Train your baby's brain at 9 months
Your baby is starting to communicate more and more. He’ll babble away and listen to conversations.
What he can do
He’s becoming more adept in his play, and can push and pull items, stack them, put them inside a container and take them out again. He’ll roll items back and forth and will object when you take things away. He may also be ready to copy certain actions. Show him how to use a crayon on paper and he will have a go at jabbing it and making a mark or two.
How to encourage him
Give him lots of different objects to explore and start to teach him the concept of cause and effect. He can now hold two toys at once so offer a pair of rattles and let him bang them together to make a fantastic noise. As he’ll probably be a proficient crawler by now, encourage him to get his own toys. You can even cajole him into tidying them up at the end of the day. He’ll enjoy popping them into a toy box with you.
The right toys for now
Keep him busy and stimulated with stacking toys, building bricks and pop-up toys. The fact that he can now put things in a container and take them out again means that any toy that encourages this is a good choice. You can even fill an old shoe box with age-appropriate items. He will also enjoy objects that have moving parts. Go for cars with chunky wheels, mini playhouses with little doors he can open and close – anything that encourages more sophisticated hand play.
Take it a step further
‘Provide safe, small objects so that your baby can practise fine motor skills. Demonstrate play manoeuvres with more than one object; show how to put one thing in, through and on top of another (the start of tower-building), as well as hitting, banging and pushing activities.’
To find out how your 9 month old is developing, see our Baby Stages
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