Further Reading

Your baby's movement abilities are rapidly growing, particularly in the spine and neck area. They've progressed from reflex-based movements to having more control over their body and making more deliberate moves while playing. Your baby may also be enjoying tummy time, which enables them to strengthen their spine and neck muscles while also offering them more control over their head movements. 

Your baby is now more active than before and is starting to control their movements. They will be eager to explore their environment, but haven’t yet got the skills to squeeze and poke with their fingers to learn about objects. However, their mouths are full of nerves that tell them if something is soft or hard, cold or hot, and more. This makes their mouth perfect for exploring themselves and objects.^[1]  

Your toddler will have had lots of experiences sharing books and rhymes now and might have a few favourites that they ask you to share over and over again. This repetition will help them to remember their favourite stories and rhymes and they will begin to join in with parts of their favourite stories and rhymes.

Your toddler has been exploring and learning about the objects around them for some time now. Through this experience, they will be noticing some similarities and differences and might begin to group objects together based on a characteristic they can easily identify. 

Your toddler has been exploring objects and has started to use objects as tools to solve a problem. Now, when they play you might notice they seem to have more of a goal in mind and will select particular toys linked to this goal.  

Your baby’s physical skills are continuing to develop and now they will be able to move to objects they would like to explore. Their growing confidence in their ability to move also gives them opportunities to explore objects in different ways. They can bring one object to another and look at an object from different perspectives and so add to their understanding of objects.  

Your baby has been exploring objects in different ways and has started to explore what they can do with objects. Now, as their cognitive skills develop, they sometimes have a particular goal in mind when they play and will use ‘tools’ to help them achieve this goal.  

Your baby will have been exploring objects for some time, first by bringing objects to their mouth, then by looking at objects before bringing them to their mouth for further exploration! As their physical skills develop, your baby will have more ways to find out about toys and objects. They will be able to look at an object, touch it, explore what happens when they hold or move it and bring it to their mouth. This exploration allows your baby to bring together information from their senses and develop their understanding of the things around them. 

When they were born your baby focused best on people and objects that were close to them, around 20-30 cm away. Now, their vision is becoming clearer and they can focus on things that are further away. They can also control their posture and eye movements so are more able to watch what is happening around them.  

Your toddler is now able to say a lot more words and may have started to put two words together. They are starting to understand key phrases such as ‘all gone’ and can use them in context. They are starting to communicate for different purposes, such as requesting information and expressing feelings/attitudes.