9 months

• Crawls using their hands and tries to 'climb' the stairs.
• Clasps hands or bangs, drops and shakes objects or toys together.
• Puts things in his/her mouth.
• Rolls over in both directions.
• Uses both hands to play with toys, or grasps toys.
• Grasps small objects using thumb against side of index finger.
• Gets to a sitting position without help.
• Pulls him/herself to stand, walks holding on to furniture.

• Fears heights, aware of vertical space.
• Looks for toys that have been hidden in front of them.
• Beginning of intelligence, assigns symbols to events.
• Begins to show a quality of persistence.
• Follows simple directions like: 'pick up the toy'.
• Hands you a book when he/she wants to hear a story.
• Responds to name being called.

• Uses words meaningfully.
• Responds to 1 or 2 words other than their name.
• Imitates cough, tongue clicking and hissing
• Repeats sounds or actions to get attention.
• Makes a lot of different sounds like 'mamamama', 'babababa' and 'dadadada'.
• Responds to simple spoken requests.
• Uses simple gestures, like shaking head 'no' or waving 'bye-bye'.

• Should start to perceive mother and father as separate persons.
• Maybe afraid of strangers and clingy with familiar people.
• Turns head to visually follow familiar faces or favorite toys.
• Plays games such as 'peek-a-boo' and claps hands.

Hide a child's favorite toy under a cloth or box. See if the child can find it. Play peek-a-boo.

Tell your child the names of things and people. Show your child how to say things with hands, like 'bye bye'. Sample toys: doll with face.

Download the full list of Developmental Milestones