12-18 months: Baby Discoveries -- Milestones

1. Gains new understanding while exploring the environment.

Mobile babies are full of energy and curiosity. Their expanding ability to move gives them opportunities to explore new places and reach for new things – even things that could be dangerous, such as electric sockets or heavy pieces of furniture. They like having adults explore with them, especially when the adult talks about what they're seeing and doing. For example:

Developing as expected, they might:

• pull their wagon around and around in the play area, seeing how it works
• pat, push, mound, squish, and pound the play dough, experiencing all the ways it feels and can be used
• explore the pegboard holes with their finger and then look around for something to fit in the holes
• mix, fill, pile, and dump sand at the sand table, sometimes naming the piles while creating them
• try to push two pop-it beads together the way they've seen a caregiver do it
• stack a set of cardboard boxes, knock them down with a giant kick or a swing of their arm, and then stack them up again

Needing development, they might:

• pay little attention to new stories or books being read
• not participate in finger plays or songs with hand actions
• seem uninterested in exploring new spaces; are content to stay in one place
• hold toys without exploring how they look, feel, or work
• touch and look at toys that are familiar, but pay little attention to new toys

2. Shows increased memory skills.

Mobile infants show better and better memory skills. They now remember what will happen when they do certain things. They depend on routines that have a certain order or sequence. This new awareness of sequence can make them appear to be stubborn and inflexible, because they expect things to happen in the exact ways that they remember. Babies show their increased memory skills as they mimic and imitate the actions of their caregivers. For example:

Developing as expected, they might:

• imitate the way they have seen an adult turn a screwdriver, using their own plastic screwdriver
• try to insert a key into the lock of a door
• identify themselves in a mirror or photograph
• show recognition of sounds, such as mom's footsteps, water running in the bathtub, or the refrigerator door being opened
• imitate adult actions, such as pretending to stir sugar into a make-believe cup of coffee
• move toward the door when they see a family member putting on a coat

Needing development, they might:

• not insist on following routines
• listen as you read to them, but not show a preference for any one special book
• not try things over and over, showing that they don't yet have an understanding of order and consequence
• not look for an object placed out of sight, although they saw you hide it

3. Uses toys and other objects with a purpose.

Mobile babies this age begin to understand that some things happen predictably as a consequence of their own actions. However, after they learn to do something in one way, they're not usually able to change what they do if they run into problems using these familiar patterns of behavior. For example:

Developing as expected, they might:

• use the string attached to a toy to pull it toward themselves, even when the toy gets stuck on something and won't move
• demonstrate beginning understanding of how to play catch, as you roll the ball over to them and they learn how to roll it back to you
• pretend to cook by stirring a spoon in a pan
• roll a ball toward you and watch to see what you'll do
• pick out one of their favorite books from the pile on the shelf and turn the pages
• place round shapes into a form board with increasing accuracy

Needing development, they might:

• play with blocks or at the sand table, without any apparent purpose
• go from one activity to another without pausing to explore or plan what they want to do
• continue to poke cylinders or puzzle pieces randomly into any space on a form board
• dump blocks out of a container or pull farm animals off a shelf, but not have a plan to build or create with them