Baby Milestones: A Comprehensive Guide to Baby's Development

Watching baby grow and develop new skills is incredibly exciting—and it happens fast. Their first year is packed with blink-and-you-missed-it baby milestones, like cooing, sitting up and cruising on furniture. I’ll never forget my son’s first baby laugh when he was 4 months old. He sounded like a little robot because he was still mastering his vocal cords, but it was so sweet to hear!

Then again, tracking infant milestones can also be nerve-wracking. If baby isn’t quite on track, it’s easy to spiral into anxiety. When my son took a while to learn to roll over belly-to-back, I wasn’t just nervous about the milestone—I was worried about leaving him on his belly while sleeping. And let me tell you, that was exhausting. I was relieved when he started rolling both ways around 7 or 8 months, and being slightly “off-schedule” didn’t affect the rest of his development.

David B. Levine, MD, FAAP, a pediatrician at Atlantic Health, reminds us that baby milestones aren’t absolutes. “Milestones are ranges and need to be looked at in the context of the whole child, and not in isolation,” he says.

That said, it’s important to be aware of motor; language and speech; social and emotional; and cognitive baby milestones, so you can keep practicing skills with baby—and flag anything of concern with your pediatrician. Early intervention can often do wonders, so it’s best to speak up. Ahead, check out our complete list of infant milestones during the first 12 months, plus when to consult your doctor on baby’s development.

Key Takeaways

• Types of milestones: Most baby milestones fall into the categories of motor (gross or fine); language and speech; social and emotional; and cognitive.
• Motor milestones for babies include holding up their head, rolling over, sitting up and pulling up to stand.
• Baby speech milestones include cooing, making babbling sounds and saying “mama” or “dada.”
• Social and emotional infant milestones include smiling, laughing and making a variety of facial expressions.
• Cognitive baby milestones include putting things in their mouth to explore them, reaching to grab toys and banging two things together.
• Contact your pediatrician: If baby doesn’t smile and has limited eye contact by 6 months old, doesn’t sit unassisted by 9 months, doesn’t babble or make gestures by one year, doesn’t respond to their name by one year, or doesn’t pull to stand by one year.

What Are Baby Milestones?

Baby milestones are skills babies exhibit that show they’re growing and developing as expected. They include gross and fine motor skills, language development, social and emotional learning, cognitive achievements and more. Your pediatrician will track infant milestones at baby’s well-check visits by doing a physical exam and interacting with baby to see how they move, play and make sounds. If baby hasn’t reached certain milestones by the expected age, your doctor may suggest screenings to check for developmental delays. They may also recommend early intervention, which can include physical, occupational and speech therapy. “Our firstborn had a speech delay—he was born with hearing loss—and early intervention was fabulous,” says The Bump community member EricandKaren. “Best thing that could’ve happened to us! He decided to start talking one day and hasn’t ever stopped.”

Leslie Treece, MD, FAAP, a pediatrician in Tennessee, says doctors typically use a tool called the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) to track baby milestones. It’s a series of questions parents answer at the start of each well visit, after which they get a score that translates into normal range, borderline or delayed. “Not every baby does every skill exactly at the same time, but this is a good starting point and way to see if there are any red flags,” Treece says.

Motor Milestones

Motor skills are how baby moves physically. Gross motor skills include large muscles in the body, including the arms and legs. Fine motor skills involve coordinating small muscles, such as those in the hands and feet.

Baby milestones that use gross motor skills include, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

• Holding up the head during tummy time
• Moving the arms and legs
• Holding the head steady without support when being held
• Pushing up onto elbows and forearms when on tummy
• Rolling from belly to back
• Rolling from back to belly
• Pushing up with straight arms from tummy
• Leaning on hands to support themselves when sitting
• Getting into a sitting position without support
• Sitting up without support
• Pulling to stand
• Walking while holding on to furniture, aka cruising (it’s normal not to start walking without support until later—anytime up until 18 months old)

Keep in mind that the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated their baby developmental milestones in 2022, which included the removal of crawling as a milestone. While crawling is still a beneficial part of development, the reasoning was that not all babies do it.

Baby milestones that use fine motor skills include:

• Opening the hands briefly
• Holding a toy when you put it in baby’s hand
• Using their arm to swing at toys
• Bringing hands to their mouth
• Moving things from one hand to another
• Using fingers to “rake” food toward themselves
• Drinking from a cup without a lid, as you hold it
• Picking things up between their thumb and pointer finger, like small bits of food (aka pincer grasp)

Language and Speech Milestones

Baby language and speech milestones include:

• Making sounds other than crying
• Reacting to loud sounds
• Cooing
• Making sounds back when you talk to them
• Turning head to hear the sound of your voice
• Taking turns making sounds with you
• Blowing “raspberries”
• Making squealing noises
• Making babbling sounds like “mamamama” and “babababa”
• Lifting their arms to show they want to be picked up
• Waving “bye-bye”
• Calling a parent “mama” or “dada”, or another special name
• Understanding “no” (briefly pausing or stopping when you say it)

Social and Emotional Milestones

Milestones for babies that are considered social and emotional include:

• Calming down when spoken to or picked up
• Looking at your face
• Seeming happy to see you
• Smiling when you talk to or smile at them
• Smiling on their own to get your attention
• Chuckling when you try to make them laugh
• Looking at you, moving or making sounds to get or keep your attention
• Recognizing familiar people
• Enjoying looking at themselves in the mirror
• Laughing
• Being shy, clingy or fearful around strangers
• Showing different facial expressions, like happy, sad, angry and surprised
• Looking when you call their name
• Reacting when you leave (looking, reaching for you or crying), aka separation anxiety
• Smiling or laughing when you play peek-a-boo
• Playing games with you, like pat-a-cake

Cognitive Milestones

Cognitive baby milestones include:

• Watching you as you move
• Looking at a toy for several seconds
• If hungry, opening their mouth when they see the breast or bottle
• Looking at their hands with interest
• Putting things in their mouth to explore them
• Reaching to grab toys they want
• Closing their lips to show they don’t want more food
• Looking for objects when they’re dropped out of sight (aka developing object permanence)
• Banging two things together
• Putting something in a container, like a block in a cup
• Looking for things they see you hide, like a toy under a blanket

When to Consult Your Pediatrician

While it’s a good idea to go to your pediatrician with any questions or concerns you have on baby milestones, there are a few red flags you should definitely bring up. According to Amir Miodovnik, MD, MPH, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician who helps parents navigate the challenges of raising children with ADHD, autism and learning differences, they include:

• No smiles and/or limited eye contact by 6 months old
• Not sitting independently by 9 months old
• Not babbling by one year old
• Not making gestures by one year old
• Not responding to their name by one year old
• Not pulling to stand by one year old

Additionally, if baby seems to have lost any skills they’ve gained before—whether it’s motor skills, language or gestures—it warrants a conversation. “In the first year, the key milestones aren’t just about walking or talking; they focus on forming connections,” Miodovnik says. “Babies should actively seek out faces, enjoy interactions and express what interests them. The consistent absence of social behaviors is an important red flag.”

To Sum It Up

Every baby’s different when it comes to infant milestones, and it’s worthwhile to remember that there’s a range of “normal.” Still, it’s important to keep in mind what the major baby milestones are, and when to reach out to your pediatrician for advice. “Many parents get a little anxious when they fill out the questionnaire for their baby’s checkup because they might not be doing all of the things asked yet,” says Treece. “But the biggest misunderstanding [about milestones] is the lack of recognition that every baby’s unique and they don’t all follow an exact recipe.”

Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such. You should always consult with a qualified physician or health professional about your specific circumstances.