Womb to Bloom - Maternity & Beyond

Learning about the different stages of child development and some common traits associated with them can help you gain valuable insight into your child's behavior and help you to understand his or her psyche. While every child is uniquely different, there are some general developmental milestones that can cause certain behaviors in many children.

From birth until your baby is 6 weeks old, for example, the key trait of this stage of development is reflex action such as grasping when you touch their palm, pursing their lips when you touch their cheek, or following objects with their eyes, they will even curl their toes if you put your finger just beneath them!

By 6 weeks these reflexes subside and they become voluntary actions. From 6 weeks until your baby is 4 months old, they begin developing habits, repeating actions, and getting into a routine, so it's a good idea to try and start a good sleeping schedule during these first few months, later it can be more difficult.

From 4 months up to 9 months, your baby is concentrating primarily on developing coordination and basic motor skills. He or she will begin reaching for objects. During this time period they also begin to understand ends and means, as well as cause and effect, this is the birth of logic and is therefore one of the most important stages of development as it can affect the pace at which they will accomplish future milestones.

Scientists claim that they also begin to understand object permanence toward the end of this stage, for instance your child will start to realize that mommy is not gone forever when you leave the room. Your baby will continue the process of learning logic and understanding the coordination between ends and means up to 12 months, when he or she will actually start to make goals and devise plans to attain them!

From 12 up to 18 months, your baby will continue to experiment and find new ways to accomplish their goals and meet new challenges. This is probably one of the most fascinating stages in my opinion, because you can begin to see their curiosity, wonder, and often their fearlessness, which can be exciting and stressful for mommy at the same time! You really have a little scientist on your hands at this point.

From about 18 months on, your child is probably learning speech skills and starting to communicate with you, which is always an exciting step! Of course we hope to hear "mommy", but most often your child's first word will be an object, like "ball" or "bear" or "cup". In the case of my daughter though, her first real word was an adjective. I can't remember exactly what I was saying to her at the time, because it was so exciting when she looked at me and said "cool"!

At this time, your child is also developing creativity and insight, an intuitive process of perceiving and learning about the nature of the world. This is the dawn of independent thought! Of course, this may mean your child will start to purposefully defy and disagree with you, you will probably hear "no" often and say it even more. Sadly, this is the end of his or her infancy, which is defined mostly by the advent of speech. By 24 months, the days of having a baby are over; you will now have a toddler on your hands!