8 Fun Developmental Baby Activities (6-12 months)

During the first year, a baby’s development is the highlight of their life. From everything we do and teach them, this is how they will continue to learn. During this time, developmental baby activities are important. But also fun and simple!

Babies at 6-12 months of age are usually already mobile and cruising around. Whether crawling, standing, walking… they’re ON THE GO and there is no stopping them! By cruising around, they’re exploring and by exploring, they’re learning. Therefore, adding in some baby activities (6-12 months) helps boost their development.

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Playing with a baby is not only fun, but also interesting, educational and a bonding experience for both baby and parent. By parents playing and connecting with their baby, it helps their brain development. It also builds their communication skills! So adding in some developmental baby activities daily are sure to help your little one with reaching their milestone, and quicker for some!

Of course, we are the ones who need to help them continue to learn and grow by adding in these baby activities, even when we have just 10 minutes to spare. Below are developmental baby activities which will help them ease into the next stage of life.

{READ MORE ABOUT THE 6 BABY TOYS WE LOVE}

Boosting Developmental Baby Activities (6-12 months) to Encourage Growth

Playing Peek-a-Boo

Not the usual covering your face Peek-a-Boo. The one where you take a toy as they’re watching you and hide it under a blanket or something, but leave a little bit of it sticking out.

Ask them “where is it?” and encourage them to look for it. Most babies will dive right for where you hid it. Once they have mastered this, start hiding it without having a little part of it showing. This is great for their fine motor skills and object permenance. This is a quick, fun AND easy baby developmental baby activity!

Stack Toys Together

You can buy stacking toys (click HERE for ours) or you can use plastic cups you have at home! Take turns stacking the stacking toys or cups.

Don’t be annoyed if you find your baby just knocking them down. My baby LOVES breaking down stacking toys and towers. This is normal as they find a lot of excitement in it, especially if it’s new! Just keep stacking and show them how to do it as well. This helps them learn cause and effect and is a great activity for your baby.

Wooden Puzzles!

Grab from the store any baby wooden puzzles. Maybe get them a custom name puzzle with pegs from HERE like the one we have. Make sure the pieces are big enough for their little hands and minds.

Start by introducing puzzles and encourage them to play with them at an earlier age. Play with them! Show AND tell them how to do it. Guide their little hands with the puzzle piece to where it belongs. Let them attempt it themselves. When they get it, cheer them on and make them feel happy and excited. Playing with puzzles helps them with problem solving, visual skills and fine motor skills. Puzzles are fun baby activities (6-12 months and older too)!

Read them Books

What baby doesn’t like looking through picture books? Get them ones that have many colors and pictures to look at. Sit with them and read it to them, but make sure to use different voices and expressions to make it more fun and exciting. Let them help you turn the pages. Be sure to also point to pictures as you are reading. Reading is great for their language development and listening skills making this not only fun, but a bonding time for mom and baby!

Make them a Bottle Rattle

Have empty water bottles lying around? Fill it up with some beans or rice (or anything else!) and glue the top shut. Give your baby the rattle and watch them shake it and see their expression when they hear the noise they are creating. Especially since they usually know that bottles themselves do not make noise, this will be a surprise to them.

Since it is surprising to them, this brings in the element of being surprised into their development. It also is great for their fine motor skills, auditory discrimination and cause and effect. This is one of those baby activities that are fun for them because if your baby is anything like mine and loves water bottles, this will be exciting!

Disappearing Baby “Snack”

This is such a fun and engaging activity for babies! Take a smaller finger food snack your baby likes (like cheerios) and take 2 plastic cups. Cover the snack with one cup and let the baby figure out where it is. Use 2 color cups and show them which is covering the snack, move the cups around and see if they remember which cup it is under. Once the baby masters that, do it with the other cup.

This is a great and simple developmental baby activity for reinforcing object performance as well as developing their attention skills and memory.

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Ziploc Finger Painting

Grab a gallon size Ziploc (or any bag of your choosing) and add some washable non-toxic paint inside. Seal it shut, and better to use duct tape to make it even more sealed and safe. Spread the paint around and then lay it flat for the baby to play with on the floor or high chair. For better playing, tape it down to the area they will be playing on.

Let your baby play around with with their fingers making squiggly lines and whatever else their fingers make. Making marks on the bag helps with their sensory development, fine motor skills, cause and effect and early writing skills. Plus, with this baby activity, they may develop into a mini Picasso!

Container Play

Take a container large enough to fit some of their toys. Put in balls, pegs, whatever your baby likes to play with. Hand it to them and see what they do. At first, they may find it more fun to just turn it over and dump the entire thing out. But soon enough they will realize that there are toys inside and will start banging and shaking the container with the toys inside, as well as grabbing some toys out.

Reload the container until they slowly figure out how to put the toys back inside themselves. Once they master this, you can start using smaller containers! This is great for object manipulation and orientation skills.

With these fun Developmental Baby Activities, your little one is sure to not only have fun, but ALSO develop their little minds and learn and master new skills. Have you done any of these baby activities (6-12 months) with your little one? Do you have other fun developmental activities for babies? Let me know in the comments!

Did you like this post? Read 3 Signs Your Baby is Going Through a Growth Spurt!