Child development: 6-9 months
development; child; social; emotional; physical; hearing; speech; language; baby; six; months; nine; 9; 6; seven; 7; 8; eight; move; talk ;
Contents
You and your baby are starting to feel (and act) like separate people. She is starting to sit up, reach out and act on the world. She worries that you might not come back when you go away from her and lets you know it. She will really respond to you providing lots of things to look at, touch and safely put in her mouth.
Time playing on her tummy on the floor will strengthen her back and get her legs into crawling mode.
Social and emotional development
There are some big emotional and physical developments in your baby that you will notice between 6 and 9 months. Your baby is becoming able to move around and take a much more active part in family life.
- Firstly and most importantly, she begins to realize she is a separate person surrounded by her own skin and finishing at her hands and feet. She no longer experiences floating in a sea of feelings and needs where the outside and the inside are all mixed together, instead she begins to feel she has an outside and an inside and to know where the boundary of the outside is. She will start to understand that you are separate from her, and it will worry her when she can't see you or feel you nearby.
- Secondly, her insides feel more organized to her. She begins to recognize and identify her own feelings and that they are different. For instance she may know the difference between feeling hungry and feeling lonely and may be able to give you some clue as to whether she wants food or a cuddle. She knows this because you have helped her to recognize different feelings by responding to her hunger with food and her loneliness with cuddles etc.
- She will begin to have desires of her own, simple things she knows she wants, like wanting to hold an object or wanting to be picked up immediately. Her desires may not always be the same as yours and for the first time you may feel yourself clash with her tiny will!
- She will, in the course of these months, come to recognize the important, familiar people in her world and therefore become sensitive to strangers. By 9 months she will be shy with strangers, and for a while she might not even want to be too close to people she knows, such as her grandparents. However, it is a very sociable age and she will love to be talked to and played with.
Physical development
He will put everything in his mouth. His lips and tongue are the most sensitive part of his body and will give him lots of information about texture, shape and taste. Also, you can swallow some bits of the world but not others and he is just learning this!
- He will start to take some mashed solids around this time, and later some soft finger food such as toast, [under your supervision].
- At first it is hard for him to work out the eating action because he is used to sucking, so keeping the food inside his mouth can be a challenge!
- Just because the mashed pumpkin gets spat out does not necessarily mean he hates it, he just may not yet have got the hang of keeping it inside his mouth.
- Different textures feel very strange to him at first.
The topic 'Feeding your baby' has more ideas about helping him to learn to manage these different tastes and textures.
At some time during these four months he will be able to:
- roll over, front to back and back to front
- sit alone for a few moments when you put him into a sitting position, then manage to sit by himself without falling over
- do push ups when on his tummy, ie lift his head and chest off the floor and support himself on outstretched arms
- then start to move while on his tummy, first 'commando' style ie pulling himself along on his arms, then crawl on all fours
- reach for a rattle and shake it
- swap a toy from one hand to the other
- find his feet, play with them and put them in his mouth.
Seeing
His eye muscles will be working well and he will be able to focus on small objects. He also develops a perception of depth and therefore can be afraid of heights and falling. By 9 months he can not only see a step but understand that it is scary.
Hearing
He will turn towards familiar sounds and voices and want to make sounds himself, not only verbally but by banging objects together.
Speech and language
While she has been cooing and babbling for many weeks her sounds will now take on a closer resemblance to real words.
- She enjoys making sounds and she knows that she has made them.
- She will experiment with, and copy, different sounds like clicks and lip bubbles as well as her word-like sounds.
- She will use lots of different sounds to express different emotions; frustrated grunts, squeals and chortles of delight are all in her repertoire.
- She will listen to you carefully when you speak to her, and she will try to talk back to you using her babbling sounds.
- She will probably be putting a vowel and a consonant together as in "muum", or "bubbub".
- She might say 'ma-ma-ma' because she can, rather than because she understands that this sound is a word she can use when she wants her mother. Even though it may still be accidental these same sounds will be repeated as she works out how to make the noises.
Activities for the 6-9 month old
He loves to touch and grasp and to 'make things happen', ie make things shake or bang or move towards him. These activities are not only great fun but also help him to understand that he has an effect on the world, he can DO things to it. If we want our children to be able to act in the world when they are grown up, this is very important.
Conceptually he is learning about up and down as well as coming and going and he will love to play games that act these things out.
He will love to:
- have you talk to him
- have you look into his eyes
- lie on his back and grab his feet
- lie on his tummy and reach for a brightly coloured toy or piece of paper
- have you play "here is your nose - here is mummy's nose"
- drop his toy from the highchair or pusher endlessly and delight in watching you pick it up
- play 'ahh boo' as you bring your face quickly down to his tummy.
- play 'peek-a-boo' as you hide your face behind a book or cloth and say his name when you come out.
At this age, although they want things that they can hold and shake and drop, and put into their mouth, babies still need most of all to be with and to interact with people, especially their parents and other people who are close to them such as their brothers and sisters and grandparents. People are much more interesting than things.
Alert!
You should check with a health professional, if by nine months your child is not:
- sitting up without help by 8 to 9 months
- smiling and laughing out loud
- grasping, holding and shaking things
- reaching out for objects and putting them into their mouth
- turning towards you when you call their name
- beginning to try some 'solid' foods
- making lots of different sounds.
Your child may be progressing quite normally, but most babies can do these things by 9 months.
Summary
Social emotional
A baby usually:
- knows familiar people, starts to withdraw from strangers
- begins to turn around when his name is called
- starts to become anxious if primary caregiver is out of sight
- stretches up her arms to be picked up
- initiates gestures such as cough, poking out tongue.
There may be a problem if a baby:
- does not show pleasure when she sees familiar people
- is not making eye contact
- cannot be reassured by mother or close carer.
Motor skills
A baby usually:
- sits without support by 8 -9 months
- starts to move around by 8 months (rolling, creeping)
- takes objects to mouth by 6 months.
There may be a problem if a baby:
- is not sitting by 9 months
- holds his body stiff and cannot be put in a sitting position
- is not interested in, and reaching for, objects by 8 months.
Daily activity
A baby usually:
- can hold a bottle to drink
- can start to drink from a cup, which is held by an adult, by 6-8 months
- holds a spoon - but cannot use it, by 7 months
- begins to try some 'solid' foods.
Understanding
A baby usually:
- looks for a fallen object by 7 months
- plays 'peek-a-boo' games
- cannot understand 'no' or 'danger'.
There may be a problem if a baby:
- does not recogise mother
- does not show interest in surroundings.
Speech and language
A baby usually:
- babbles by 6-7 months making one and two syllable sounds eg 'dada'
- listens to a person speaking, then 'answers' in babbling sounds.
There may be a problem if a baby:
- does not babble or make other sounds when someone talks to him.
Allen K and Marotz L, "Developmental Profiles" Delmar Publishing 1999.
Lingam S and Harvey D, "Manual of Child Development" Churchill Livingston 1988.
The information on this site should not be used as an alternative to professional care. If you have a particular problem, see a doctor, or ring the Parent Helpline on 1300 364 100 (local call cost from anywhere in South Australia).
This topic may use 'he' and 'she' in turn - please change to suit your
child's sex.