Infancy
The stage of infancy starts from birth and ends approximately at the age of 2.
Infancy is also called “babyhood”
Infancy and early childhood development are times of great change in a living organism, and they are perhaps the most formative years of development. Developmental progress may be measured in the following domains: physical, cognitive, emotional, and social. For example, certain common physical milestones often mark a child’s physical and motor development. Psychology theorists like Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Erik Erikson proposed stage theories for other aspects of development.
During infancy, a great deal of initial learning occurs. This learning is provided through environmental signals, such as a parent’s behavior. Very basic skills are mastered during this time period, such as crying, nursing, co-ordination and the ability to represent images and objects with words. An important influence in the child’s life at this stage is the parents. It is very common to see a child at the ages of 7-9 months old become upset when they are separated from their primary caregiver. This phenomenon is known as attachment, and is important in determining how a child will behave in future relationships as they mature.
Infancy is the shortest of all developmental periods. During the first year of your child’s life, she will go from an unexperienced newborn that has little motor control to an on-the-verge-of-toddling baby. This first stage of child development includes rapid physical growth that supports his new abilities. Major milestones include rolling over at roughly 4 to 6 months, sitting up unassisted by 6 months old and crawling or even walking by 12 months. By the end of the infant stage, children also have the fine motor, or hand, skills to use a claw grasp, pick up and put down small objects. As a child reaches between 4 and 6 months, he will begin to purposefully babble and laugh or squeal with emotion. By 12 months old, an infant may also have the ability to say simple words, such as “mama,” and understand a limited vocabulary of basics, such as “no.” The first year is a period of rapid development for motor, language, social, sensory and thinking skills. By the end of the first year, children usually are able to crawl, sit without support. Some children start to walk at the end of first year. Then they gradually start to talk and logical thinking begins to build at the end of second year.
Physical development:
Most newborns initially lose their weight just after birth but gradually they gain weight after two weeks. Then they double it and triple it by the end of first year.
All infants grow at their own pace. A small or large baby may be perfectly healthy. Also, infant have growth spurts and fluctuations in their rate of weight gain.
Motor development:
All infants develop according to the same sequence of events. For example, all infants learn to sit before they learn to walk. However, some children reach developmental milestones such as sitting and walking early, and others later.
Infants generally develop from the top down. The first thing to develop is head control and strengthening of the neck muscles. Later, hand coordination develops, which allows a baby to pull himself forward before learning how to crawl. Once a baby has better control of his lower body, he can use his hands and knees to crawl. All of this happens in preparation for learning to walk. Infants also have “soft areas” in their skull because some parts of the skull haven’t fused together yet. By age 2 years, babies’ skulls are as hard as adult skulls, but in the first months, caregivers need to be careful how they handle the baby and protect their heads.
As noted before, infants grow exponentially in the first 2 years. In the first 3 months, they grow up to 2.5 inches and 3 pounds. Between the ages 4 to 6 months, they grow another 2.5 inches and gain an average of 4 pounds. Between 7 and 9 months, they grow an average of 2.5 inches and 4 pounds. Between 10 and 12 months, they grow another 2.5 inches and another 3 pounds. During the second year, toddlers grow about 1 inch and 2 pounds about every 3 months. Children’s growth slows considerably after age 2 years.
A baby develops as his central nervous system matures. Along the way, many of the primitive reflexes he had as a baby, such as the grasp and walking reflexes, are lost. These primitive reflexes need to disappear in order for a baby to learn to move himself voluntarily. The walking reflex, for example, disappears by the end of the first month of life. The grasp reflex starts to disappear at two to three months of age. Also, while a young baby wildly moves his arms and legs in every direction, an older baby learns to make specific responses.
Vision, hearing and communication
Your baby’s eyesight, hearing, and communication skills will develop over his first year of life. While newborn babies can only see things about 25 cm (10 inches) in front of them at first, their sight improves to near adult levels by the age of eight months. Newborn babies can hear rather well at birth, and this, along with their ability to respond to sound and their communication skills, improves throughout the first year.
Babies are not only growing physically during the first 2 years of life, but also cognitively (mentally). Every day while they interact with and learn about their environment they are creating new connections and pathways between nerve cells both within their brains, and between their brains and bodies. While physical growth and change is easily observed and measured in precise terms such as in inches and pounds, cognitive change and development is a little harder to determine as clearly. Therefore, much about what experts know about mental and cognitive development is based on the careful observation of developmental theorists and their theories, such as Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and Erickson’s psychosocial stages.
According to Piaget, newborns interact with their environment entirely through reflexive behaviors. They do not think about what they’re going to do, but rather follow their instincts and involuntary reactions to get what they need: food, air, and attention. Piaget believed that as babies begin to grow and learn about their environment through their senses, they begin to engage in intentional, goal-directed behaviors. In other words, they begin to think about what they want to accomplish, how to accomplish it, and then they do it. This is also when infants develop object permanence, which is the ability to understand that something still exists even if it can’t be seen. These two milestones, goal-directed behavior and object permanence, are the highlights and major accomplishments of infant cognitive development.
Emotional development:
The emotional development in infants can be explained based on the infant’s age growth. Here are some stages that show how infants normally develop emotionally:
Within your baby’s first 3 months, the infant will:
See objects clearly, within a distance of 13 inches
Feel comforted by someone familiar
Have positive responses to touch
Become quiet when you pick her up
Start listening to voices
Begin smiling and responding to social stimulation
At 3 to 6 months, your infant can:
Start making warm smiles and laughter
Recognize familiar faces
Seek comfort and cry when uncomfortable
Express excitement by waving her arms and legs
Be able to sense the difference between people based on how they look, feel, or sound like
Smile when looking at herself in a mirror
Enjoy seeing other babies
Recognize her name
At 6 to 9 months, your little one will:
Be able to express different emotions
Play peek-a-boo and other games
Respond when you talk or make gestures to her
Start understanding your emotions (an angry voice, for example, can make her frown)
Show displeasure when she loses a toy
Be comfortable around familiar persons, but anxious about strangers
Start sucking her thumb or holding a toy or a blanket to comfort herself
At 10-12 months, your infant will:
Begin having separation anxiety
Start to develop self-esteem
Respond to positive affirmation by clapping
Become more aware of heights
Show various moods such as happy, sad, and angry
Try to gain your approval and avoid your disapproval
Display temper tantrums
Sometimes be cooperative, sometimes uncooperative
Start developing a sense of humor
Cling to one parent or both
Start laughing aloud
Social development:
According to Erickson’s theory of social development, the psychosocial development occurs between birth and one year of age and is the most fundamental stage in life.
• Because an infant is utterly dependent, the development of trust is based on the dependability and quality of the child’s caregivers.
• If a child successfully develops trust, he or she will feel safe and secure in the world.
Caregivers who are inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, or rejecting contribute to feelings of mistrust in the children they care for. Failure to develop trust will result in fear and a belief that the world is inconsistent and unpredictable.
From 0-2 months, children are engaged in relationships, trying to develop a sense of being nurtured and loved. They seek a relationship that engenders trust, security, and a sense of optimism. If they succeed, they will have mastered the basic psychosocial goals of this age and will advance in development with a strong and secure sense of the world and their place within it. For it is only from a place of secure attachment that a baby is safe enough to explore the larger world around her.
Around 9-12 months, babies become more interested in exploration. This drive often coincides with their learning to crawl and/or walk, which leads to new adventures further away from nurturing caretakers. They begin to point to objects, an important developmental milestone that demonstrates their ability to establish a shared focus with another. Pointing thus allows interactions to expand to include objects and actions, enlarging babies’ ability to learn through more complex interactions.
Between 9 and 18 months, babies develop a more sophisticated understanding not only of other people and things, but also themselves.
Nine to eighteen months is also the time when stranger anxiety begins, where babies hang back with less well-known adults. They will also show anger when their primary caretakers leave the room or put them in the care of another.