The Senses and Your 8– to 12–month–old

Crawling, standing, walking – what wondrous months these are for you and your baby! Along with motor–skill accomplishments, your baby is continuing to develop her understanding of the world through the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and textures around her. You will worry about her safety, but by taking the necessary precautions to ensure a safe environment, you will provide her with countless ways to explore the world through her senses.
Sight
Your baby's sight has been maturing for several months, and she is able to see quite well and focus even on quickly moving objects. She is now putting her motor skills together with her visual skills. She can spot a toy across the room, focus on it, crawl to it, pick it up, and turn it over for visual scrutiny.

She will delight in looking at the same picture book over and over again, concentrating on the familiar images. She will love objects with parts she can move or pieces she can connect, and she'll spend lots of time staring at these things, perhaps trying to figure out how or why they work. Familiar and loving faces are still her favorite thing to look at, so Grandma's picture or a beloved sitter's friendly smile will make her laugh.

Take your baby with you to see new and interesting places. Point out the sights, and label them by name. You'll be promoting both her interest in the beauty and wonder of the world and her development of language skills.

Hearing
During this period, baby will be making more and more recognizable sounds, such as "ga," "ba," and "da." She may even stumble onto a real word like "mama," and she'll be thrilled at your excitement. These sounds tell you that your baby's been listening to you for quite some time. You'll also know she is hearing you and understanding what you say when you ask: "Where's Daddy?" and she looks his way, or you say: "Go find the blue ball," and she crawls right to it. She should already respond well to her own name, and she should look up (and at least pause) when you yell, "NO!"

Labeling simple objects during the course of the day reinforces the message that everything has its own name. From her milk in the morning to her teddy bear at night, she is learning what familiar objects are called and storing this information away, just waiting for the day when she can form the words herself. By the end of her first year, your baby should be responding well to simple requests from you ("Wave bye–bye.") and should be making some valiant babbling attempts at real conversation.

Taste and Smell
By this age, your baby may have a pretty good idea of which tastes she likes and which ones she doesn't. Don't be discouraged if she seems to prefer only one or two kinds of foods. By continually offering her foods with a variety of tastes and smells, you'll be sending the message that they are always available – and you'll be surprised the day she decides to try something new.

Since your baby's other senses – sight, hearing, and touch – have matured so far, you can also use her sense of smell to explore the world further. A trip outside can prove a wide variety of odors, from the sweet–smelling flowers to the distinctive smell of a rubber ball. Again, label smells and tastes for your baby ("Doesn't this smell sour?" and "Oh, this tastes so salty!") and you'll be providing her with the tools to name them herself as soon as she can form the words.

Touch
Your baby is getting around more on her own as she masters her crawling – perhaps even walking – skills. This means she can go and touch the things she wants to touch. After making sure there are no hot or sharp items that can hurt her and no small objects that she can put in her mouth, let your baby explore the textures and surfaces of your home and yard.

Let her find out how that banana gets mushy on the highchair tray, and that ice cubes feel hard and cold. Find some sandpaper and let your baby rub her hand over its coarse surface, then move her hand to the smooth coolness of a stainless–steel sink. Even though she's been around for almost a year, there's still so much to feel in this great big world! Of course, your loving touch is still the most important touch she knows, so lavish her with hugs and kisses as she grows.