Supporting Your Baby's Developments
Choose a timetable
Baby Month 12 – What to Expect
Your baby is a year old, a toddler. At this point in your lives, you and your baby now share a special bond. You know what your child’s likes and dislikes are. You are able to communicate with your baby, and you can’t remember life without your baby. At this point in life your baby can:
- Shake her head ‘no’
- Crawl
- Walk (some babies may still need a little help for the next month or two with this)
- Dance to music
- Has an interest in books
- Likes to explore and open and shut cabinet doors
- Climbs on toys and furniture
- Will give up toys to others without a huge argument (a few months ago you may as well have been trying to take baby’s arm as take a toy that baby is playing with)
- Is afraid of strangers
- Understands and follows simple, one step commands—is branching out into two step commands
- Forms attachments with items, like teddies, blankets and comforters
- Shares belongings for short periods of time
- Feeds self but is messy
- Will let you know when they are done with food/drinks instead of trying to devour everything in front of them
What to do
Use the timetable below to support their developments and avoid developmental delays.
hOW TO SUPPORT Baby's DEVELOPMENTS
If baby is not standing and starting to talk a few steps, hold her hands and encourage her to walk with you. This will strengthen her leg muscles, so that she is able to walk independently in no time.
Baby will enjoy doing the same things over and over and over again as each attempt will reveal a new dicovery. As her memory is not very strong yet, rotate her toys giving her different ones to play with every day to maintain interest. Also show her different ways of using the same things. Make small towers and short towers from blocks etc.
Give baby access to paints, pens and show her how to make marks on a paper. If using paints make sure they are not toxic. Give her small toys to manipulate in her hands but not small enough to fit in her mouth. Try different foods too that she can feed herself.
All baby’s senses are fully active now, she will be taking in information and learning very quickly. She will not be having as many naps as before and want to stay awake, but will get cranky when tired. Help her by setting up regular nap times and reducing excitement before these times.
Baby understands what you are saying more easily now. Develop this understanding further by talking to her regularly, repeating instructions during the day, so that her ears build up a familiarity.
Baby will start to develop a clinginess to the immediate people around her. If you would like her to become more relaxed in the company of others, attend playgroups, or parent and toddler groups, so that she comes in contact with more children and adults to develop confidence.
Baby is now starting to experiment and see how things work. She may deliberately do things to see what happens. For example, she may grab hair and be told off, but then do it again to see if she gets told off again. She may drop something on the floor, which you pick up, then drops it again to see if you will pick it up again.
Baby’s knowledge and understanding continues to develop as she experiences new things and experiements with the things around her. She uses all her 5 senses of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling now to gather knowledge. Take her outside, rotate her toys and give her new experiences to learn from.
10 – 12 Months
Continue to use the resources from 10-12 months too as well as the resources below.
Take a walk
Strengthen baby’s arms and legs by standing them between your legs, while you are sitting and bounce them gently on their feet.
Bubble Wrap Dance
Play some music with a beat, holding baby’s hands, let her bounce on her feet to the beat. Or let her bounce in a walker etc.
Post it Pleasure
Stick post it notes on the wall and get your baby to stretch for them to grab them. Give them lots of encouragement to reach them all.
Chunky chalks
Thick, chunky chalk are great for making marks on sidewalks and pavements outside. Show your baby how to use them, then let them create their materpieces.
Finger Foods
Baby is able to co-ordinate herself more now, so encourage her to feed herself finger foods that she can hold in her hand. Supervise her to avoid choking.
Insert boards
Like jigsaws, insert boards require baby to pick up pieces and insert them into a board to make the picture or fit into a gap. These can take a few months to get used to.
How interesting
Teach your child new words, like parts of their body, by pointing to them and saying the word. So point to their leg and say ‘leg’, and repeat over the weeks.
New Situations
Expose your child to new environments and new situations that they can learn about.
Treasure box
Give baby a box of goodies and tempt her to open the treasure box, by showing her what’s inside.
Heuristic play
Babies are fascinated by the natural world around them. Gather twigs, pinecones, pebbles etc. for baby to explore. Make sure they have been sterilised for safety.
Spaghetti Fun
cooked spaghetti is fun to play with. It’s long, slippery and safe when cooked, for babies to play with. Boil up pasta pieces too, to add variety and differnt textures.
Baby Slide
Help your slide experience different sensations like sliding down a slide.
Yes - nodding
Animated speech or sign language is great for teaching babies language at such a young age. Use actions they can copy too.
Saying Please
Manners make children more sociable and appear friendlier. Teach them words like please and thank you to get started.
No thank you
Shake your head when saying ‘no’. and start using sign language to develop simple communications.
Drink, Tired
The sooner your baby can express their feelings, the better for you both, to stop the guessing.
Hello Goodbye
Teach your child common greetings to make them more sociable. start with the obvious ‘hello and bye’.
Social Interactions
Encourage interactions with others to develop social skills. Take baby to play groups etc.
Board Books
Board books are a great way to get your baby engaged in books because many have squeakers and buttons to press.
Making Big Puzzles
Talk about the pieces of the big puzzles pieces as they magically make pictures as they are put together.
Flying Blanket
Don’t have a flying carpet? Then here we have the next best thing – a flying blanket. Take your baby for a ride and teach new words.
