9-12 month milestones. Can you advise a very anxious mum?

[VillageFete]

Hi,

My DD is 8 months 5 days. So far so good in terms of happy/smiley, babbles lots, sitting up - in fact she always wants us to stand her up. I think she’s desperate to be able to get on the move, but nowhere near it.

I am incredibly anxious and have been diagnosed with postnatal anxiety which i’m receiving support for.

I just want to know what’s next with milestones? I hear lots about joint attention and pointing, but can you explain what that entails - what exactly is joint attention and how can I know she’s doing it correctly?

What else should I expect a typical child to be able to do at that stage of 9-12 months?

Google is a minefield and some of the American sites that show milestones seem to expect WAY more than UK ones. I can’t find definite answers.

hi Lovely, I’m sure we have spoken before on private message regarding your older child ? You gave me heaps of reassurance at the time. I didn’t want this post to go unnoticed. I know what post natal anxiety feels like. It’s a horrible place to be. Are you getting any help. Anxiety can play tricks with your mind and make you think things are there when they aren’t.
at your baby’s age, it’s babbling, enjoying listening to your voice and looking at your face and reaching for toys. Pointing can come later around 12 months but my youngest son didn’t do it till 18 months. X

Joint attention is essentially both of you consciously paying attention to the same thing - your child will look at you and the object, and try to "share" your reaction to it.

What works for us is both weaning, block/stacker play and reading. For example:

• my son has gone from being read books with me turning the pages and making big faces/voices and reactions to turning the pages himself, pointing to pictures himself and anticipating reactions and reacting himself.
• he's gone from knocking over block towers to carefully trying to stack a block on one I'm holding (big grin when he does it, and he does one back).
• being fed food and encouraged to eat, to offering me food to eat now.

These have all come on the past six weeks, and he's about 10m now.

These are the questionnaires the health visitors use for 9 months, 10 months, and 12 months (there is no 11 month one), so they're quite a good overall benchmark:

• https://www.broomfieldpediatrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ASQ-3-9-Mo-Set-B.pdf
• https://www.broomfieldpediatrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ASQ-3-10-Mo-Set-B.pdf
• https://www.broomfieldpediatrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ASQ-3-12-Mo-Set-B.pdf

Do check the scoring sheets at the back, as they never expect 6 'yeses' in a section, usually more like 4, and sometimes only 3! It's also quite common for baby to have a section or two 'in the grey' – the questionnaire is designed that way, roughly one in every 7 or 8 babies will be in the grey for each section. Usually, that's just a reflection of baby's individual development, so just a matter of making sure they have plenty of opportunities to develop those skills and waiting (im)patiently.

Pointing is often a big one for people – there's so much you can communicate by pointing, and pointing to say 'I want that' and (separately) to say 'see that exciting thing!' actually shows some quite complex mental development. Some babies point before a year, but for most it seems to be 12-15 months, and it isn't 'late' until 18 months, so your wee one still has ages yet!