Raising a Child: Age 6 Months – 1 Year

6 months are a serious age boundary -- your baby has grown up. Besides the question of feeding and the problem of teeth growing, there are a lot of questions raised by parents. New problems emerge; for example, a problem of intellectual development of a child.

Now, this little person understands you well, and you have begun to understand him or her better. The baby is not as fragile as before, and he or she has begun to show his or her character. The baby has learned to sit, and he or she begins to understand reality with a great interest.

An interest in small objects also appears. He or she can play with a toy for a long period of time, and he or she pushes and moves a lot of objects.

Advice #1: toys thrown by a child should be put in their places. By 8-10 months, it’s high time to show a child how to make a pyramid or to put bricks from one box into another one. A child likes carrying and lifting big objects. Make sure that they are not dangerous (a ball or a sofa cushion). By the 1st year, a baby must understand how to make a pyramid (there is nothing awful if he or she can’t make it themselves) and how to find the second part of a cut postcard. Games with bricks are also useful: by the 1st year it’s possible to build simple towers of 2-3 bricks. At the beginning, a baby will look not at the bricks, but at an adult: he or she learns to build, to play, and at the same time to communicate. That’s why it’s important to talk to the child while pronouncing each syllable well. You should pay attention to the size of bricks, rings, or other identical toys by saying, “a big brick, a small brick”.

When teaching your child, read rhythmical poems: this develops speech skills. By 6-7 months a baby becomes quite talkative and noisy. He or she babbles a lot and seldom cries. This is the period when it’s important to develop a child’s speech. We continue naming objects, pronouncing words by syllables: “mo-ther, win-dow, car-pet”.

Advice #2: try not to lisp with a child; speak with a tender, calm voice. It has been proven that adults’ babbling hampers a child’s development. Development of speech is also hampered when parents constantly take trouble of their child and speak with him or her, and he or she doesn’t have a wish or an opportunity to pronounce anything.

Advice #3: begin to listen to a fairy-tale recorded on a cassette with your child. At first the child won’t pay attention to the record. But after some time, if you listen to the record every day for 15 minutes, he or she will babble and become interested in the sound source. This will happen if you are near the child in the moment of listening. You are this person who helps the child to understand speech and to speak. It’s advisable that the chosen cassette would be with music and different intonations -- text doesn’t have meaning yet.

Advice #4: your baby is bigger, but massage is still developing for him or her. Strength exercises are also included.

Advice #5: pay attention to your child’s temperament and don’t always demand an ideal behavior.