Development in the first year of life: This is how you can support your baby
The first year of life is an unforgettable time for all parents. Every day your little darling takes new development steps. And little by little, an infant becomes a toddler. We show you the most important milestones and tell you how you can support your baby in its development.
From birth, the nerve cells in your baby’s brain pick up many different signals and information that reach them via the sensory organs. Networks and patterns are created through which your child learns new things over and over again. In our infographic we show you the exciting milestones of the first year of life:
This is how you can support the development in the first year of life
Good body awareness is important for babies. You can encourage this learning process by stimulating your little one’s sense of touch and balance. This can be done, for example, with a loving baby massage. Here your baby trains to consciously use its muscles – for example by pushing itself against the caressing hand.
Position your offspring on a soft surface often in a prone position. This stimulates the head, neck and shoulder muscles. Your baby will learn to turn, roll and crawl faster. However, the child should never be left alone in the prone position and the amount of time should only be increased very slowly – from about a few seconds for a newborn to 20 minutes a day for a three or four month old baby.
Strengthen muscles through gripping exercises
However, many babies do not like to lie on their stomach at first, and an interesting toy can distract them. This should be small enough to be gripped with one hand so that your little darling can use the other hand to support himself if necessary. The grip strengthens the muscles in your neck, arm, and hand while improving eye-hand coordination.
At around two months old, your child will begin to track objects with their eyes. For example, holding a toy in their line of sight and slowly moving it to the side helps develop their eyesight while strengthening their neck muscles. Finger games are well suited to train your baby’s fine motor skills.
Colorful toys train the senses
From the third month you can support your child’s sensory development with colorful objects, motor skills toys and pictures as well as mobiles. Anything baby can grab or shake will help improve motor skills. Especially objects with different textures or high-contrast patterns and things that make noise are perfect for playing at this age.
If you hold a cuddly toy or toy in your child’s field of vision and they reach for it, it improves their depth perception and strengthens their arm and hand muscles. Play trapezes also encourage your baby in this way.
The baby interprets gestures and facial expressions
Every mother talks to her baby even though it can’t speak yet. From the sixth month you can look forward to hearing answers in the form of sounds in your “conversations”. Your offspring will now be able to interpret facial expressions and gestures and thus learn the meaning of words such as mum or dad – even if it will take a while to learn to speak. From now on, please use important words more often and in the correct context.
From the seventh month, hide-and-seek games are a great way to stimulate the senses. Make items disappear and reappear. Your child will follow this event with fascination. Now larger objects and toys are also great tools to strengthen the muscles evenly. From this age you can also start to get your baby into the “starting position” for crawling. Put a toy a little farther away so your baby starts moving around the room more.