How your child plays, learns, speaks, acts, and moves offers important clues about your child’s development. Developmental milestones are things most children can do by a certain age.

What’s unique to your three month old?  What is typical of a six month old?

Social and Emotional Milestones 

At four months:

  • Smiles spontaneously, especially at people
  • Likes to play with people and might cry when playing stops
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  • Copies some movements and facial expressions, like smiling or frowning
  • Knows familiar faces and begins to know if someone is a strange

At six months:

  • Likes to play with others, especially parents
  • Responds to other people’s emotions and often seems happy
  • Likes to look at self in a mirror
Communication Milestones

At four months:

  • Begins to babble
  • Babbles with expression and copies sounds he hears
  • Cries in different ways to show hunger, pain, or being tired

At six months:

  • Responds to sounds by making sounds
  • Strings vowels together when babbling (“ah,” “eh,” “oh”) and likes taking turns with parent while making sounds
  • Responds to own name
  • Makes sounds to show joy and displeasure
  • Begins to say consonant sounds (jabbering with “m,” “b”)
Physical Milestones

At four months:

  • Holds head steady, unsupported
  • Pushes down on legs when feet are on a hard surface
  • May be able to roll over from tummy to back
  • Can hold a toy and shake it and swing at dangling toys
  • Brings hands to mouth
  • When lying on stomach, pushes up to elbows

At six months:

  • Rolls over in both directions (front to back, back to front)
  • Begins to sit without support
  • When standing, supports weight on legs and might bounce
  • Rocks back and forth, sometimes crawling backward before moving forward
Cognitive Milestones

At four months:

  • Lets you know if he is happy or sad
  • Responds to affection
  • Reaches for toy with one hand
  • Uses hands and eyes together, such as seeing a toy and reaching for it
  • Follows moving things with eyes from side to side
  • Watches faces closely
  • Recognizes familiar people and things at a distance

At six months:

  • Looks around at things nearby
  • Brings things to mouth
  • Shows curiosity about things and tries to get things that are out of reach
  • Begins to pass things from one hand to the other

 

Questions about these milestones and your child’s development? Refer to our developmental screening & early supports page.

 

Sources:

American Academy of Pediatrics, www.healthychildren.org

Center for Disease Control, www.CDC.gov/Milestones