Developing your baby's motor skills

There are many things you can do to help your baby’s motor skills develop from a very early stage.

All babies are born with a grasping reflex that causes them to grip onto anything placed in the palm of their hand, and this reflex must disappear before they can start to experiment with reaching out for and grasping particular objects. When not gripping onto your finger for dear life, your baby’s hands will be curled tightly into fists for most of the time.

Touching and manipulating

You can start to encourage your baby to begin touching and holding objects once her initial grasp reflex has disappeared and her hands start to open out at around six weeks. Try placing different-textured objects across her palms to stimulate her interest – tickle her palms, or play games such as ‘round and round the garden’. By three months or so, your baby will start to try reaching out for things – give her a brightly colored rattle to hold her attention.

Once your baby starts to be able to touch and hold toys (and put them in her mouth!) from around five months onwards, she’ll enjoy toys with different textures, or which make a sound when crumpled, pressed or shaken – these will help her to start making the connection between her actions and the resulting effect. Rattles, squeaky toys or toys which light up or play tunes when buttons are pressed or kicked are all fascinating for babies and will all help to develop her motor skills.

At around nine or 10 months your baby will start to master the art of releasing her grip on an object. This is when babies develop a perverse delight in dropping everything they can on the floor and throwing their toys around the room – but it also means that they can start to manipulate objects in a more sophisticated way, putting one building block on top of another, for example, or posting objects into a container.

By the age of one, your baby will have mastered the ‘pincer’ grip of thumb and forefinger, which will enable her to do many more things, such as turning the pages of a book or picking up small objects. You can start introducing her to pencils and crayons – she won’t yet be able to hold them properly but will enjoy scribbling. See our video games to play with an older baby for more ideas.

Feeding herself

From around six months onwards, your baby will probably want to try feeding herself or holding her milk bottle or sippy cup. Experiment with safe finger foods that she can easy hold, such as carrot sticks, small pieces of cereal, breadsticks, pasta twists or cereal ‘O’s. Getting food into her mouth is a powerful incentive to practice that hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills!

Dressing herself

Your baby may have become adept at removing her socks and sunhat at an early age, and by 18 months will probably be keen to try dressing and undressing. She may be able to pull on a simple elastic-waisted skirt or loose top, for example. Shoes may be a little hard for her, but you can try getting some with simple Velcro fastenings which she can do up and undo once you’ve put the shoes on her feet – they’ll give her the opportunity to try out her skills and gain a little independence.

The information in this feature is intended for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your health, the health of your child or the health of someone you know, please consult with a doctor or other healthcare professional.

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