Young children rapidly grow, develop, and achieve important milestones between birth and age 3, creating the foundation for later growth. Physical development is one domain of infant and toddler development. It relates to changes, growth, and skill development of the body, including development of muscles and senses. This lesson will introduce developmental milestones in addition to influences on early physical growth and development.
ObjectivesHealthy babies are born with fully developed systems that allow their bodies to function, such as their ability to suck, swallow, and breathe. In order to support the best possible physical development, all infants require responsive care from loving adults, proper nutrition, and appropriate and stimulating environments. Infant and toddler physical development occurs rapidly over the first years of a child’s life. It is essential that caregivers understand the various stages of infant and toddler physical development so that they can respond to children’s needs appropriately.
Infants are born to explore the world around them. While each child will grow to master many of the stages in physical development on their own schedule, infants are often eager to progress from those innate abilities to further movement of their mouth, eyes, and bodies as they seek people and objects of comfort or interest. They continue practicing skills and building one form of physical movement upon another, step by step as they move closer to desired objects. Through ongoing observation and frequent conversations with families you can learn what infants are able to do, what they’re learning to do, and what areas they are needing your support in.
Infants develop physically from the top down, starting with their head and neck. At birth, an infant has a very difficult time holding up their head because their neck muscles are not strong enough to provide support. As infants and toddlers grow, their determination to master movement, balance, and fine- and gross-motor skills remains strong. Rolling and crawling occur as infants develop skill in using their large-muscle groups. Grasping and picking up objects with fingers are part of small-muscle growth.
There is no exact age at which all infants should be able to grasp objects or hold up their head without support. Physical development occurs at different times for all children depending on many factors, such as a child’s unique characteristics, the family’s values and culture, and access to available resources. However, many infants and toddlers experience developmental milestones within similar timeframes of growth. The information on the chart below is a comprehensive list of physical development milestones that children typically develop during infancy and toddlerhood . A brief version of this information aimed at parents can be found in an easy-to-use checklist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Apply section.
All children develop at different rates, so keep in mind that the milestones above are simply the average ages at which specific skills are observed.
Certain conditions must exist for an infant or toddler to grow and develop. A young child’s basic physical needs, include:
We also know that the way we ourselves were raised is important to our understanding of how and in what contexts children develop. The values and beliefs held by our family and culture contribute to our knowledge of growth and development.
Understanding the practices, beliefs, and values of the families you support can help you understand how culture shapes so many parts of an infant’s and toddler’s development. Without this understanding, it is difficult to interpret the infant’s or toddler’s behaviors and development. For example, you may believe it is important to help toddlers learn to become independent and begin to feed themselves using their fine motor skills. A family, however, may not view independence as important because they believe it is more valuable to depend upon one another.
Review the handout, Infant and Toddler Physical Development located below in the Learn activities section to learn more about important milestones in physical development, as well as variations in the rate of physical development for infants and toddlers.
You can easily observe infants making movements with their bodies and refining their motor skills. Thanks to advances in research and technology, we can now also see how the brain changes and grows as young children develop. At birth, the brain is 25 percent of its adult size, and by age 5, it reaches 90 percent of adult size. Infants’ and toddlers’ early-life interactions and experiences help them make sense of the world and form connections between different parts of the brain.
These supportive experiences and connections help improve coordination and strengthen muscles. As infants repeat and practice different movements, such as turning their heads, rooting, or reaching for an object, they build and maintain connections between brain cells. In essence, the brain is busy making sense of surroundings and learning from experiences.
It is important for infants and toddlers to have time for these new experiences and to explore the world around them with a trusted and caring family child care provider. Repeated exposure to experiences with trusted caregivers allows children to feel safe and secure, and allows them to focus on experimenting, developing, and mastering new skills. The safe place that you create for their exploration ensures that their brains are able to focus on learning, developing, and making connections. If infants and toddlers do not have nurturing and responsive adults to help make them feel safe, their brains will instinctually focus on survival. This kind of stress on a child’s brain may make them more hesitant to engage in exploration, and experimentation; causing them to have less opportunities to create and strengthen connections in the brain that further their growth and skill development.
Physical development, including gross and fine motor skills, consumes the interest of infants and toddlers as they practice learned skills and look to develop new ones. Healthy physical development is dependent on adequate nutrition, brain development, the central nervous system, muscles, bones, and the interactions and experiences offered to infants and toddlers. All children develop at their own pace but recognizing signs of possible developmental delays during infancy or toddlerhood allows early intervention to be more effective than if the delays are not acknowledged until later in childhood. Below are some characteristics of possible physical concerns and developmental delays by various sources:
By 2 months
By 3 months
By 4 months
By 6 months
By 9 months
By 12 months
By 15 months
By 18 months
By 24 months
By 30 months
By 36 months
Delays in physical development may affect more than gross and fine motor skills. For example, if an infant is unable to smile at parents or lift their arms to be picked up, this could affect social and emotional development in terms of relationship building. Recognizing some of the delays listed above can be critical to a child’s development. The connections in a baby’s brain are most adaptable in the first three years of life. These connections, also called neural circuits, are the foundation for learning, behavior, and health. Over time, these connections become harder to change. Early intervention can help children improve their abilities and learn new skills.
If you have concerns about an infant’s or toddler’s physical development, be sure to speak with your coach, trainer, administrator and/or the child’s parent. They may wish to share your concerns with the child’s health-care provider. Early intervention can help children improve their abilities and learn new skills. To find your state or territory’s early intervention contact information, go to: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/parents/states.html
For more information, including what to say when you contact early intervention and how to get support for your family, visit: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/concerned.html
How can you make sure you are providing age-appropriate experiences to support infant and toddler physical development? Take a moment to read and review the sets of guidelines on the following webpage from SHAPE America (Society of Health and Physical Educators, formerly known as the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, or NASPE): https://www.shapeamerica.org/standards/guidelines/activestart.aspx.
Next, try one or more of the following activities with the infants or toddlers in your care:
Incorporate daily physical play into your daily routines. Infants and toddlers enjoy being active!
Review the handout, Scenarios: Gross and Fine Motor Development below, and consider what you have learned so far throughout this lesson. In the activity, think about which characteristics or behaviors would be considered fine motor skills and which would be considered gross motor skills. Then write these down and think about possible ways you could support the young children in each scenario.
You can also review the Infant and Toddler Physical Development handout in the Learn section for additional ideas.
Once finished, share your thoughts and responses with your trainer, coach or family child care administrator.
Consider using the following resources in your family child care program. Use the Milestone Moments document to monitor the physical development of the children in your program. Parents may be interested in the Milestone Tracker Mobile App from the CDC, which they can access using this link: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones-app.html. The resource, What Grown-Ups Understand About Child Development, is a national benchmark survey sponsored in part by ZERO TO THREE. Read over the survey findings of this study and think about your work with families and the way you gather and share information with them regarding the physical development of the infants and toddlers in your care.
Developmental milestones: A set of skills or behaviors that most children can do at a certain age range
Fine motor development: The development of skills that involve the use of smaller muscles in the arms, hands, and fingers that allows a child to perform tasks such as drawing, cutting with scissors, stringing beads, tying, zipping, or molding
Gross motor development: The development of skills that involve the use of large muscles in the legs or arms, as well as general strength and stamina; examples of such skills include jumping, throwing, climbing, running, skipping, and kicking
Primitive reflexes: The actions that are exhibited by typical developing infants, that are not present in adults, in response to particular stimuli. Examples include the rooting and sucking reflex.
Rooting reflex: An infant’s turning of the head toward things that touch her or his cheek Sucking reflex: An infant’s sucking at things that touch her or his lipsAllen, K. E., & Marotz, L. (2001). By the ages: Behavior and development of children pre-birth through eight. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning.
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https://agesandstages.com/
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