Tolo Toys

Hearing / Communicating At 6 months most babies can respond to the different sounds you make and notice new sounds like the bark of a dog or the hum of a vacuum cleaner. Having "conversations" with your baby, and waiting for a pause in the babble to "answer" sets the stage for the give and take of language and helps to encourage the development of your baby's all-important first words. Excitingly, your little one is actually beginning to pick out the components of speech! By the 7th month your baby may recognise and respond to his or her own name and you'll notice more babbling and attempts being made to imitate sounds. By 9 months your baby may be able to put those sounds together - almost in an attempt to speak. He or she can listen when spoken to and will start to recognise common words like ball, cup and no!

Seeing Your baby's visual awareness is increasing dramatically! By 6 or 7 months you may notice your little one staring in concentration at objects, people and reflections. While most babies are still nearsighted at this age, your infant will be seeing much more than a few months ago, can focus and distinguish between colours at an adult level. Your baby is likely becoming much more aware and will stretch and turn to see what's going on nearby. He/she will also be able to track rapid motion. Watch your baby follow the path of a rolling ball and see the fascination with the quick movements of any older siblings playing nearby. As visual awareness is increasing rapidly it's important to vary the scenery and give your baby new and exciting toys to play with. Babies this age can appreciate more complex designs and colours and your baby is now starting to combine this vision with motor skills. By about 8 or 9 months it's most likely your little one will be able to spot a favourite toy from across the room, crawl to it, pick it up and play. There are some exceptions of course - some babies chose not to crawl at all! Toys that have moving parts, adjustable features and bits they can move and connect, will illicit hours of fun and curiosity as they try to figure out how they work.

Touching By 6 months the opportunities for exercising your baby's sense of touch are endless. Your little one will respond to different textures and it's interesting to introduce them to some unusual ones. Talking about them; "this is soft", "this is rough" etc will help to foster an environment where your baby wants to learn more about the world. Your infant is also learning to master fine motor skills - slowly but surely discovering how to manipulate fingers and soon to realise that by uncurling fingers from a grasped object will cause it to drop. By 8 months your baby is getting around more independently and has probably mastered crawling, or shuffling around on his/her bottom. This means they can go and explore - touching the things that interest them the most. While safety becomes of paramount importance during this stage, it's also a really exciting time to watch and get involved in your baby's enthusiastic exploration of the world.