Before starting I would like to quote "every child is distinctive, they just unpack their packages at different times"
A developmental milestone is an ability that is achieved by any child by a certain age and thereby indicating the typical/healthy growth and development. These milestones are a general description of what most children can do at certain ages. Your child may reach some milestones earlier and others later. Either way, it may be the right time for your child’s individual development.
While it's important to remember that children all develop at their own pace, Although it is difficult to define ‘normal’ development, there are some milestones that babies and toddlers can be expected to achieve. Every child learns and reaches to the maxim development according to their pace. There is usually a broad age range for reaching these milestones within normal limits.
Please add this into your dictionary I try to remind parents that the most important thing is that their child is making progress. Don’t get too caught up in whether your little one’s development lines up EXACTLY with a developmental chart or else you will worry yourself sick! Offer activities and experiences that build off of your baby’s current abilities and interests, rather than “forcing” or “pushing” milestones he or she just isn’t quite yet ready for or interested in.
What and when to expect!
You can expect this week1
You will amaze to know some developmental milestones are present in a child from the womb of the mother. At this point, your baby is still becoming accommodate to his brand new environment - with sounds, sights and smells completely foreign, and at times, utterly overwhelming. You'll notice that while he might not sleep for large chunks of time, those tiny eyes tend to flutter closed more than they're open. Video footage might be a bit of a yawn fest, but give him a break - he's only been here a couple of days. Those open eyes which want an answer but couldn’t speak those gestures which want to express more but couldn’t, The first week, your baby will probably:
You can expect this in week 2
Week two isn't much different from week one, except you might notice he is slightly more alert than during the snooze-fest of week one. While you might have a desire to keep your baby entertained, he's plenty busy making sense of his strange environment or taking another nap. There are, however, some activities you could try together this week. As the week progresses child ability to adapt to the environment increases. Don’t think a child is not listening and reacting!
Use your face Since babies can only focus on objects 15-30cm away, your face makes the perfect object to study - and, really, the only thing they'll want to look at.
Black and white Babies can only see strong contrasting colors at this point, so black and white toys and mobiles will be the most stimulating for him.
Tummy time Once upon a time, babies were put to sleep on their stomachs. While this tends to be the most natural and comfortable way for many babies to sleep, We now know that it's safer for babies to sleep on their backs, but there is a minor drawback: Babies spend much less time developing their back and arm muscles than they did when the majority of their day was spent lying on their stomachs. Also, too much time on his back can cause a flat spot in his skull. Because of this, it's important to spend about 10 minutes a day supervising him while he lies on his tummy.
Storytime: Okay, so he probably can't even focus on the book in your hand, but it's never too early to make a habit out of reading. And it's soothing for him to hear your voice.
You can expect in Weeks 5-8
You'll notice that your newborn is more alert with every week that passes, and this coming month you'll probably see the sweetest sight: a smile! Other developments this month might include:
He may involve Cooing, possibly with vowel-consonant combinations like 'ah-goo'
Lifting head 45 degrees while on the stomach with better eye response
Holding head steady when held upright improperly
Reaching for objects unable to grasp
Looking to see where noises are coming from, showing you that he is more aware of the surroundings
A bit more mobility, rolling one-way from back to belly. Of course, your baby isn't quite on the move yet, but be extra careful not to turn your back during a nappy change
More co-ordinated movements, as the month progresses. Those jerks will soon smooth out to purposeful motions.
A first laugh (or squeal) possibly. (But remember, every baby develops differently).
You can expect at 3 months
You can expect 4 Months
You can expect at 5 months
You can expect at 6 months
You can expect at 7 months
You can expect at 8 months
You can expect at 9 months
You can expect at 10 months
You can expect at 11 months
You can expect at 12 months
Children should demonstrate rapid localization of quiet meaningful sounds and begin to demonstrate everyday visual competence for near and far.
Children readily explore and manipulate toys, and often cast objects to the floor repeatedly. If a toy is hidden under a cup or cushion while the child is watching, they should retrieve it.
The guidelines above are a rough estimate for the development of your baby. You should remember, however, that each child grows and develops at their own pace. For example, some babies may be slow to walk but early to hold a pencil . Discuss any concerns you might have about your baby’s development with your doctor. Trust your instincts. Often they’re right. If you feel like the development of your baby isn’t on track, speak up during your child’s well-baby check-ups.
The most important thing you can do is to give children the time, space, and opportunity to move and understand what is lacking in your child. If you feel that your child is delayed from the expected milestone you should consult medical health professionals and start doing gross motor activities. The activities which I am going to discuss with you will not be going to harm your child, in fact, it will help in boosting milestones and understand the pattern of development.
Let’s start gaming together!
Younger children of 3-6 years of age can start developing ball skills by practicing to throw and catch a balloon with two hands. Reducing the size of the balloon overtime increases the challenge.
Again for bilateral coordination skills, visual motor skills, core strengthening, and more, riding bikes is an excellent summer gross motor activity. And even for the smaller ones, these Stridor balance bikes are awesome, as it increases bilateral coordination and enhances motor planning skills into toddlers
Pick The Fruit
For this activity, you’ll need some string or garden with trees, a tree or fence, and a variety of soft, light objects. You will also need a basket, bag, or box. Tie pieces of yarn or string to the lower branches of a tree or the tops of fence posts. Loosely attach an item at the other end of the yarn or string. Give your child a basket, bag, or box, and have them pick the “fruit” from the tree If you are feeling especially creative, you can draw fruits on paper plates or cut them out of card and hang them. Alternatively, you can use toy plastic fruits, but they can be tricky to tie to the tree.this will be involved the gross involvement stretching, using all muscle identification and recognition.
Obstacle course
Place the pillows one after the other on the floor, to make the path. At the end of the pillows take a stack of a little toy box she climbs up and over, and then a bigger ramp that she crawls up to make it to the top ramp can be made up of a roll of your carpet. Cut out some exciting shapes and silhouettes of animals. Paste them on the chart paper. Place the chart paper on the floor, at the end of the ramp l. After the chart paper, place the tent with baby’s favorite toys in it. Guide the baby through the course if he gets confused.
Cleaning up the room
Did you know, cleaning up the room can be an excellent gross and fine motor skill activity for the toddler? Make sure to use all the things which are well known by your kid otherwise the child will confuse .catter the toddler’s toys on the floor. Let the toddler walk into the room. Walk along with a laundry basket and ask the toddler to pick only soft toys. The toddler picks and drops them in the basket. After soft toys, you can ask him to pick other objects and items. You can place household items like plastic bowls, etc. and ask the toddler to collect them as well. This is activity builds best for fine motor and gross motor development
Bubble through the loop Let your toddler hold the hula hoop and stand three feet away from you. Stand facing the toddler and make bubbles. The toddler then walks quickly from the opposite direction to get as many bubbles as he can through the hula hoop. Let your child first burst the bubble so that he can understand the activity. And the moment u blow the bubble the child step forward clings and bursts the bubble. this activity will enhance the coordination as well as the use of multiple muscles
“The true object of human life is play “! G K Chesterton
Walk on the bubble wrap
What is more fun than bursting bubble wrap? Stomping them with tiny feet! Spread out the bubble wrap on the floor. Ask your toddler to go barefoot and take one step a time. The bubble popping under his feet can be exciting and encouraging too. Once he has walked enough, he can jump around on the bubble wrap making more bubbles pop. this will enhance coordination skills. attention skills
Musical chairs
These are not just meant for birthday parties. They can be a great way to exercise a toddler’s motor skills. This activity is an alert bursting as well as relaxing and heavy work activities for toddlers Place chairs in a straight line, with one alternating the other in direction. So if the first chair faces left the second chair faces right and so on. Toddlers run around the chairs in a queue for as long the music plays. When the music stops, a toddler sits on the chair closest to them. The one who does not get a chair gets eliminated. A chair is also removed with each elimination. As the game progresses, there are a few chairs and players left. The one who sits on the last chair wins the game.
ROLL THE BALL
Let your child drag a heavy ball wit target point you can adapt the activity by switching some toy on the ball and let your child drop at a targeted point.
Trampoline jumping
bouncing on a trampoline and tell your child to hold the ball and make him jump for 10 sec initially as the days pass to increase the time duration depending upon any respiratory or cardiac dysfunction.
Play tug of war
where you and your child hold opposite ends of a rope and try to pull each other over.
Set up a fun obstacle course in the lounge room where your child has to run over uneven surfaces (eg. put down rugs, pillows), avoid obstacles and climb over and under furniture. Modify the course depending on what your child enjoys
Beanbag Toss
Playing with beanbags is another good way to work on eye-hand coordination. You can also replace beanbags with softballs or even handmade balls or beanbags (stuffed material). Find a target such as a laundry basket or a box. Use a target with a large opening for younger children. Take turns aiming and throwing the beanbags into the basket and counting how many got in each time. Slowly move the target further away, or make it smaller (e.g. use a small bin).
Balloon Toss
Blow up some balloons and play a game of Balloon Toss. The object is to see how long you and your child can keep the balloon in the air for, by tossing it back and forth, before it drops to the ground. Time each round and see how long you last. When you can go for at least a minute, try lifting two balloons in the air and keeping them both in the air.
Hopscotch
This is an old favorite of our childhood. Hopscotch is best played outside by drawing the squares with jumbo chalk on concrete or paving.
Here is an example of the formation of squares, but you can change this. Take turns with your child jumping through the squares – hop on one foot on single squares and jump with two feet into double squares (one foot in each square). When you get to the end, turn around and hop back to the start. You can add multiple commands depending upon your child’s like tell your child to walk only on line. Tell your child like what 1+1 lets your child answer the question let him jump on the block!
Catch The Ribbon
Grab a length of ribbon and run around outside with the ribbon trailing behind you. Encourage your toddler or preschooler to catch the ribbon. You can either hold the ribbon in your hand and twirl it at different heights and directions or tuck it into your waistband for an easier catch.
Laser beam light
Take a laser beam light pen and Choose an area for play and criss-cross your yarn, string, or tape to create a series of lines across the room. Be sure to leave enough room between your laser beams for your child to climb through. Challenge your child to make their way from one spot to another without touching the “laser beams.”
Hold and carry
This is another variation of the point-to-point type of gross motor skill activity for toddlers and preschoolers. Create a pile of items such as teddy bears, empty boxes, or another soft, light item. Encourage your child to walk between two bases, collecting another item at each base. Your little one can carry them in their arms or older children can balance them on their heads. For some variation, get your child to hop, skip, walk backward, or jump between bases.
It is important to remember that children develop at different rates and can reach gross motor milestones at varying ages! Did you find this article useful? Pin to share it with others
Happy learning
Do you ever think about why the game period in our childhood is so important part of the curriculum? Do you ever think about why we encourage our children to play outside games?
Do you ever think why the skills sometimes we develop on our own or sometimes try to make our child learn GROSS MOTOR SKILLS, why it’s so important!
Let’s learn!
Standing, Running, jumping, walking, hopping, skipping, kicking they all bunch up to form a“ Gross Motor Skills “.
As children grow older, their muscles become larger and stronger, allowing them to perform more complex physical movements such as climbing playground equipment, riding a bike, swimming at the beach, and playing catch with friends.
Imagine a milestone of crawling that can lead to stronger and complex activity of body which we sum it as gross motor skills. With each new milestone, a child’s body reaches the physical ability to perform certain tasks.
“Each step matters and transforms into big steps “!
These skills generally evolve with repetition and practice as a child matures, thus making it vital that children have experience in situations that enable them to move freely and explore their body’s physical capabilities. Gross motor skills affect the core areas of the body that are responsible for functions such as hand-eye coordination (involving catching, throwing, etc), walking, running, skipping, sitting, and standing. As is evident, these movements are essential in the physical development of children, as they are commonly involved in everyday functioning, such as basic self-care skills such as dressing one’s self, or posture and upper body support. “
Gross motor skills are the subset of all the milestones achieved from the prenatal period to 3 years of age”! Gross motor skills also directly influence fine motor skills (e.g. adequate upper body support strength can affect the ability to sit upright at a table or carrying a school bag), and is elemental for children to optimally perform and engage at school, home or other social and recreational activities.
Gross motor skills development is governed by two postulates that involve physical growth, development of trunk core strengthen muscles. Head control is gained first, followed by the shoulders, upper arms, and hands. Upper body control is developed next, followed by the hips, pelvis, and legs. “Trees without roots are a piece of wood”! Which clearly says that a child with improper gross development cause impedes in the growth.
Stimulating the development of gross motor abilities is considerably less complicated than developing fine motor skills. Helping a child succeed in gross motor tasks requires patience and opportunities for a child to practice desired skills. Children reach developmental milestones at different rates. Pushing a child to perform a task that is impossible due to development status promotes frustration and disappointment. Children should be allowed to acquire motor skills at their own pace.
By encouraging your child to participate in different gross motor activities, you are providing them with an opportunity to practice using their muscles. This is particularly important for children who don’t like physical activity and prefer sit-down activities such as arts and crafts. Often children with weaker gross motor abilities avoid physical activity, which provides them fewer opportunities to catch up on the skills of their peers.
Gross motor in toddlerhood
By the age of two years, children have begun to develop a variety of gross motor skills. They can run walk hop by putting both feet on each step before going on to the next one Most infants this age climb (some very actively) and have a rudimentary ability to kick and throw a ball. By the age of three, children walk with good posture and without watching their feet. They can also walk backward and run with enough control for sudden stops or changes in direction. Other achievements include riding a tricycle and throwing a ball, although they have trouble catching it because they hold their arms out in front of their bodies no matter what direction the ball comes from.
Preschool
Four-year-olds can typically balance or hop on one foot, jump forward and backward over objects, and climb and descend stairs alternating feet. They can bounce and catch balls and throw accurately. Simple yet complex activities are developing at this age. Some four-year-olds can also skip. Children this age have gained an increased degree of self-consciousness about their motor activities that lead to increased feelings of pride and success when they master a new skill. However, it can also create feelings of inadequacy when they think they have failed.
The school helps in building Gross Motor Skills
School-age children, who are not going through the rapid, unsettling growth spurts of early childhood or adolescence, are quite skilled at controlling their bodies and are generally good at a wide variety of physical activities, although the ability varies according to the level of maturation and the physique of a child.
Sports period !PT Period , Games Period are the reasons for many reinforcements given by teachers to the students. Motor skills are mostly equal in boys and girls at this stage, except that boys have more forearm strength and girls have greater flexibility. Five-year-olds can skip, jump rope, catch a bounced ball, walk on their tiptoes, balance on one foot for over eight seconds, and engage in beginning acrobatics. Many can even ride a small two-wheel bicycle. Eight- and nine-year-olds typically can ride a bicycle, swim, roller skate, ice skate, jump rope, scale fences, use a saw, hammer, and garden tools, and play a variety of sports. However, many of the sports prized by adults, often scaled down for play by children, require higher levels of distance judgment and hand-eye coordination, as well as quicker reaction times, than are reasonable for middle childhood. Games that are well suited to the motor skills of elementary school-age children include kickball, dodge ball, and team relay races.
When children do not have well-developed gross motor skills, this can result in:
These are the gross motor milestones that generally children achieved at this stage Each baby is unique and grows at his/her own rate. That is why there is a wide variety of “normal” in development. Although this is a gradual, individualized process, most babies do go through a series of developmental milestones around certain ages.
The purpose of this checklist is to provide a reference to help guide you through your child’s development and what to expect at certain stages.this is a standardized checklist which you can check but the pace of development of each child is different but if you feel that your child is delayed than normal rate kindly refer to a practitioner
The earliest intervention possible offers the highest response and success rate among children with special needs. Parents should keep in mind that children develop at different rates and try to focus on the skills their children have mastered instead of those they may have yet to master. Don’t compare one child to another as I have mentioned in my earlier post all children are not the same! Still, there are certain signs that may point to a problem, and these should be discussed with a pediatrician or physician. These signs include not walking by 15 months of age, not walking maturely (heel to toe) after walking for several months, walking only on the toes, and not being able to push a toy on wheels by age two.
Toddlers may begin to prefer one hand to the other, the first sign of right- or left-handedness, or to use both hands equally. This preference should be allowed to develop naturally. Parents should call a doctor if the child does not seem to use one hand at all or has a strong hand preference before he or she is one year old.
“Every child is a different kind of flower, nurtures them, cherishes them, and shelter them according to their needs and requirements”!
Happy learning!
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