You just celebrated your baby’s first birthday and are amazed how quickly the time went by. Your little one is a toddler now and will experience a self of own and enjoy being more independent. This newfound confidence to do things by self comes from improved motor skills – both fine and gross motor.
Let’s look at the fine motor developmental milestones that your toddler will achieve between 12 and 18 months:
Holding a Cup: Your toddler will be able to hold and drink from a cup during this time. It typically begins while weaning off the bottle onto sippy cups. Brace yourself for many messes as the refinement of muscle strength, coordination, and motor skills lead to your baby drinking from open cups.
Self-Feeding: Close to 18 months of age, babies will have mastered self-feeding with their hands and fingers. As the dexterity further develops, you can introduce spoons for practice. They will also be able to pick up small pieces of food on their own. You can help them by giving your baby finger food to pick up small food pieces to eat independently.
Stacking Blocks: Your baby’s building skills will truly blossom during this time, as they can stack three or more blocks into a tower. Mastering the 3-block stacking skill is a feat of dexterity and coordination.
Picture Pointing: Your toddler will be able to point at intriguing pictures in the book during storytelling or different objects present in their environment. This is a huge step in their fine motor development as well as in non-verbal communication skills.
Scribbling: Each baby is different, and as they perfect their pincer grasp, they will start to scribble it out between the age of 12 to 15 months. Some babies might take up the whole page while others might scribble with small, gentle strokes. Scribbling is not only an indicator of fine motor development but also of cognitive development.
Turning Knobs & Pages: Being able to turn knobs, pages in a book and push buttons on their musical toys provides your baby to put their fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills to use. It also helps them develop the dexterity in their fingers.
Solving Simple Puzzles: Even if it is with a little help from you, your baby will be able to solve simple puzzles and put the missing puzzle pieces in place. Support your baby in solving puzzles as it also builds spatial awareness and short-term memory.
Flying Toys: Yes, you heard it right. Your baby is at a stage in their development when they will be throwing different objects like toys from the comfort of their crib or highchair. They will be doing a lot of re-runs of throwing objects to get them to a specific spot.
Aiming Accurately: Your baby will be accurately hitting the target with their toy hammer or stick. This signifies the progress of their visual-muscular coordination.
As your baby progresses, they will be developing more complex fine motor skills that will help them in their day-to-day lives. Make sure to support them with their stage of increasing independence, learning more skills and practicing them.
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