Baby development at 7 months: Cognitive development
Infant milestone: Finding hidden objects
Discovery helps your baby understand the concept of object permanence.
How you can help:
- A little game of “Where’s Mommy?” can be a fun way to learn. If you hide behind a door and call to your baby, they’ll follow your voice and discover you by turning toward you. They’ll probably smile or squeal when they do. Who doesn’t love that? With time, your baby may scoot or crawl to find you. Even cuter.
- Toys are another way to teach your infant to find hidden objects. You can cover a toy with a small blanket and let your little one pull it off to reveal the toy. Surprise!
Infant milestone: Anticipating what comes next
Schedules help your baby develop a sense of time. As their memory improves, they recall how things flowed yesterday and the day before. Consistency reinforces this kind of thinking and promotes a sense of security.
How you can help:
- Structure your baby’s day around a consistent routine, doing things around the same time and in the same order. For example, at night: bath, pajamas, snack, toothbrushing, story, bedtime. It helps to talk to your baby about the events in sequence: “Next, we’ll have lunch.” “After your nap, we’ll go to the park.” This practice underscores the progression of time.
Baby development at 7 months: Motor skills
Infant milestone: Crawling
Toys are a great way to encourage crawling. At first, your infant may roll over or scoot on their bottom to reach the toy. Eventually, though, they’ll figure out that it’s faster and easier to crawl.
How you can help:
- Placing a toy just beyond your baby as they sit upright motivates them to reach. Setting up a series of interesting objects like toys, cushions, pillows, or boxes challenges them and improves their mobility. You’ll want to stay close by, of course, for safety’s sake.
Infant milestone: Use of hands
Toys with buttons to push, knobs to turn, and levers to pull give your child a chance to practice grasping and letting go. It also helps them use a pincer grasp and learn to handle objects.
How you can help:
- In addition to the toys listed above, you can introduce blocks. At first your kiddo will enjoy knocking them down. But by 9–12 months old, they might begin to stack a few into towers like a little architect in the making.
Baby development at 7 months: Communication
Infant milestone: Babbling
Your baby already has the sense that things have names and will begin to link the sounds with the words soon.
How you can help:
- Repeat words you think your baby might be trying to say. For example, if they say, “ba ba!” when you’re holding a bottle, you can say, “bottle.” Though it doesn’t sound quite like an actual word yet, your baby is using this to refer to the object. When you acknowledge it with the correct word, you help reinforce their use of language.
Baby development at 7 months: Social skills
Infant milestone: Knowing family from strangers
Stranger anxiety, or resistance to strangers, is a normal phase in your baby’s emotional development. Differentiating between people who are familiar and those who aren’t shows the bond your baby has developed with you and other family members.
How you can help:
- Sometimes your baby needs space to react to strangers in their own way. Instead of forcing them to interact with people who aren’t familiar—such as a new babysitter—have those people interact gradually with your baby. By smiling, talking, or offering a plaything while your little one sits on your lap, they may warm up to a new person easier. Eventually, this person won’t seem new or threatening; and your baby may even initiate a smile or other interaction on their own.
- Babbling and crawling and many other fun things happen with your baby’s development at 7 months. Get ready for many more exciting milestones in the months to come.
