  • Smile socially at another person
  • Try to imitate facial expressions and gestures
  • Emerging Skills:
  • Being disturbed by strangers
  • Recognizing the word "no"
  • Being able to "call out" to her parent for help
  • Enjoying interactive games, like peek-a-boo

  • Intellectual

    Typically Can:
  • Enjoy examining and banging objects
  • Remain alert for 2 hours at a time
  • Create changes in objects by looking at them upside down or further away
  • Emerging Skills:
  • Searching for a toy that is covered up
  • Remembering that an object is hidden, and searching for it
  • Looking for a dropped object
  • Beginning to enjoy clowning around
  • Using several senses at once

  • Language

    Typically Can:
  • Cry
  • Coo, chuckle and gurgle when he is happy
  • Begin to make vowel and consonant combinations
  • Utter consonants, such as f, v, th, s, sh, z, m and n
  • Vary volume, pitch and rate of utterance
  • Emerging Skills:
  • Beginning to babble
  • Responding to some words (for example, "no no")
  • Imitating two or three familiar gestures, such as pat-a-cake
  • Turning in response to his name

  • Emotional

    Typically Can:
  • Begin to quiet down on her own after getting upset
  • Express many emotions: sadness, anger, happiness and excitement
  • Check out her parent and touch his face as if memorizing it
  • Show mood changes that tend to be rapid
  • Emerging Skills:
  • Having a special toy that always goes to bed with her
  • Sleeping for longer periods at night

  • Gross Motor

    Typically Can:
  • Lift his head and pull himself to a sitting position when his hand is held
  • Turn from his back to stomach and from stomach to back
  • Turn his head freely
  • Sit with slight support
  • Sit in a chair and bounce
  • Emerging Skills:
  • Taking weight on his feet when he is held in standing position
  • Taking early stepping movements
  • Getting into creeping or crawling position
  • Appearing to be dancing when he straightens one leg at a time in upright position

  • Fine Motor

    Typically Can:
  • Move a toy from hand to mouth
  • Hold toys placed in both his hands
  • Bang a spoon placed in his hand
  • Grasp a table
  • Reach for and grasp objects with his whole hand
  • Emerging Skills:
  • Transferring a toy from one hand to the other
  • Releasing a toy by dropping
  • Throwing a toy purposefully
  • Holding two blocks, and looking for a third
  • Rotating his wrist to turn and manipulate an object
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