Ages & Stages of Infants & Toddlers

Birth to Six Months

• Busy learning about her body and the world around her, a baby spends a lot of time working on controlling her head and limbs. Kicks and reaches become more controlled as she grows, and little fingers begin to accurately grasp objects within reach. As baby becomes more coordinated, she begins to roll over and she may scoot on her belly to reach objects just out of reach. By the end of this stage, she may begin to sit with support. Socially, she will use different cries to communicate, and she will smile and coo to engage caregivers. Cognitive development is evidenced as baby plays with her fingers, toes and toys within reach, as she reacts to voices and noisy toys (rattles, bells) and as she turns to look at interesting things.

Six to 12 Months

• This is a period of rapid physical growth. Babies move from sitting with support to crawling and then to pulling up and walking (with or without support). Social-emotional skills also develop rapidly as babies begin to babble with more intent, imitate adult actions, offer and refuse toys, and display strong attachments to caregivers. Separation anxiety often appears at this stage, as baby is strongly attached to his caregivers but lacks confidence that they will return when he cannot see them. Cognitively, language development is rapidly advancing. Babbling becomes more varied, includes more sounds and begins to follow the turn taking pattern observed in adult speech. First words often appear in the later part of this stage. Play includes stacking and nesting toys, picture books, and cause and effect games (especially dropping, rolling and throwing things).

One-Year-Olds

• Play for 1-year-olds reinforces physical, social-emotional and cognitive development. Walking becomes more fun when pushing or pulling something. Fine motor skills mature every time baby pulls off her socks, stacks toys, turns pages in a book, and fills and then dumps containers. By the end of this stage baby should walk very well, run, feed herself and walk up stairs with help. She may enjoy moving on small-wheeled toys. Social-emotional development centers around developing speech and communication skills, imitation, parallel play (sharing and rules are very difficult for most 1-year-olds) and holding adult attention. Cognitively, a 1-year-old keeps busy learning object permanence (things don't disappear when you can't see them), which helps to lessen separation anxiety, perfecting speech (vocabulary increases rapidly at around 18 months), early imaginative play (feeding dolls or fueling trucks for example) and asserting herself with "no" and showing clear toy preferences.

Two-Year-Olds

• A typically developing 2-year-old keeps busy jumping, running, bending over to pick up things and exploring his world. He wants to know the name of everything he picks up, to see what happens when it falls or is thrown, and what his parents use it for. Socially he may be shy or he may seek out others, but sharing and turn taking still provide significant challenges. He wants to do things independently, which can be challenging for caregivers because 2-year-olds typically frustrate easily. Cognitively he should be speaking in two- to three-word phrases, with a rapidly increasing vocabulary. He should start to sing, and he should curiously explore his world.