Your Baby: Month 7

Your Baby: Month 7

* He can respond selectively to words she has come to know
* He is exploring cause and effect through dropping games
* He may start trying to crawl

The Dropping Game: All in the Name of Learning

You bend down to pick up your little angel's favorite teddy bear and give it back to him, only to have him fling it to the floor again. Repeat this scenario oh, 30 or 40 more times and you have one of the most common developmental games for a 7-month-old.

It's amazing how much he can learn from this activity. Is the teddy bear heavy or light? What sound does it make when it hits the floor? If I do it again, will it do the same thing? Is it still my teddy bear when it's on the floor? And how many times can I do this before mommy stops thinking it's funny?

Refining His Grasp of Grasping

At this stage, most babies have no trouble passing things from hand to hand. He's starting to be able to grab things one-handedly, which leaves another whole hand free for exploring. He's getting better with her fingers, too. The mitten grasp will soon give way to picking up small things, like Cheerios, by pressing her thumb against the base of her pointer finger.

Your Little Wordsmith

When babies hear people talk, they hear a continuous stream of words all slurred together. But at 7 months, your baby can already pick out where some words begin and end. He can also recognize the words he hears most often, like his own name. You can see that he listens more carefully when he hears them. Understanding what words mean comes next.