Building a secure attachment with your baby starts with consistent routines, emotional validation, and understanding their development. Focus on supporting their growth and maintaining privacy.
Key Concepts: Attachment
- While it might be easier to do, disappearing without saying goodbye is not a healthy approach to consistently use. It’s more anxiety provoking to think a parent disappeared, than say a quick goodbye. Having a solid and consistent goodbye routine is the best approach to help your little one.
- Helping to build your baby’s emotional vocabulary is important. Down the road, this helps them to understand what they are feeling and learn the names of their emotions.
What to Try: Attachment
- Label emotions for your baby. For example, when they are excited, name it. Scared? Name it. Describe what these emotions feel like and make it physical. “I can tell you’re so frustrated right now. You’re banging your hands on the high chair and screaming!”
Key Concepts: Feeding
- Your baby is now ready to have solids 2-3 times per day. A sample schedule is 9am breakfast, 12pm optional lunch, 5pm dinner.
What to Try: Feeding
- Avoid using dessert as an incentive. Dessert should not be used as a way to force them to eat.
- If you’re wanting to incorporate something sweet, fruit is a great option to include on their plate WITH their meal. In other words, give all options for a meal at one time!
Key Concepts: Sleep
If you are on a 2 nap schedule, you may need to move bedtime earlier. Bedtime may be 30 minutes to 1 hour earlier if their 3rd nap has dropped.
Some crib mattresses have two sides - a “baby” side and a “toddler” side. So long as your baby is sleeping well and comfortable, you don’t need to turn the mattress over. Once your baby turns 1, you might want to consider switching to the softer (“toddler”) side.
Babies often start standing up in their crib as a way to practice their newfound skill. It’s important to take the time to assess new safety risks now that they are bigger and stronger.
What to Try: Sleep
Adjust the height of the mattress so it’s in the lowest position. This helps to make sure they don’t fall or climb out of the crib.
Secure anything else within reach of the crib for when they stand up.
Continue to put your baby in a wearable blanket / sleepsack. This can help keep their legs in the crib.
Key Concepts: Development
- Your baby’s language is rapidly developing. While you baby had receptive language (the ability to understand words) before, they are now beginning to have expressive language (the ability to actually speak those familiar words out loud!)
- If your baby isn’t making sounds or you have developmental concerns, touch base with your pediatrician.
- Are you a bilingual household? Multilingualism has been shown to be linked to cognitive skills like attention and problem solving (and being raised multilingual isn’t associated with language delays).
- Most babies (90%) say their first word by the time they turn 1 years old. Their first words tend to be the easiest sounds to make, like “dada” or “uhoh.” And yes, there is a gender difference in language development that is well documented in the research. Girls have stronger language skills than boys.
What to Try: Development
- When your baby babbles (they see a dog and say “da”) they are connecting the sound to a real word. Encourage them by saying “yes, a dog!” Avoid correcting their pronunciation.
- Try not to anticipate your baby’s needs too much. Instead of bringing something you know they want, make room for your baby to tell you by having them make a sound or gesture.
- Narrate what you are doing throughout your day and repeat songs, nursery rhymes, and stories again and again.
- Seeing your eyes gives babies clues about what you’re talking about in everyday interactions. This is called “gaze following.”
Key Concepts: Relationships
- You’re learning from your baby and following their lead and interests. This is a great way to figure out what they are into (and it’s not always what you expect!).
- As your baby approaches their 1st birthday, it can be easy to get caught up in what other babies are doing, or in developmental milestones. Stay focused on YOUR baby, their development, and how you can best support them.
- Right now, your baby’s presence on social media is up to you. However, your actions now are building their digital footprint. Cute naked videos now might be less cute in 20 years…
What to Try: Relationships
- Follow your baby’s lead and let them set the agenda. You’re doing a lot by just sitting on the floor beside them and playing along.
- Best way to play with your baby (and definitely not the most comfortable), the floor! Try to get on the floor with them once a day. Use this opportunity as a chance to watch them, scaffold, and interact.
- Focus on your own child and try to ignore the noise around what everyone else is doing. Remember that development happens at its own pace and that there is a wide window of what is considered normal.
- On social media, adjust your privacy settings so they feel appropriate to you. Control who can see your posts and be thoughtful in what you share. If you wouldn’t want it on the internet, neither would your child.
- Consider your baby’s digital footprint and think about their future. Before you share something, ask yourself “would my child be okay with this being shared once they are older?”