Development Milestones 0-4 Months

Your baby will cross dozens of developmental milestones in their first four months. To help keep track of their growth, it’s common to separate these milestones into the following categories:

1. Gross motor skills are full-body movements, or movements that require large muscle groups. This includes sweeping motions with the arms or legs, rolling over and sitting up.
2. Fine motor and cognitive skills focus on small, precise movements with the hands, fingers, feet and toes. This includes wiggling fingers and toes, gripping objects and following objects with their eyes.
3. Social and emotional skills refer to your baby’s ability to interact with other people and regulate their own emotions. This includes smiling at others, responding to touch, responding to soothing and self-soothing.
4. Communication skills cover your baby’s verbal communication. This includes crying, cooing, grunting, gurgling, laughing and learning to form tones and speech sounds.
5. Vision development describes how your baby’s vision develops over time. At birth, babies have very little vision, but they quickly learn to recognise colours, motion, faces and objects as they grow.
6. Hearing development includes your baby’s ability to hear, recognise and imitate sounds. Hearing and speech development are closely linked.

Your Baby’s Development Milestones 0-4 Months

Development begins as soon as your baby is born. During the first few months, your baby will grow and learn quickly, and spending time together will promote brain and body development.

Gross Motor Skills

1. At 1 month your baby will wiggle, move their arms and legs, and turn their head towards light involuntarily.
2. Between 1-3 months babies get stronger. They’re able to hold their head up and may start using their arms to support their chest during tummy time.
3. After 3 months your baby will start to gain control of their arms and legs.

Note: Some babies learn to roll over at around 4 months. If you notice your baby rolling or attempting to roll and you’re currently using a swaddle, it’s important to transition them to an arms free, age-appropriate sleeping bag.

 

Newborns have very few gross motor skills – they don’t yet know how to make each part of their body move.

They cuddle, sleep and feed in short intervals. Your baby may move around, bob their head or jerk their arms, legs and hands, but these movements are involuntary.

In the first 8 weeks, your baby will gain some control of their arms and legs, and they’ll start to get the idea that they have control over their body. At this point, your baby will also work out how to lift their head and kick their legs when lying on their tummy.

As your baby approaches 3-4 months old, they will start to reach for objects with their arms and legs. They’ll gain better control of their head movements and will start to hold their head up when sitting (with your support).

You can encourage the development of gross motor skills by starting supervised tummy time as soon as possible.

Fine Motor and Cognitive Skills

At 1 month old, your baby will have very few fine motor skills. They may grip objects placed in the palm of their hand, but they’ll usually keep their fists closed.

Between 1-3 months your baby will discover their fingers and hands. They will hold their hands open more often and will be able to grip objects, but they don’t know how to let go just yet.

After 3 months your baby will learn to pick up objects with their fingers and thumbs. They’ll usually put these objects straight in their mouths!

Fine motor skills are some of the trickiest for your baby to learn. As newborns, they have no control over their movements, and no awareness of their own body.

It’s not until your baby reaches 1-3 months that they begin to recognise their own body. Although they are still unlikely to know how to control their arms, legs, hands or fingers at this age.

As your baby reaches 4 months and beyond, they’ll gain better control of their hands and fingers, and will have enough coordination to pick up objects using fingers and thumbs.

Around the 4-month mark is also where babies start to put things in their mouths. This is a normal part of learning mouth skills like chewing, which will eventually lead to eating solid food. Don’t be too afraid of your baby sucking on toys and other objects, but be careful they don’t get a hold of anything that could be a choking hazard.

Social and Emotional Skills

At 1 month old, babies are learning to be aware of their surroundings. They like to look at faces and can usually recognise their parents.

Between 1-3 months your baby’s eyesight will improve. They recognise their parents and other familiar faces, and will look at you when you’re talking or feeding them.

After 3 months your baby will learn to make eye contact and smile back at you. They appear to listen when you speak and may start to gurgle or babble when “talking” to you.

Babies rely on their parents for survival, so social and emotional skills are very important. Newborns bond with their parents at a young age, and usually learn to recognise you during their first few weeks.

As their vision improves, your baby will get better at recognising faces. They’ll start to take part in conversations by turning to face the person who’s talking.

Your baby still has very few social skills. They’ll learn to smile at 2-3 months old, and soon after they’ll figure out how to recognise (and return) a smile from another person.

Communication Skills

At 1 month, crying is your baby’s main way of communicating that they’re hungry, tired or uncomfortable. They may make gurgling noises if they’re happy.

Between 1-3 months your baby will make lots more sounds. They’ll gurgle and make sounds like ‘a’ or ‘o’, and it can seem like they’re talking back to you when you speak.

After 3 months many babies will try to copy sounds at the 4-month mark, and they’ll continue to make other noises like babbling, sighing and squealing.

Communicating with your little one can be tricky when they’re a newborn. They’ll cry a lot, and you’ll learn how to tell the difference between each cry.

Crying will be their main form of communication for several months. As you talk, sing and read to your baby, they’ll start learning how to make other sounds and communicate their needs.

Communication will be fairly limited during the first 4 months of your baby’s life. As they get to the 4-month mark, some babies begin to copy sounds and say things like “ma-ma” or “da-da”, but they probably don’t associate these sounds with you.

 

Baby Sleep Routines 0-4 Months

Sleep and settling can be a challenge in the first few months of your baby’s life. If you struggle to get your little one down to rest, you aren’t alone.

Babies aged 0-3 months sleep for about 20-50 minutes at a time, and they need 12-16 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period. That means you can expect your baby to wake frequently to feed, play and cuddle.

As your baby passes 4 months, you can expect them to begin sleeping in longer cycles of around 2-3 hours. This is the age where their body starts to develop a circadian rhythm and learns to tell the difference between day and night. You can still expect them to sleep for 10-18 hours in a 24-hour period, but it will typically be in longer bursts.

See our complete article on your baby’s first year sleep routine to learn more about sleep and tips on settling your baby.

Learn About Your Baby’s Developmental Milestones With Nourish Baby!

Your baby’s first four months will be filled with milestones! They’ll learn to open their eyes, make noise, control their body and interact with you and your partner.

Tracking milestones is a good way to make sure your baby is developing the skills they’ll need as they progress into toddlers. If you want to know more about your baby’s milestones, take an online course from Nourish Baby.

Nourish Baby provides online antenatal courses that cover pregnancy, birth, sleep and feeding. In our early childhood courses, you’ll learn how to care for your baby and encourage their development.

You can browse our antenatal courses online, or contact us to learn more!