If you have a busy baby at home, you’ve probably spent the last several months on your toes, never letting your little one out of your sight because of their newfound freedom of mobility. Chasing after your 6 to 9-month-old during their significant developmental spurt was a marathon, but don’t take off your running shoes just yet! Between 9 and 12 months old, your baby’s gross motor development accelerates even further!
So, let’s dive in and explore what usually happens to ramp up your baby’s gross motor skills between 9 and 12 months old! Ready, set, go!
Taking a Stand
For your baby, standing with your help or using furniture is a thing of the recent past (6 to 9 months). Now, your little one can stand without assistance and maintain their standing position for longer periods, thanks to developing the necessary muscle strength to stand on their own.
Having gained the ability to maintain balance using their upper body strength, your baby can now most likely pull themselves to a standing position and sit back down after standing. While doing that, your baby might appear to do a wobbly dance as they are still in the process of developing good head control and muscular strength to pull this sit-stand-sit routine.
Walk the Line
Your baby may also wobble while trying to take their first steps. Their walking will become steadier as your baby learns to better maintain their balance, which requires excellent coordination skills.
Make sure to offer plenty of encouragement to your little ninja when they lose their balance initially and fall. Teaching your baby early on that falling is acceptable will teach them to pull themselves back up and carry on. Normalizing the learning process in this way isn’t just great emotional support, it’s also a wonderful life lesson!
A Crawl to Remember
As your baby progresses through the crawling craze, they might also try what is known as a “Bear crawl,” by walking on all fours using their hands and legs while lifting their knees off the ground. Not all babies go through this bear crawling phase, so it’s completely normal if your baby doesn’t.
During the crawling craze, your baby might also try crawling up and down the stairs. Crawling up the stairs is a lot easier than crawling back as, for going down, they need to comprehend the reverse direction of the crawl, use their hip and leg muscles to rotate themselves, and navigate through to the end.
Babies start with crawling up on a staircase and then figure their way to return as well. Ensure the stairs are safe to use or create make-do stairs with cushions, eliminating as many hazards as possible. This love for stairs helps your baby further strengthen their neck, arm, and leg muscles, along with more opportunities to improve on maintaining balance and refining coordination.
Squat to Trot
Everyone knows that squatting makes for a good workout, but to do so for the first time in life, babies need to gather all their strength in the arms, legs, and trunk to maintain their balance. Your baby will practice the kneeling squat to pick items up after dropping them and eventually may just squat for fun before returning to a standing position.
As your baby learns to maintain balance and coordination using different body muscles to assume the squatting position, they can more aptly take other positions from sitting and standing to rolling and crawling.
Dancing to the Beat
Grooving to the rhythm of music is also something your baby will start to enjoy during this time. Dancing not only helps further the development of gross motor skills but also nurtures self-expression and emotional development.
Your baby nearing their first birthday is an exciting and emotional journey for parents. Watching as your little one accomplishes so many wonderful things demonstrates great developmental success for both you and your baby. While progressing through gross motor skills development is an incremental journey, your love and support always play a vital part in their development.
- National Center for Biotechnology Information: The Development of Motor Behavior
- National Center for Biotechnology Information: Learning to Crawl
- National Center for Biotechnology Information: Developmental Continuity? Crawling, Cruising, and Walking
- National Center for Biotechnology Information: Developmental of the Forward Parachute Reaction and the Age of Walking in Near Term Infants – A Longitudinal Observational Study
Back
