So, your baby is 8 months old, growing at a pace that’s a little too fast for your liking. In a few months, your baby will graduate into a toddler and start doing many things independently. The more help you provide to your 8 month baby from this stage on, the quicker they will learn to achieve the milestones. They are like a sponge ready to absorb everything.
At their 8th month, you will find that your baby is suddenly expressing more emotions and mimicking a grown-up in their behavior. They are babbling more, expressing more, trying to crap, crawl, and even in some cases pulling up to standing position using whatever object they can find to support them.
In This Article
- Important Milestones You Can Expect From an 8 Month Old Baby
- How Can You Help an 8 Month Old Baby Reach Their Milestones?
- Milestones You Can Expect at the End of 8th Month
- When Should You Consider Seeing the Doctor?
Important Milestones You Can Expect From an 8 Month Old Baby
Here are some major milestones you can observe in babies during their 8th month.
1. Hearing Development
Your baby starts understanding more words and can respond to them. They can track the source of the sound and follow it too.
2. Vision Development
Babies can find items that are hidden. With improved hand-eye coordination, they can play and eat more independently.
3. Development of Smell
Their sense of smell is well-developed.
4. Development of Taste
Babies start preferring certain tastes. They might become partial towards one type of food or flavor profile and ask for the same.
5. Development of Touch
You will observe your baby starting to respond when you touch them. They will try to call you by touching or tugging at you too.
6. Fine Motor Skill Development
Their fingers are stronger, and their pincer grip is improving. Babies will get better at taking small pieces of food from the plate and eating themselves. They even use this grip while playing.
7. Gross Motor Skill Development
Limbs get stronger, enabling them to move more.
8. Social-Emotional Development
Babies are more open to communication at this stage. They will engage and play with almost anyone. They may not be comfortable in crowds or noisy places.
9. Physical Development
They can hold their own bottle and drink from it, pick food from their plates and eat or even drink from a straw or an open cup if trained.
[Read : When Do Babies Drink From an Open Cup?]
10. Movement Milestone
Some babies can crawl fast and comfortably, while some might still be in the dragging stage. Some babies might skip this stage completely too.
11. Language Development
Babbling increases. Your baby will try to say words with emotions and change in pitch and expressions. They will try to imitate everyone around them.
12. Cognitive Skill Development
Your baby can understand size and colors now. You might catch your baby trying to arrange things in an upright position.
How Can You Help an 8 Month Old Baby Reach Their Milestones?
Here is what you can do, to help them develop on various fronts
- Let them explore food and eat their own way. Though it can be messy, it will encourage good food habits and relationships with food.
- Give them toys involving a lot of colors and shapes.
- Hold them up in a standing position to help them know what it feels like to stand on their feet. This will strengthen their legs too.
[Read : Toys For 8 Month Old Baby]
Milestones You Can Expect at the End of 8th Month
At the end of the 8th month, your baby should
- Move around in some form or the other.
- Show interest in different tastes and textures of food.
- Have a better focus on items they are exploring or playing with.
- Gums get harder to start teething.
When Should You Consider Seeing the Doctor?
Talk to your doctor if your baby
- Refuses to plant legs when held up in an upright position
- Does not babble or blow raspberries or bubbles yet
- Develops food allergies
Growth spurts are common during this stage, making some babies look bigger than others. Do not get discouraged when you see other babies bigger or more physically developed than yours.
Read Also: 9 Month Old Baby Milestones – What Are They and How You Can Help
