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Three months old baby milestones


Developmental Milestones: 3 Months - HealthyChildren.org

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Ages & Stages

Ages & Stages

What are some of the developmental milestones my child should reach by three months of age?

By the time your baby is three months of age, she will have made a dramatic transformation from a totally dependent newborn to an active and responsive infant. She’ll lose many of her newborn reflexes while acquiring more voluntary control of her body. You’ll find her spending hours inspecting her hands and watching their movements.

Here are some other milestones to look for.

Movement Milestones

  • Raises head and chest when lying on stomach
  • Supports upper body with arms when lying on stomach
  • Stretches legs out and kicks when lying on stomach or back
  • Opens and shuts hands
  • Pushes down on legs when feet are placed on a firm surface
  • Brings hand to mouth
  • Takes swipes at dangling objects with hands
  • Grasps and shakes hand toys

Visual and Hearing Milestones

  • Watches faces intently
  • Follows moving objects
  • Recognizes familiar objects and people at a distance
  • Starts using hands and eyes in coordination
  • Smiles at the sound of your voice
  • Begins to babble
  • Begins to imitate some sounds
  • Turns head toward direction of sound

Social and Emotional Milestones

  • Begins to develop a social smile
  • Enjoys playing with other people and may cry when playing stops
  • Becomes more communicative and expressive with face and body
  • Imitates some movements and facial expressions

Developmental Health Watch

Although each baby develops in her own individual way and at her own rate, failure to reach certain milestones may signal medical or developmental problems requiring special attention. If you notice any of the following warning signs in your infant at this age, discuss them with your pediatrician.

  • Doesn’t seem to respond to loud sounds
  • Doesn’t notice her hands by two months
  • Doesn’t smile at the sound of your voice by two months
  • Doesn’t follow moving objects with her eyes by two to three months
  • Doesn’t grasp and hold objects by three months
  • Doesn’t smile at people by three months
  • Cannot support her head well at three months
  • Doesn’t reach for and grasp toys by three to four months
  • Doesn’t babble by three to four months
  • Doesn’t bring objects to her mouth by four months
  • Begins babbling, but doesn’t try to imitate any of your sounds by four months
  • Doesn’t push down with her legs when her feet are placed on a firm surface by four months
  • Has trouble moving one or both eyes in all directions
  • Crosses her eyes most of the time (Occasional crossing of the eyes is normal in these first months. )
  • Doesn’t pay attention to new faces, or seems very frightened by new faces or surroundings
  • Still has the tonic neck reflex at four to five months
Last Updated
6/1/2009
Source
Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5 (Copyright © 2009 American Academy of Pediatrics)

The information contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

Baby Developmental Milestones: 3 Months

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

May raise head and chest while on tummy

Movement

For your baby, holding up their head and chest while leaning on their elbows will be a major triumph. So give them "tummy time" every day when they are awake. Hold a toy in front of your baby to encourage them to lift their head and look forward. This strengthens their neck muscles.

Opens and shuts hands

Movement

Is your baby staring at their hands a lot these days? They have just discovered that they can open and shut them. Press a lightweight toy or rattle in their hand and they'll grip it, explore or shake it, and drop it when they lose interest.

Pushes down on legs when feet are on a firm surface

Movement

Let your baby stand for a few seconds with some help from you. Hold them in a standing position with their feet on the floor and they'll push down and straighten their legs. Let them bounce a couple of times if they try. What an adventure!

May swipe at dangling objects and may grasp and shake hand toys

Movement

Your baby is learning hand-eye coordination. Lay them under an infant gym and they'll throw their whole body into batting and grabbing for the dangling toys. Hold a toy in front of them while they are sitting on your lap and let them try to reach for it.

Can start to follow moving objects with eyes

Visual and Hearing

Your baby's eyes can move and focus at the same time now. They may follow an object moving all the way around in a half-circle. They love watching things move! Jiggle a mobile above their crib. Watching it will be a favorite activity.

Recognizes familiar objects and people at a distance

Social and Cognitive

At birth, your baby could only see fuzzy shapes. Now they can recognize the outline of a face when someone enters the room. They even may smile at you from across the room! Take them out often in their stroller or baby carrier and let them discover all there is to see.

May make cooing sounds and turns head towards some sounds

Hearing and Language

Is your baby cooing, aahing, and oohing? They are starting to imitate sounds, the first step to speech. Coo back to them and they'll begin to understand how two people talk. Sprinkle real words into talks with baby, too. They'll understand words long before they can say them.

Begins to develop a social smile

Social and Emotional

Your baby may start smiling at the sound of your voice as early as 6 weeks. This is their first social skill as they learn to express themselves in ways beyond crying. Your baby’s aware that they get a happy feeling when they see you. And when you respond, you let them know that they make you happy, too!

Enjoys playing with people and may cry when playing stops

Social and Emotional

Your baby now likes to play with people. Clap their hands together or stretch them out wide, or pedal their legs as if they are riding a bike. Make faces for them to copy. Don't worry if they cry when playtime is over -- they don't like playtime with you to end.

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Important achievements of the child at three months

How to communicate with the baby and what changes to expect in his behavior and physical abilities

Three months is the age at which the child begins to actively explore the world around him, acquires new skills, shows interest in others and strengthens emotional connection with parents.

Any developmental indicators for a certain age are rather guidelines, rather than fixed indicators that a child must achieve. Children may reach them a little earlier or later, while others may skip certain stages altogether. With this information, parents will be less worried about developmental delays: if adults perceive a three-month-old child as a person, and not as a set of skills, each of which needs a “tick”, life will be easier for everyone. nine0003

Emotions and communication: smile, grimaces, first babbling

By three months, character develops and opportunities for social interaction increase. The child begins to demonstrate joy, boredom, disappointment and other feelings.

If during the second month of life the child smiled with difficulty and infrequently, then after two months one can notice that he more and more often responds with a smile to his relatives. Simultaneously with a smile, cooing begins - the first attempts to communicate by voice. Of course, "mom" and "dad" are still far away, but you can already hear the babble addressed to the parents. It is important to encourage these attempts at communication and develop your child's language skills by talking to them throughout the day. Try to describe everything you do, even if it's just washing dishes. nine0003

While the child is still too young to understand the meaning of the story or even individual words, it will not be superfluous to read to him. This is a great way to speed up the development of language skills in the future. Although the baby is not yet able to repeat after you, he begins to store information in his rapidly developing memory. Singing also has a positive effect on the emotional and linguistic development of the child, and also arouses his keen interest.

Also, if you're lucky, in the process of playing with a child (the game at this age will be sounds addressed to the child, a smile, a variety of expressive facial expressions, touches), you can hear his first laugh. On the other hand, after stopping the game, a three-month-old baby may begin to cry. At this age, children generally cry often, especially when they are bored or if something they like is taken away from them. Both laughter and crying indicate the normal development of the emotional sphere. nine0003

By the third month, a stable emotional connection with parents is formed. By this time, he already knows that these are special people.

He will probably smile at other people, especially when they make eye contact and talk to him. But pets definitely appear in the life of a little person - mom and dad.

Causes for concern

There is a big difference between a child who is reluctant to respond to parents and a child who is indifferent to social interaction. A child who does not laugh yet, but smiles, most likely, simply has not yet learned to laugh, this time will come later. The same applies to a child who follows the gaze of the parents and babbles, but does not smile. Maybe you just need to wait a couple of weeks and see the progress. nine0003

But if you get the impression that the child is completely uninterested in the world around him, if he does not babble, does not look at his parents and does not smile at them, it is better not to postpone a visit to the pediatrician. This behavior can be a sign of neurological problems, most of which can be corrected with early intervention.

Physical development and play: reaching out and grabbing

As your coordination improves, your baby's curiosity will become more and more satisfying. Therefore, among the main indicators of development at three months is the desire of the baby to reach out and touch someone or something. nine0003

He is already able to grab interesting objects like a rattle and start studying them: shake or push to make a sound, drop to make a rumble, hit hanging toys with a fist. Such simple games show that the child can follow objects of interest and coordinate his movements.

Repeated blows to extract sound indicate normal muscle and auditory development. To help develop muscle and coordination, try holding a toy out to your baby to see if he grabs it. nine0003

By the age of three months, the child begins to actively move his arms and legs. And if you hold him so that his legs touch the floor, he tries to lean on them.

Also at the age of three months, thanks to the development of muscles, the baby learns to roll over on his back on his own, raise his head in this position and hold it for several minutes. And when the child sits with support, he can keep his head straight. To strengthen the muscles of the head and neck, it is useful to hang or hold a toy in front of the child so that he crawls up and grabs it. nine0003

The increased possibilities of the body allow one to more actively explore the world. Enrich the sensory experience of the child and stimulate the sense of touch with the help of various materials and surfaces. Let him touch things with a variety of textures: various fabrics, cones, faux fur, paper and cardboard, towels, etc. Also at this stage, special books for the little ones with inserts from various materials are useful.

Causes for concern

If the child cannot reach and grasp an object and does not show interest in sound sources, he may have problems with the nervous system or hearing. You should also be wary if the baby's arms and legs are constantly tense or, conversely, too sluggish. And if the child has not learned to raise his head while lying on his stomach by the end of the third month, be sure to consult a pediatrician. nine0003

Guidelines for parents

Learned skills (most children can do this) :

  1. hold their heads confidently;
  1. recognize their parents by sight.

Emerging skills (half of the children can do this):

  1. can do some push-ups on their hands;
  1. laugh and smile.

Advanced skills (few children can do this):

  1. turn to a loud sound;
  1. can put their palms together and tap the rattle.

Child development milestones from 0 to 3 months

Have you seen your baby's first real smile yet? This is an important turning point for both you and your baby. Even if you had some doubts before, at the sight of that first hesitant smile, you will suddenly realize that all the sleepless nights and hectic days of the first weeks made sense, and you will do everything possible to make your baby smile more often. And the child will suddenly discover that with a simple movement of his lips he can “talk” to you, because thanks to his smiles he gets even more attention and feels even better. His growing socialization is further confirmation that he enjoys and appreciates this new experience. Expanding your horizons through such experiences not only brings joy to both of you, but is also of great importance for the overall development of the child. nine0003

Of course, just like adults, babies prefer certain people over others. And the favorites of the child, of course, will be his parents. Then, at about three or four months of age, babies begin to take an interest in other babies. If the child has siblings, you will notice that as soon as they start talking to him, he breaks into a smile. As you grow older, interest in children will only grow.

At first, the child may meet grandparents or a familiar nanny with an indecisive smile, but after playing with them for a while, the baby will begin to walk and “speak” in body language. Although this is not very obvious so far, the child, undoubtedly, becomes more and more attached to the people closest to him. nine0003

As your child grows, the way you communicate with him will change according to his needs and desires. As you interact with your child on a day-to-day basis, you will notice that there are three general levels of needs: