Child development at 6 months: height, weight, skills

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

For a baby, this is quite a significant age. His first tooth begins to grow, he learns other foods besides breast milk or formula, a lot of things happen to him exactly at 6 months. But how to understand that everything goes on as usual and the child has 6 months of development, weight and height within the normal range? And what if he is even a little behind these norms?

Height

Regarding the fifth month, the baby will grow by approximately 2.5 cm. The lower limit of growth according to the norms for a boy is 63 cm and 61 cm for a girl at 6 months. The development of the child in terms of growth parameters is also predetermined by the initial data, but nevertheless, by this age, those who were born lower begin to catch up with their peers. On average, the height of six-month-old babies with normal development is 66.5 cm. The upper limit of growth for normal development of a child at 6 months is 72 cm for boys, and 70 cm for girls.

You need to understand that each baby develops at their own pace and theseindicators are the arithmetic mean among all children with normal development. By themselves, deviations from these norms are not an indication that something is wrong with the child.

Weight

Regarding the fifth month, the baby will add about 500–700 g. At 6 months, the weight of the little one doubles relative to its birth weight, it gains from 3 to 6 kg by this period. For boys and girls, with the normal development of a child at 6 months, the weight is slightly different. According to the norms, the lower limit of weight for a boy is 6.4 kg, and for girls - 5.7 kg. The upper weight limit for boys is 9.8 kg and for girls is 9.3 kg.

If the baby does not fit into these norms, but at the same time receives proper nutrition and development for a child at 6 months occurs on time, all his tests are normal, then this is not a cause for concern. This is just a reason for closer attention. All people are individual, including children, they may well be just not very large.

Complementary feeding

The baby's intestines are also undergoing changes. At 6 months, the baby is already able, in addition to milk, to digest pureed food, but not yet meat. Complementary foods are introduced at this time, but they do not replace breast milk. It still forms the main diet.

Complementary foods could also be introduced at 5 months. 6 months is the deadline to start eating other foods. It directly depends on what kind of food the child will receive at 6 months, development, weight and even he alth. Milk is no longer enough to make up for the shortagenecessary micronutrients, which is fraught with anemia and rickets. Some parents introduce it even at 4 months, but this is frowned upon by pediatricians and is considered too early. Before 4 months, it can also be dangerous to introduce it. Signs that the baby is ready for complementary foods are interest in adult food and the first tooth. It is best to introduce complementary foods with the following products:

• rice, buckwheat or corn dairy-free porridge;
• broccoli puree;
• cauliflower puree;
• zucchini puree;
• apple puree.

Such types of puree as pumpkin, carrot, prunes and berries should not be introduced first because of the increased allergenic factor. It is not worth starting with them because they are sweeter and the child will then refuse to eat insipid food. You can either cook porridge yourself from ordinary cereals ground in a coffee grinder or buy ready-made porridge, which you only need to dilute with boiling water.

At 6 months you need to gradually replace one meal, but only one of these products. All other meals are still breast milk. To adapt to each new product, the baby needs about 2 weeks. When a new product has taken root and there is probably no allergy to it, you can enter the next one. And so on.

If for some reason the baby cannot eat breast milk, then everything that has been said also applies to formula milk. The mixture must be selected once and not changed so that the digestive system does not experience unnecessary stress, adjusting to the new composition. She must be age-matched, and if required, she canhave a healing effect.

Physical development

The child's body acquires harmony in proportions and is more like the body of a child, not a baby. The body of the baby is getting bigger, the legs are longer, and against their background, the head no longer seems as huge as that of the newly born.

Somewhere from 3 to 6 months, the baby should have already learned to roll over from his back to his stomach on his own. And now he is actively trying to sit down and most often he already succeeds. It is not entirely true that early seating harms only the development of a girl, a child at 6 months cannot be seated, even if he is a boy. It's bad for everyone. The baby (regardless of its gender) should sit down exclusively by itself. No pillows under the back and seat blocks in the stroller before. After all, if he cannot sit down by himself, then this means that his spine is not ready yet, and not that he does not understand how to do it.

Babies do not sit down from a supine position, like adults, but from a booty up position. The harbinger of the fact that the child will soon sit down is that from the position on the tummy, he is trying to raise his butt up and so fall sideways.

If a child can sit up by himself, he often becomes calmer. Indeed, from a sitting position, more games and activities become available to him. And it’s also more convenient to start complementary foods, because you can already safely put them in a high chair.

Mental development

The timely mental development of a child at 6 months of age suggests that he should be able to:

1. Of course, he cannot yet begin to distinguish colors, voice and point to them, but by some signs it can be noticeable that things have become different colors for him. Red is the first to begin to distinguish, before that, children can only distinguish between black and white.
2. Look in the direction from where his name is heard, understand that it is about him.
3. Express vividly and emotionally your joy or sadness.
4. Begin to alert at the sight of strangers, before that, babies can reach for everyone who smiles at them.
5. Begins to explore toys, explore them, feeling and licking, as the mouth and tongue for the baby are full-fledged sense organs.
6. Starts to listen to sounds for the source of the noise, feels it getting louder or quieter.
7. Begins to actively babble, unconsciously repeating the syllables "ma-ma-ma", "ta-ta-ta", "dya-dya-dya" and so on.

Due to some features of the brain of a child at 6 months, the development of a boy may be a little slower and be delayed by about a month.

At this age, it is important to give the child a lot of new sensations. Such as smells, surfaces, the contrast of far and near distances, fast moving objects in the sky, seas and lakes. Do not think that the child will not notice all this and he does not care. On a walk, be sure to pull him out of the stroller and let him touch the leaves, twigs or snow. The more he gathers information from the outside world, the faster he will develop.

Daily routine

For children he playsa special role, it gives them a point of psychological support. The child understands that everything in this world is stable and always at the same time he will get food, take a walk or swim with his dad. For the full development of the child's regimen of 6 months looks like this:

7:00 - Rise.

7:15 - hygiene procedures.

7:30 - first feeding.

8:30 - games with mom.

9:30 - second feeding.

10:00 – first walk.

12:00 - lunch with complementary foods.

12:30 - first dream.

14:30 - educational games.

15:00 – third feeding.

16:00 - sleep in the air.

18:00 - fourth feeding.

18:15 - free time, games.

20:00 - Evening bath time.

21:00 - fifth feeding.

21:30 - lights out.

Of course, the hours may vary depending on the rhythm of family life and the personal preferences of the child, but in general, the number of hours allotted for certain activities should be about the same. The fact that everything happens at the same time is also important.

During the night's sleep, there are usually night feedings on demand at this age. At this age, a child needs 15-16 hours of sleep. Approximately 10 of them will fall on night sleep, and the rest on daytime sleep, which is usually divided into 2-3 times. During a night's sleep, the baby may still wake up 1-2 times to eat. You need to walk at least 2 hours a day, and divide this time into two times: one in the morning and one in the evening.

What should be able to

It is considered the norm for the development of a child in6 months, what he should be able to do is:

• capable of shifting a small object from one hand to the other;
• reach your hands to the object or person of interest;
• can eat from a spoon, but still doesn't hold it well;
• turn your head in the direction you are interested in;
• extracts sounds from an object, begins to realize that sounds will be different from different actions;
• try to get up with support from a sitting position;
• try to crawl, crawl like a bellies;
• grimacing;
• imitate primitive sounds;
• be interested in the reflection in the mirror.

Lying on the stomach, should be able to lean on the pelvis and fully open palms, not fists. And turn the head from this position in any direction, reach for the object of interest to him. At this age, this is how he spends most of his time (if he still cannot sit firmly). Most children are already sitting by this age, but are still very unsteady, occasionally toppling over to one side.

The baby begins to actively explore its limbs, can pull the foot into the mouth. And this indicates a high level of his coordination. These are no longer chaotic movements of the limbs, the child is aware of everything that he does with them. His legs are still bent, but are beginning to straighten.

What toys should be

For the normal development of a child at 6 months of age, he needs the following toys and games with them:

• pyramid of rings, preferably large and stable;
• car;
• constructor withlarge parts;
• baby with natural proportions, in which parents show the baby parts of the body, naming them;
• inflatable ball, you need to teach the child to roll it away from you and catch it when it is rolled to him;
• multi-colored bricks, they should already be available for the child to try to build towers and learn colors;
• soft toys for the development of fine motor skills, with small balls and cherry pits inside;
• books with cardboard sheets and bright contrasting pictures, with the simplest storylines or without them at all;
• floating bath toys;
• cups that fold into one another or build into a pyramid;
• abacus;
• sorter;
• a basket for storing toys in which parents should always put them away before going to bed, so over time the baby will get used to cleaning up toys.

Some toys will be awkward to play with, but that doesn't mean they're useless. A leap in development always occurs abruptly and you never know what a child will be able to do tomorrow. Therefore, all toys important for development should be at hand. So that toys do not get bored, it is recommended to divide them into 2 or 3 parts, depending on the total number. And take out each part in turn.

Teeth

The peculiarity of the development of children of 6 months is that it is during this period that their teeth begin to grow. In most cases, this is one of the two upper incisors, followed immediately by the second. But it happens that the first tooth grows in another place and is not worth it.get scared. This is not dangerous and is just an individual feature of this baby. In rare cases, the eruption of the first tooth is delayed up to 10 and even up to 12 months. This is usually not a problem, but it can be due to a lack of vitamins and nutrients, so it's best to consult a pediatrician about this.

This happens quite painfully and due to a decrease in immunity, it can even be accompanied by a slight increase in temperature. The first sign that teething has begun is increased salivation, which will not leave the baby until all teeth have erupted. To understand that the child's anxiety is related to the teeth, and not to diseases, you need to thoroughly wash your hands and feel the crumbs' jaw. If the tooth is ready to erupt, then it will be felt through the gum. The previous generation even says that if you knock on the gum, a ringing will be heard in this place. Over time, a slight swelling will become visible there. Teething in children can lead to sleepless nights and restless days. And sometimes it is advisable to use special anesthetic ointments that are applied to the gums of the crumbs. The annotations to them indicate the maximum amount that can be applied to the gums per day. Exceeding this amount is strictly prohibited, otherwise you can harm the child.

What to do if the child is "behind" the norm

The main thing here is not to hit any of the extremes. Do not hang labels on a child who is a little behind his peers and do not let everything take its course. Both of these can be veryharm. A slight delay in some of the items within 2-3 months is not a cause for concern. But if there are a lot of points and the lag is more than 2 months, then you should definitely tell the neurologist about this, since at 6 months the child should have a scheduled examination. If something is wrong with the child, then the neurologist will definitely find out during a routine examination. In addition to how the baby complies with the norms, neurologists also look at reflexes that can not always be assessed by a person far from medicine.

Special attention should be paid to the following:

• the child develops asymmetrically, tilts his head to one side;
• does not turn on stomach;
• makes no sound other than crying;
• cannot hold even the smallest rattle;
• does not express vivid emotions;
• prefers to turn to one side only.

If, nevertheless, the neurologist has some suspicions, then you should not worry too much. A course of good massage, Vojta therapy, drug treatment and other methods will help to quickly and effectively eliminate the possible cause of the delay, and the child will quickly catch up with peers. It is much more dangerous to do nothing, because every month and year the gap between peers will become more and more obvious. So, without starting to do one thing in time, the child does not prepare himself in time for the next “skill”.