Have you been asking yourself what are things I can be doing with my baby? In this video I’m
going to share ten age appropriate activities that you can do with your 9 to 12 month old that will
help with your baby's development. If this is our first time meeting,
I’m Dr. Belousov. I equip parents with knowledge so they can care for their baby with confidence.
This video is a part of my baby development series. Some of the other
videos will be linked at the end of this one. By this age your baby is most likely crawling
and becoming quite mobile. You will watch her transition to pulling herself up to stand,
cruising around holding onto furniture, and possibly even taking her first independent steps.
As your baby is getting more proficient at crawling, you can continue to help strengthen
her core muscles by creating a little obstacle course of pillows on the floor
for her to crawl through to get to the other side. If you need more guidance on how to teach
your baby to crawl, I have a separate video on that and it’s linked up here.
Talk to your baby during times of getting dressed, feeding, bathing, playing, walking,
and driving. Although your baby doesn’t understand everything that is being said,
he is listening and laying down the groundwork for developing speech and communication skills.
Read to your baby every day. You might only get a few minutes of a book in before your
baby is onto the next thing, but you can pick it back up again later in the day. Your baby
will enjoy looking at the pictures and listening to your voice intonations change as you read.
Teach your baby to wave bye-bye and shake her head yes and no.
Spend time every day playing with your baby on the floor.
She will learn by watching what you do and listening to your instructions.
Put a ball or toy into a small container and take it out to show her how it should be done, then
give it to her and ask her to put the item in and give her a chance to follow this simple command.
Create games that let her take the lead. Peek-a-boo is an all time favorite, and a great
activity to teach your baby object permanence - which is an understanding that an object exists
even when it's out of sight. Start off by putting a small blanket or towel on her head and ask,
“where’s the baby?” Once she understands the game, she will take over and have a blast.
Another variation that you can do is have her laying on her back facing you,
lift both legs together, and hide behind them. While bringing them down to show your face,
say peekaboo. As she gets the idea, she will start to move the legs herself.
This is a great game to play when having your baby down for a diaper change, since they typically
put up a fight when placed on their backs. At this age your baby enjoys looking for hidden
objects. Hide things under a container or blanket and give her an opportunity to look for them.
If you’re finding this information helpful, hit the thumbs up button.
And If you’re new to my community, hit the subscribe button and ring the bell so you get
notified when the newest video is released. Age appropriate toys include squeeze toys,
large blocks, baby safe containers; stacking toys of different sizes, shapes and colors;
baby dolls, cars or other vehicles made of flexible plastic with no sharp edges,
push-pull toys, and toy telephones. To help develop hand eye coordination
and fine motor skills give your baby 3 to 4 blocks to play with. Giving too many will overwhelm him
at this age. Put your hands over his hands while he is holding the blocks and bring them together.
Then let go and watch as he bangs them together. By 11 to 12 months, your baby might be able to
put one block onto another without balancing them. Keep showing him how you place one block
onto another. You can also build a short tower and let your baby knock it over.
Another great activity to help your baby develop fine motor and gross motor skills,
strengthen the core, and hand eye coordination is to place sticky notes on a wall. Stick them
at different levels so your baby can reach them while sitting or pulling up to stand
in order to reach ones that are higher up. This activity is especially great at 11 and 12 months.
As she approaches her first birthday, your baby will become more aware
that things not only have names, but also a particular function. Instead of treating a
toy phone as an object to be chewed or poked, she will start putting the receiver to her ear just
as she's seen you do when you talk on the phone. Of course at this age your baby is making great
strides towards learning to stand and then eventually walk. Create a safe space for her
to cruise around. Activities to do with your baby to help her learn how to walk
are covered in detail in another video. I will have it linked up here once it's released.
In the comments section below, let me know which of these recommendations
you found to be most helpful. If you would like to track your baby’s
development and know which developmental milestones should be achieved next,
get your free baby development checklist through the link in the description below.
I’m looking forward to seeing you in my next video.