The Child 6-9 Months: The Richness of Movement (Part One)

Discovery. Having a child leads, as you mothers well know, to a continuous, ongoing discovery of new things: new skills emerge, new milestones appear, new abilities take shape... in short, no month is ever quite like the one before, and something «new» is always around the corner! So, if your baby's second trimester of life was marked by a major shift, in which reflexes gave way to more conscious movement, the following period makes that movement even more varied, elaborate, and increasingly driven by pleasure and exploration.

If you're keen to discover all the motor milestones your baby's psychomotor development has in store, keep reading: I'll guide you through the «richness of movement».

Motor development from 6 to 9 months

In terms of motor skills, the developmental stretch from 6 to 9 months is one of the most important and significant for the child: the postural transitions that emerged in the previous months become consolidated, and new, important ways of moving appear, which allow the child, for the first time, to explore space independently.

With the arrival of this trimester, the child gains the ability to change their own posture entirely on their own, rolls both ways, and from lying on their back shows they're able to reach a sitting position, gradually moving into a crawling position on all fours. Alongside this milestone, the so-called «parachute reactions» gradually mature: protective motor responses the child uses to guard against being thrown off balance and against falls, using the arms. The first to develop, around 6-7 months, are the forward reactions, followed between 7 and 8 months by the sideways reactions, and finally by the backward reactions, which appear from 9-10 months onward.

Sitting posture: from the 6th month onward, the sitting position will be marked by a noticeable rounding of the back: the torso will be bent forward, the legs flexed, and the arms resting in front, between the legs. At first, the arms and hands will still be used for support, and only later will the child be able, for brief moments, to free them, one first and then both. This last step will let the child have their hands free and act directly, in person, on the world around them, while also being able to observe their surroundings more closely. Reaching the sitting position between 6 and 11 months is a sign of good maturation and a suitable developmental process.

Reaching the sitting position frees up the hands, which become gradually less committed to providing support. This allows for further maturation of grasping and fine distal motor skills. The child will now be able to grasp smaller objects, adapting their grip functionally: the radial-palmar grasp and the superior pincer grasp will appear.

The hands become a genuine tool for learning, perception, and communication. Indeed, the emergence of individual finger movement will not only let the child slip their fingers into small openings, like holes in boxes and various materials, but also point (the pointing gesture), with increasing precision, using the index finger, at objects and/or people they want that are out of reach, expressing a material or emotional need. New motor patterns, such as shaking, banging, and putting things «inside», will develop from imitating actions performed by adults or peers in settings such as nursery school.