How to Support Milestones at Home

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Apr 1

As children develop, parents and healthcare professionals monitor their progress in different ways. They will gauge how their development meets or differs from the average timeline of milestones a child’s growth tends to follow. The assessment and comparison of developmental milestones differs with every child, as they will develop skills at different rates. If one child has not yet spoken, for example, it may not always indicate a developmental delay. However, by understanding these milestones of development, parents can learn how to better support their children as they encounter them as well as recognize signs that may indicate there is a delay.

What Are Developmental Milestones?

From the time they are born, children begin developing their brain along with their physical abilities. Developmental milestones are the sensory, physical, or cognitive skills that typically occur in different stages of early childhood development. Usually they are marked at certain ages: one month, three months, seven months, one year, two years, four years, and five years.

One Month

In the first developmental milestone a child begins movement through reflexes, moving their head from side to side, and bringing their hands near their face and mouth. Visually they may have wandering eyes but can focus on objects about one foot away. They may recognize some sounds and notice the human face. A child who is one month old may begin to recognize scents and express a preference for things that are soft to the touch. Some signs that can indicate a delay during this stage are lack of movement, lack of response to sounds or smells, an inability to focus visually, and slowly feeding.

Three Months

As a baby reaches three months of age, they may be able to lift their head through stronger neck and shoulder muscles. Using their arms to support their upper body and stretching out their legs are signs of reaching these movement milestones. Parents may notice that they are starting to babble and imitate sounds as well as recognizing physical things visually. Emotionally, they might enjoy playing with others and respond with sadness when something they enjoy stops. Facial expressions and smiling start to become more present at this age as well. Some indications that there might be a delay during this stage are a lack of response to sound or moving objects, not smiling at all, having trouble holding up their head, not imitating sounds, or having trouble grasping objects with their hands.

You can view all of the additional developmental milestones for each stage of a child’s development on ChildMind.org and review our vocabulary development stages chart for a quick reference on language skills.

Supporting Developmental Milestones

At home, your child is in their natural environment. For parents to support their child’s developmental milestones, most of the effort will be needed in the natural environment. All of the daily routine tasks that you’ll do as a family are part of how a child develops. Parents won’t need equipment and tools to aid in their child’s development and reaching milestones. What you need is often simple and could incorporate your normal routine rather than taking time apart from your normal routine to address developmental concerns.

Cooking

As you prepare food, there are so many ways you can incorporate simple and small activities for your child to do to help and address a developmental skill. Children can scoop, stir, squeeze, smash, or grasp in the cooking process and work on their gross or fine motor skills at the same time.

Chores

While it may not feel like you can have fun while doing laundry, your child may be curious and enjoy helping you! Kids can push the laundry basket of clothes to the laundry room, sort clothes by color, help you place clothes in the washing machine, help you measure the detergent, or help you match socks and fold afterward. All of these things can help them develop their gross motor skills as well as learn about following directions and sequencing.

Working from Home

In this era, working from home has become a norm, and can sometimes be difficult with children at home. Sometimes kids might enjoy joining in on the workday. With paper and a few different types of writing tools like markers, pens, pencils, highlighters, or colored pencils, you can give your child the task of focusing on drawing or writing something while you work. It can keep kids occupied with something creative while also aiding their development of their fine motor skill or language skills.

Exercise

Some parents find it difficult to make time for physical activity and exercise, but parents need to ensure they are staying active too! One way to do so is to make it a family affair. If you are concerned about screen time and want to make sure your child is getting enough physical activity for their developmental milestones, incorporate activities you can do together. Even if you want to lift weights, you can do so while your child counts and does jumping jacks along with you. For the yoga lovers, incorporate your child into your practice! Even babies can join you through your workout and toddlers can work on developing their balance and muscle tone. Check out our resource, OT Animals for ideas for fun ways to get moving and support gross motor development. You can also find some ideas for family-friendly exercises and many other activities to help support your child’s development.

Remember that no matter how old your child is, they need time to play and be a kid! Play is an impactful way your child develops different skills and as they grow they may express a strong desire to do certain activities they enjoy.

Looking for additional ways to support your child’s developmental milestones at home? Our resources offer various activities which are therapist recommended and can address certain areas of development. Check out the latest or sign up for our newsletter to be alerted of new articles or activities that are available!