How your six to nine month old 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 six month old?  What is typical of a nine month old?

Social and Emotional Milestones

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

By nine months:

  • May be afraid of strangers
  • May be clingy with familiar adults
  • Has favorite toys
Communication Milestones

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”)

By nine months:

  • Understands “no”
  • Makes a lot of different sounds like “mamamama” and “bababababa”
  • Copies sounds and gestures of others
  • Uses fingers to point at things
Physical Milestones

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

By nine months:

  • Stands, holding on
  • Can get into sitting position
  • Sits without support
  • Pulls to stand
  • Crawls
Cognitive Milestones

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

By nine months:

  • Watches the path of something as it falls
  • Looks for things she sees you hide
  • Plays peek-a-boo
  • Puts things in his mouth
  • Moves things smoothly from one hand to the other
  • Picks up things like cereal o’s between thumb and index finger

 

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