Baby 411
Developmental Checklist

Read me first! Developmental checklists are designed to identify developmental delays in infants and young children. In general, the areas are divided into the following categories:

1. Gross motor skills (large muscle groups)
2. Fine motor skills (small muscle groups)
3. Language including all forms of communication (indicating wants, facial expressions, understanding language, and vocalization)
4. Personality/intellectual development

Because children accomplish these milestones at a range of ages, mastery of a particular milestone will vary over a period of time (i.e. walking may be mastered between 9-15months of age). The cutoff for ‘normal’ is at the level where over 90% of children have achieved a milestone at a particular age.

What you can do with the following table is draw a vertical line through the age of your child.

FYI: For babies born prematurely (if your child was born before 36 weeks gestation and your child is under 2 years old): Subtract the number of months missed in pregnancy from the baby’s current age and check at the adjusted age.

Gross Motor:
• Lifts head 0 to 2 months
• Holds head steady 1.5 to 4 months
• Pushes chest up while lying on stomach 2 to 4 months
• Rolls over 2 to 4.5 months*
• No head lag when pulled to sitting position 3.5 to 6 months
• Bears weight on legs when held in standing position 3 to 7.5 months
• Sits alone 5 to 8 months
• Stands holding on to something 5 to 10 months
• Pulls self up to standing position 6 to 10 months
• Gets to sitting position independently 6 to 11 months
• Walks holding on to furniture (“cruises”) 7.5 to 12.5 months
• Stands alone briefly 9 to 13 months
• Stands alone 9.5 to 14 months
• Walks alone 11 to 14.5 months
*Note: Rolling over is a less reliable milestone now that babies spend most of their time on their backs with the anti-SIDs campaign
*Note: Crawling is not listed on the developmental checklist because many children skip crawling and are developmentally normal.

Fine Motor:
• Brings hands together 1.5 to 3.5 months
• Grasps objects 2.5 to 4.5 months
• Reaches for objects 3 to 5 months
• Transfers objects hand to hand 4.5 to 7.5 months
• Grabs objects with whole hand (“rakes”) 5 to 8 months
• Able to feed self a cracker 4.5 to 8 months
• Grabs object between thumb and finger (“crude pincer grasp”)
7 to 10.5 months
• Bangs objects together 7 to 12 months
• Mastery of pincer grasp (“fine pincer”) 9 to 14 months
• Drinks from a cup 10 to 16.5 months

Language/Communication:
• Eyes focus on objects in front of them 0 to 1.5 months*
• Eyes follow objects to the sides 0 to 2.5 months*
• Baby regards person’s face 0 to 1 month*
• Baby smiles in response to person smiling at them (“social smile”)
0 to 2 months*
• Responds to loud noise 0 to 1.5 months
• Makes happy noises 0 to 2 months
• Laughs 1.5 to 3.5 months
• Makes squealing noises 1.5 to 4.5 months
• Baby smiles without prompting 1.5 to 5 months
• Turns to someone’s voice 3.5 to 8.5 months
• Says “dada” or “mama” but doesn’t mean it
6 to 10 months
• Imitates speech noises (baby talk/jabber) 6 to 11.5 months
• Says Dada or Mama and means it 9.5 to 13.5 months
• Baby indicates wants non-verbally (“point and grunt”)
10.5 to 14.5 months
• Says 3 or more words besides Mama/Dada 11.5 to 20.5 months
*Note: A newborn’s vision is 20/200. They can only see about 8 to 12 inches in front of their faces. So, to test these items, you need to be very close to your baby’s face.

Personality/Intellectual development
• Plays peek a boo 6 to 9.5 months
• Looks for hidden object 5 to 8 months
• Initial shyness with strangers (“stranger anxiety”)
5.5 to 10 months
• Plays pat a cake 7 to 13 months
• Plays ball with someone 9.5 to 16 months