Early Child Development
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Your baby was born with a certain amount of reflexes, like sucking, grasping and crying.
But within a few weeks of your infant’s early stages of child development he will become more and more efficient at these actions and gradually those reflex behaviours will be replaced by deliberate actions of sucking, grasping and crying.
Your baby is learning that if he sucks, he will eat. If he cries someone will comfort him.
It’s interesting to note that at 4 months of age, your baby has yet to reach the stage of child development known as ‘object permanence’; so when an object is out of his sight he has forgotten about it …literally out of sight, out of mind.
If a toy is moved from his sight he won’t look for it, because he has forgotten about it.
But as your baby matures in his early stages of child development he develops object permanence.
By around 8 months your baby will look for a toy he was playing with if it is taken out of his vision. This is why babies at this age love dropping toys and watching you pick them up!
They have figured out that the toy has not disappeared when they drop it, and are thrilled to see it reappear!
Parents who go along with the game of bending over and picking up the rattle over and over again while their child gleefully tosses it back to the floor are strengthening their little scientists’ theory of object permanence.
It is also at this stage of your baby’s early child development that he loves to play peek-a-boo.
He knows you are still there, even though you have hidden your face, and he is delighted when you reappear.
You can test your baby’s object permanence by sitting him in a high chair with a toy.
If you drop the toy on the ground and he looks down for it, then he has grasped the concept of object permanence.
If he doesn’t look for it, then he is not quite at that stage of early child development yet.
There are lots of fun games to play with your baby who is at this stage of his early child development.
Let your 10 month old baby see you ‘hide’ his toy under a blanket.
He will be delighted to pull the blanket away to find his toy …and can play this game over and over again!
Babies at this stage also love to imitate the changes in your face.
Stick your tongue out, and watch him imitate the action.
Playing games like this with your baby is an excellent way to spend quality time as well as a way to help develop his grasp of object permanence.
See Also...
- Child Development Milestone -- From Birth To Six Years
- Child Growth And Development -- Understanding Your Child Better
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