My husband and I decided that the lists of developmental milestones are useful for generating ideas of new games to play with our baby. When we saw on a list, grabs toes, we put on the little socks with the animal head rattles on and watched our baby play with the rattles and then continue to be obsessed with his toes for days thereafter. When we read that he was supposed to recognize his own name, we abandoned nicknames for a week or so, and called him his name whenever we interacted with him until we were sure he knew that word meant him. We don't really believe in tummy time (his head is nicely round, because he's in arms most of the day, and our bed just isn't that hard), but we would occasionally give him a shot at it to see if he did anything from the lists. Eventually he rolled himself over onto his tummy. Some of his cousins walked early, so we held him upright and enjoyed feeling him push off our laps or the ground and noticed over time that he required less support and less assistance with stabilization. We sat him up in our laps and noticed over time that one hand would hold him up, then just a finger -- then promptly went back to two hands when he started to lunge in the direction of interesting things.
When each of these things happened is of enough interest to us that we wrote down the first time we noticed each of them in our baby log (which we also use to communicate when he's not feeling well and any symptoms he's displaying, and more notable elimination moments, partly to remember, and partly to communicate between parents and other caregivers).
Most, if not all, of Teddy's cousins on his father's side walked very early. Two of them could stand with assistance at less than one month of age. While Teddy started bicycling his legs early, he did not have that much strength in his legs for more than two months. However, knowing that his cousins had walked so early, and knowing that his aunt had taken some pains to encourage this clear ability, was entirely too tempting for us to leave alone. Both of us and both of his regular caregivers made sure he had all the help he wanted with both walking and crawling from an early age.
Crawling was not something he was particularly interested in learning. He'd sort of lunge from a downward-facing-dog stance and get a few inches, but we had to work to communicate the mechanics of crawling to him. It took me weeks to realize that he had more than enough strength in his upper body and lower body, he just wasn't co-ordinated enough on his knees. Once we helped him understand (by helping him kneel), he worked out the rest quite rapidly afterwards. (Had it down at six months and a weekish.)
Based on this experience, it is clear to me now that crawling is not natural at all. A number of people (some of whose children never crawled) kept advocating that if we put him with other babies who were crawling, he'd learn it from them. I respect the idea, but he had plenty of examples of how to crawl; we all spent a lot of time on the floor with him crawling. While crawling is a great form of locomotion, it is orthagonal to learning to walk. This is particularly obvious since Teddy has figured out how to pull himself from sitting to standing, then let go with one hand and then another, wobbling in place holding a toy, before dropping back to his butt to start the process over again. (This is at six and a half months.) It's quite fun to watch him try to park a toy in his mouth so he has it to play with while standing. He particularly likes the side of the moses/toy basket or my leg to pull up (or push off). He'll happily grasp a finger or hand, but wants to let it go and will resist it if you try to hold onto his hand. He definitely wants to do this himself, whereas with crawling, he just wanted to get somewhere, and was perfectly happy being picked up and taken there.
Shortly before Teddy was seven months old, he started cruising: using the furniture to slowly shuffle along in a walk. He did this towards the end of a cold we had all had. He was very tired during this time, and would stand next to furniture and hold a toy in his hand and shake it or manipulate it (or, of course, chew on it). Prior to this, he had never really shaken any of the rattles.
Shortly before Teddy was eight months old, he was cruising quickly, and sometimes one handedly. He also liked to stand next to the trunks and beat out a rhythm in exchange with child care. Child care also introduced him to bubbles, which he loved to do all of the things with that small children love to do to bubbles.
While he can take one step unassisted, no one has seen him manage two in a row. He is getting progressively more shy with people he has not seen in a few weeks, and will literally hide behind my skirt when I wear one. Given some time to remember or grow accustomed to a new person, however, he is still friendly.
Teddy did start taking two steps in a row shortly after he was eight months old. By the time he was eight and a half months old, he was toddling all over the living and dining rooms. He'd sit down abruptly every little bit, but get right back up again and continue.
By nine months, Teddy was walking on grass outside, as well as up and down the hallway in our apartment building. He can cross threshholds as long as he slows down a little bit. He likes to walk around with a box in his hands, and some small toy in the box, shaking the combination up and down. I offer Teddy one end of a bit of ribbon when we go walking in the hallway. He'll grab it and toddle past the exciting detritus in our front hall with relatively no interest. He'll generally hold on and follow where I lead, except the neighbor's plant is a little too interesting. Sometimes he wants to knock on doors, which I let him do on the door to the stairs, the trash chute and the telecom closet (don't want to disturb our neighbors too much).
Because he cannot be relied upon to hold onto the ribbon, or even to stick close to me, and because chasing after a baby near cars or in an airport is a dangerous or at least tricky proposition, I am seriously contemplating buying a baby harness (aka leash, aka walking reins). This is something I've heard a lot of people mock, but I remember looking really useful for parents when I was younger. I'd rather he didn't get used to being rolled (in a stroller or a car) everywhere he goes; I'd like to be able to go hiking with him and he'll need some exercise to have the stamina. Also, he gets very, very antsy in the stroller, but we currently live in a city (and will probably always live on or near a road) which makes it tricky to go walking with him from the house without a way to keep him out of trouble. I'm still trying to determine the source of the venom with which the baby harness is viewed (after all, the harness to keep a kid in a stroller, high chair or car seat is not view with such loathing, and he can't even more in those things).
Teddy knows the routine of getting up in the morning well enough that I can sometimes set him down on the floor by our bed, and follow him out to the living room, through the gate, shut it behind us, without having to pick him up at all, despite the attractions of open doors to the den and the bathroom (other days, they are too appealing).
At nine and a half months, we visited our house in Brookline, NH, which has a basement and an upstairs, in addition to the ground floor. Teddy finally got a real crack at going up stairs. It took him a couple tries, but he made it all the way up without stopping, or requiring any assistance (other than the minimum don't let him fall down the stairs, of course). A very nice cross-crawl.
For this trip, I did indeed buy a baby harness, which was hugely helpful in the airport terminals, allowing Teddy to ramble, without being too treacherous. We did hear a lot of commentary on the harness; the vast majority of it was extremely positive.
At ten months, we started taking him to the wading pool, where he was very cautious, but quite able to walk in the water. Mostly, however, he wanted to flirt with the other people, investigate the other children, and play with any available toys, independent of ownership.
Shortly before Teddy was six months old, his father was quite certain he'd heard him say, "I want Mama" (minus some consonants, but we understand other imperfect pronunciation of English; why not here?). About three weeks later, even skeptical folk chalking this up to all-new-parents-think-their-firstborn-is-amazing (that would be me, being skeptical) could easily recognize at least the Mama part. Any attention context made it obvious he knew exactly who and what he wanted.
By about eight months, anyone willing to pay attention and allow for the undeveloped soft palate could clearly make out: hello, hi, mama, dada. With a bit more willingness to believe, you can also make out a few other words.
Teddy's understanding of what we said to him has been good. When he learned up/down, he'd stand and squat whenever he heard those words to demonstrate he nderstood. Playing the where's your X game clearly demonstrated he knew toes, feet, shoes, shirt, butt, penis, head, eyes, nose, ears (altho he seemed to confuse ear and hair sometimes). His willingness to use words to get us to do stuff has been limited to non-existent. Well past 18 months, his preferred method of getting just about anything was to get as close to it as he could and grunt loudly until we delivered the goods. He would echo back a word if it was something he wanted (juice and ketchup being perennial favorites). He also echoed back other words when he first learned them, then we wouldn't hear them again for months (or haven't yet, anyway). However, he is slowly starting to use some words to indicate he wants something (usually repeating them back when asked if it is something he wants).
At 20 months, the list of words actually used with some regularity includes: juice, snack, hi, no, mama, up, down, one, two, three, whee, ball, doll, dog, block, out, towel, balm (as in, butt balm) and ow (if that is a word) as well as meow, huff (woof), a monkey sound and moo. Teddy's very friendly. If he's around people, hi is probably the most frequent word. If he's just around family, no beats hi.
Betwen eight and a half and nine months, Teddy started waving and saying bye, or bye bye bye bye bye.
One day, when I was scribbling on a piece of paper with a square crayon (I've been trying to get Teddy interested in scribbling), we were going through the usual, no, you can't put the crayon in your mouth drill. He'd take the crayon, I'd block his mouth, I'd take the crayon and scribble some more. Then I stopped letting the crayon come up off the paper and he got frustrated because he couldn't force me to let go. Teddy is now old enough (and has teeth enough) that biting can really hurt. But he didn't bite me. He reached over, grabbed a ball, handed it to me, and then reached for the crayon. Essentially, he did The Swap to me. We stopped scribbling for the day, because I was so impressed I felt we should go have fun doing something more interesting to him.
In the course of Teddy's second year, I found myself listing options, especially when trying to get him to get out of bed in the morning and go play with his papa while I get a little uninterrupted sleep. The list usually involves a series of food options, toy options and, if all of those fail, Blue's Clues. I know when I've succeeded because he unlatches and runs out of the room with a huge grin on his face. I then have to yell to his papa what it was that he thinks he's getting so papa can make sure he gets it.
Once Teddy had stairs down, he wasn't very interested in additional climbing. He figured out how to climb up into his chair (Stokke Kinderzeat) shortly after we bought it for him (around 14 months or so). He needed a step stool to climb up into the Learning Tower until he was 18 months old. About a month after he'd figured out how to climb up, he finally came up with a way to get back down. Shortly after that, he was climbing down the stairs standing up (he'd been climbing up the stairs standing up for several months), usually holding someone's hand, but sometimes just leaning against the wall. Around 20 months, he figured out how to sit down on an edge (of the Learning Tower or couch or whatever) and drop down onto his feet. Once he went to the playground again at that age, he was willing to try climbing any of the playstructures there (not always safely). We had a slide in our living room during the winter of 2006/2007. In December, he could climb up the steep stairs, but needed help to get his legs in position to slide down. By February, he could do it all by himself safely and quickly.
Copyright 2006 by Rebecca Allen
Created March 7, 2006 Updated April 27, 2007