Development FAQ: 6-12 months

My son, who is almost eight months old, is making no attempt to crawl yet. Should I be concerned about this and is there anything I can do to encourage him? He sits quite well on his own, but has never really enjoyed being on his tummy.I appreciate that, once he is crawling, a few changes will have to take place around the home to prevent accidents. What things should I be aware of?
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4.

My daughter who is just over 6 months old does not sit well alone. She seems bored and frustrated within minutes of being put down on her play mat. Often she will hold a toy for a few minutes, suck it and then look for something else as though she is bored with everything she has. It isn’t long before she is grizzling and wants to be picked up. What sort of toys should she now be having and what can I do to help her be more independent?
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How can I get my nine-month daughter Kate to be less wary of people? We live in a small village, which is a close and friendly community. Until about a month ago, Kate would smile happily at everyone, but now she turns her head away when people speak to her. My neighbour, whom Kate has known since birth, would love to look after her occasionally, but Kate just wants to be beside me the whole time. I tried leaving Kate last week for an hour, but it was a disaster and in the end I brought her home as she was crying so much. How can I get her to be more relaxed with friends and neighbours?
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Please help… we emigrated to Australia four weeks ago with our 9 month old son, and despite seeming to be happy he does seem to have gone backwards in his development. He was finger feeding quite confidently before we left, and now he refuses to put any food in his mouth at all, although he will put an empty spoon in his mouth, and in my mouth. He is happy to eat finger foods, i.e. toast, fruit etc and is eating quite lumpy food, but I have to feed it to him.

When we first arrived here we put him straight into the 6-9 month routine and although he slept, he refused to eat for three days and since then, although his appetite has returned with a vengeance and he is eating really well, he won’t feed himself. He was also almost crawling before we left: he was able to push himself along on his tummy with his feet ‘commando’ style, but since coming here he has gone back to flailing around on the floor like he did when he was four months old. He has also started to suck his bottom lip when he is tired. The doctor has told me that he is probably anxious and has reverted to ‘being a baby’ because he has been so unsettled and that once he feels settled he will catch up.

I just wondered if you had any tips to speed up the catching up process. Is there anything I can do to get him back on track?

He has been on Gina’s routines since he was 4 weeks old for both sleeping and feeding. At 7.20am he has 7oz of follow-on formula milk at breakfast, still out of bottle because despite taking a beaker for water from 4 months old he began refusing to even have it in his mouth at 7 months. We have just found one he likes but have not yet introduced it for milk. He then has either porridge or baby muesli with fruit made with 3oz of formula at about 8.15am. He takes a mouthful of very diluted juice out of a beaker at about 1030am. He has lunch at about 11.40am and typically eats about 10 cubes of (usually) homemade food. He is a vegetarian baby who eats fish, so lunch is either a fishy something or a lentil and rice something. He has been fed on homemade food almost exclusively until we emigrated at which point he went for a couple of days on jars while we were settling. He has a good amount of juice and a good amount of fruit after his savoury course. His fruit is chopped and I always put some on his high chair tray for him to feed himself. He’ll pick it up and squidge it around, but won’t put it in his mouth.

He has 7oz of milk at 2.45pm out of a bottle. At 5pm he has tea, about 6 or 7 cubes with toast followed by a milky pudding. He then takes about 4oz of milk at 620pm. I am planning to give him less formula at 2.45pm tomorrow to try to make him take more at 6.20pm. Tristan wakes at around 6.30 am, (he was waking later, but we are not able to fully black out his room in our rented house) we leave him until 7am. He then goes back to sleep at 9am for half an hour. He goes to bed at 12.15pm until 2-2.30pm. He then goes down to bed at 6.30pm. He settles himself to sleep. If he wakes and whimpers a bit we do nothing; if he really cries for longer than 5 minutes I go and check him. If he’s really crying it’s usually because he has a dirty nappy so I change it and put him back down. If he doesn’t have a dirty nappy I rub his tummy to calm him and then he goes back to sleep by himself. I am always the person that dresses him after his bath, feeds him and puts him down to sleep. He is rarely (almost never) unsettled at bedtime and doesn’t wake in the night.
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What toys should my 9 month old be playing with? We have a basket full of rattles and soft-shaped contrast toys which I think she is bored with now. I look in the shops and think most things look either too difficult or too easy for her. How do I know if a toy will help her development? Should I look for toys marked with her age now or for a few months time? Can you give me an idea of how I should play with her?
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I wonder of there is any advice you could give to help my baby form being wingey and clingy. He hangs onto my legs if I am washing up etc and wants to be picked up most of the time. He is very active and enjoys being around his older brother and he likes going to play centers. But when we are at home he just wants my constant attention, more so in the mornings whether there is anyone around or not. Have you any tips?
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7.

My nine-month-old twins have become extremely vocal in the last couple of weeks. My little girl makes most of the noise but my son is beginning to copy her. She has developed an ear splitting scream and continually blows raspberries. The twins are clearly enjoying communicating in this way, although it does contribute to rather messy mealtimes. It is hard not be amused by my daughter’s animation, and I assume it is just a phase but at what age should I begin to be “responsible” for my babies’ behaviour?They're such happy babies that I don't want to stop them from expressing themselves and being lively, but equally I don't want to find that in a year's time their vocalizing has escalated, and I have a real problem with which to contend.
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We introduced beakers to my daughter, who is now 11mths following the guidelines. She took to them well, and is now only having a bottle once a day at bedtime. She uses non-spill Tommee Tippee cups both with and without handles. She has always been inclined to drop her water beaker at mealtimes, and recently she has also started to drop her cup whilst it still contains milk. Before now she would fairly consistently finish the milk before dropping her cup. However, she will drink greedily if we hold the cup up for her, so I do not feel she is dropping the cup because she is not hungry.

We are travelling to Australia for two months and it is 40 degrees there so we do not want to have to keep removing the cup to solve the problem as it may mean that she ends up not drinking enough fluids. But how else do I deal with this behaviour.

My daughter takes 7ozs of formula at 7am, 1/3rd of this is used to mix her cereal. She eats 1 weetabix or a sachet of ready brek followed by toast/ French toast/ cheese on toast /chopped fruit.

11.45am, 3-4 heaped tablespoons lamb hotpot/chicken with roasted vegetables, slice of bread with butter/cream cheese, 2 tablespoons natural yoghurt with 2 cubes chopped fruit

2.30pm 6ozs formula

5.00pm, 3-4heaped tablespoons of protein or vegetarian meal, chopped pasta etc, dessert on alternate days, finger food.

6.30pm 6 ozs formula
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My son has always been a very happy and easy baby. However, there is one major problem that has caused endless tension and countless arguments between my husband and me. Basically, he likes to scream (a very high pitched horror film style scream). He seems to do it when he is excited, tired, hungry, dirty, bored, frustrated or in need of attention.

It started when he was about 4 1/2 mths old and I was adamant it was just a phase that he would soon grow out of. I have always been able to largely ignore it, and my two year old daughter soon got used to it. However my husband has a real issue with it and really can't stand the noise. He finds it incredibly frustrating and stressful and is becoming increasingly angry with our son for doing it. I persuaded him initially that he was too young to be 'told off' for doing it and that we wouldn't be able to 'discipline' such a small baby. However, this argument is now wearing a bit thin.

I know that this sounds like a small problem, but it has caused such awful problems in our family life and has ruined what should have been such a special few months with out two young children. My husband is continually stressed and angry and I am resenting him more and more for not having the patience to deal with it. We used to have such a strong relationship and enjoyed our children immensely, but now we can't get through a day together without major tension or a row.

I know this isn't the normal sort of question you answer, but I haven't been able to get any helpful advice from my health visitors and thought you might have experienced this before with one of the babies you have cared for.

I basically would really appreciate your opinion on whether, at 10 months, he is too young to be trained out of the habit, and if not, how would you go about it? I've tried endless distraction which is sometimes effective, but not always possible when I'm caring for them both on my own or long lasting. I've also tried just saying a very firm 'no', but it seems to make no difference, although he understands the word and usually obeys it when I'm telling him not to touch something he shouldn't.
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Although I was excited when my son began to crawl at 7.5 months, I had no idea how much chaos he would begin to cause. I seem to be constantly tidying up and putting back the books and videos he pulls from the lower shelves. I don’t want to keep saying no to him but the house always seems to look a mess and it really gets me down at times. How do I balance his need for freedom and my need for some domestic order?
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My son was previously a perfect Gina baby, sleeping well for all naps and eating well. We moved house 2 months ago, I started work 1 month ago. My son started to become more unsettled. Now he always wakes crying and screaming whereas he used to chatter in his cot. He jumps up and down in cot in anger until we pick him up. Usually we control cry for at least 45mins in morning. We never bring him out of cot before 6.30am which is a fine time for us. We tend to give up more quickly when he wakes from day time naps.

Now he won’t settle for morning nap any longer, but really is too tired to drop it. So I give him quiet time in buggy, early lunch, and settle him early for his lunch time nap. But he is only sleeping a maximum of one hour at lunch time resulting in overtiredness in evening and early waking.

His chronic over tiredness is starting to make him cranky and now he has also started rousing frequently in the night although we don't get up to him and he does settle again. How can we get back on track? It is difficult not being sole carer to enforce routines more rigidly but other the carers are on board to try things out. He is cared for by a child minder 2 days a week, my mother takes him for 2 days and I care for him the other 3.

He is ever so active during the day chasing cats and toddling around everywhere but is not as contented as he used to be and is becoming more wingy, clingy and he seems to be regressing further away from the routine that he kept so happily for so long. Is this normal for this age? I also carry a lot of guilt about returning to work and am unsure whether I am meant to be firm setting consistent boundaries or whether I should be reassuring and relieving new anxieties he may be having?

My son eats three meals a day having breakfast of cereal and fruit. He drinks cow’s milk and formula mixed from a beaker. He will have a small snack midmorning followed by lunch at 11.30-1145am. This is his protein meal of the day which he eats well. He drinks milk from a beaker at 2.30pm and eats a vegetarian tea with finger food. At 6.45pm he takes 7fl oz milk from a cup.
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My baby hates any sort of shops. She is fine in the pram out and about but really screams in any shop. The supermarket was the first place, so I tried the supermarket with the pram but that still didn't help. I always make she that she has had a good sleep before we go anywhere from home but this still doesn't help. It makes my day very boring as I can't go anywhere. She also seems grumpier when at other people’s houses; she can cry all the time I am there and be perfectly content when we arrive home.
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My 8.5mth daughter has just started to become very clingy towards me. If she knows I am in the room she will whinge until I pick her up but isn't a cuddly baby. She loved sitting with her dad when he gets home from work whilst I go into the kitchen to prepare dinner but this past week she has screamed as soon as I walk out of the lounge. Also, my husband takes her to bed and always brings her into the kitchen to say goodnight. She has also just started screaming as soon as he walks out of the kitchen. Is there anything I can do to make her less clingy? I thought going to nursery 2 mornings a week would help.
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My little boy, Ben, who is eight months old, has several teeth, which I try to clean in the morning and the evening. Sometimes he is very co-operative but on other occasions he clamps his mouth shut and won’t let me clean them. Do you have any tips on the best way to clean your child’s teeth and what to do if they are not to keen on the idea?

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My daughter has been on Gina's routines since birth - they have worked brilliantly - thank you. Although she is only 8-months-old, I have a copy of Gina's potty training book and have glanced through it. Does Gina have any special advice to give to someone, like myself, who uses cloth nappies as opposed to disposables?
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4.

My son is due to start nursery in 2 weeks time and I would appreciate your advice on how I adapt his routine to fit in with the 3 days he will go to nursery.

I am going to get him used to nursery over a 6 week period before I go back to work by leaving him gradually more and more. My concerns however are around how he will eat and sleep there. He has been an amazing 'contented baby' and fitted in with the routines from 5 weeks old and at 4 months when I pushed back the routine by 30 mins. At Nursery however, lunch is at 11.45am (usually 12.15pm for my baby) and tea at 3.45pm (usually 5.30pm). Can you please suggest how I can make sure he stays in his current pattern for the 4 days he is not at nursery? He currently has his afternoon milk at about 3pm so I am sure he will not be hungry for his tea at nursery. I had thought I would give him a snack at 5.30pm to keep him going?

Regarding sleep, he only really sleeps in his cot in a dark room, very rarely in a pushchair or in the car. At nursery, they have a separate cot area for sleeping but it will be noisier and light. There are only 6 babies in the room he will be in but I am sure he will not sleep how he sleeps at home. Can you please suggest how I change his routine to ensure he keeps going to a 7.30pm bedtime? I will be able to pick him up at 5ish initially so he will be able to have a short nap in the car. At home he has no comforter and does not suck his thumb - he usually cries for a few minutes and then settles. I have started to give him a muslin to sleep with so he has something at nursery - is this a good idea? I don't want to disturb his sleep at home!

Any ideas or tips you can give me will be appreciated. I have real confidence in the nursery but know that it will change his routine despite their efforts to stick to it.

At present my son takes 4ozs formula, weetabix or ready brek with fruit and mixed with 3ozs formula for his breakfast. He has a small snack at 10.15am with water if he hasn’t eaten well at breakfast. Lunch at 12.15pm is approximately 8tbsps of savoury followed by fruit or yoghurt. 3pm 4ozs formula, 5.30pm approximately 8tbsp of savoury with water to drink and 7pm 6-7ozs formula.

My son naps at 9.45-10.15am and 1-2.30pm. He sleeps from 7.45pm to 7.15am.
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In July, when Jessie will be 11 months we have been to asked to stay with my husbands aunt and uncle. They have never had children so I am very apprehensive about how we will manage with a crawler in their house.
The house is quite large and is full of antiques, both furniture and china. Many of the floors are flag stoned with rugs over them, the stairs are steep and twisty. In all, it is not really a child-friendly environment.
What could I take with me to help me "child proof " it a little and help Jessie settle in strange surroundings? We will take a travel cot and high chair as well as some toys. What else could make this stay a little bit of a holiday for us, even though we will have to be extra vigilant with Jessie?
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What are the dangers of rough play with a ten-month-old? My husband likes to play with James in a very physical way, which leaves me unable to watch. I have told him of the dangers of flipping James' neck too much, but James seems to love it and will cling to his father’s legs begging for more. Is rough play just a father/son thing?
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We have just moved to a house in the countryside. Our neighbours have offered us a puppy from their forthcoming litter which we are thrilled about, as I long for a dog. Our son Tom is 7 months now and is a happy, contented baby. He is still not yet mobile in any way, spending much of his time on a play mat on the kitchen floor. Are we taking on too much to consider having a puppy in the house in about two months? What are the problems we might face as Tom becomes more mobile?
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