8 month old baby: his psychomotor development
Your baby is becoming a real little man and this month he is preparing to reach exciting motor milestones like crawling and crawling.
In this article I will show you the main stages of psychomotor development of an 8-month-old baby.
Furthermore, I will report the red flags , that is, the red flags that can make you think of a delay in your child's psychomotor development.
What is psychomotor development?
Psychomotor development represents the child's global growth process. This means that it will include different areas:
- Motor and postural development;
- Socio-emotional development;
- The development of language and communication;
- Cognitive development.
Every child is different and has his own pace, but it is possible to identify some skills that are achieved by the newborn depending on his age.
In this article we will see in detail those that are acquired in the eighth month of life .
8 Month Problems: Baby Proofing Your Home
The achievement of new stages that allow the child to move freely also leads him to discover the surrounding world with new eyes and a renewed interest in everyday objects such as chairs, lamps and drawers. Precisely for this reason it is important to consider that from now on also risks emerge, since the child does not yet have the ability to discern what is dangerous.
This phase requires parents to make the home environment safe for the child , without limiting their autonomous exploration. Furthermore, it is the adult's task to offer the child a place suitable for free motor skills, based on a relationship founded on safety and emotional support, in line with the Montessori philosophy.
In the video course “Safe Sleep and Baby Safety at Home” you will discover how to make your home completely safe to avoid domestic accidents.
Motor development newborn 8 months
Your 8-month-old baby , who now loves tummy time , can support himself perfectly in a tummy-down position by extending his elbows and resting his palms on them.
In the previous two months he should have learned how to easily roll from supine to prone (perhaps even vice versa) and to rotate on himself in the prone position to reach objects from the side.
If your baby learned to crawl during the seventh month, he or she will most likely reach the crawling stage automatically this month.
If, however, he does not crawl, it may be that he begins to crawl without going through the previous stage . In fact, according to some scientific studies, of all children who crawl, it is estimated that only 50% of them have crawled first.
Also, during this time he may start to try to sit up on his own by switching from crawling to sitting and vice versa.