Your Baby has begun crawling and his newfound mobility allows him to take more active part in family life. His physical developments are accompanied by some major emotional and social developmental milestones in these months. Day by day, his own unique personality emerges more and more. During this stage, many parents may find themselves dealing with a ‘superglue baby’ who cries when you are out of sight and literally sticks to you, especially when around strangers.

Here are some of the social-emotional achievements milestones in this age group although you should keep in mind that babies progress at different rates:

The Seventh Month

You will enjoy your baby! He is often joyful, and expresses his delight readily. Baby also expresses other emotions in a stronger way than before. For example, he may be quick to display his displeasure at a situation he dislikes.

His communication skills are expanding rapidly and his social ‘speech’ now includes squeals, bubbling sounds, babbling and tone changes. You will hear more distinct speech comprising consonant-vowel combinations (e.g. ba, ma, ga). When interacting socially, baby responds to your tone and the inflections in your speech, your emotions and gestures. But he is also beginning to link simple words meanings, such as the meaning of ‘no’.

Your baby continues to love social interactions tremendously and may initiate them by gesturing, sticking out his tongue or coughing to get your attention. He, however, prefers interacting with you and familiar people as he is starting to withdraw from strangers.

It is occurring to baby that he is a separate person from mummy. He is intrigued when he sees himself in the mirror. While he may not quite understand that the mirror image is him yet, he is excited about the effects he can make on the mirror, such as waving his hand and smiling.

The Eight Month

Baby is able to clearly recognise familiar people such as family members, and can differentiate them from people he does not know. He shows his obvious pleasure to familiar people, such as by cooing, giving them smiles or even throwing them a kiss.

Your baby cries when you leave the room and he cannot see you. It is a reflection of his attaining the important cognitive milestone of object permanence. As your little one’s memory centre develops, he now remembers objects and specific people that are not present. He can conjure up a mental image of the person or object when it is not physically there, and actively searches for them. Emotionally, he becomes anxious when his primary caregiver is out of sight and this reflects the powerful attachment he has formed with his caregiver.

With strangers, baby has become uneasy, shy and even fearful. He may burst into tears when someone new holds her. Besides this ‘stranger anxiety’, your baby also shows another step forward in emotional development. He not only senses the feelings of others and responds to them, he may go on to display initial stirrings of empathy. For example, baby may cry when he hears someone crying.

The Ninth Month

Your little one is quite a character! Your baby’s own personality would have emerged by now. For instance, a baby may be easy-going by nature while another’s temperament is feisty or sensitive.

Expect baby to express his emotions intensely as he has yet to learn to regulate them. This is exacerbated by his developing individuality. He is displaying a stronger mind of his own, so you may find protesting loudly at being buckled up in the car seat or wriggling hard when being changed. His desires may not coincide with yours, and his tiny starts coming across loud and clear!

Baby will continue to be wary of strangers. He likes to play near his caregiver, such as in the kitchen where mummy is cooking. Your baby may be more sensitive to the presence of other children but is not likely to want to play with them yet.

Not only does baby’s awareness of people increase, he is noticing his surroundings with another level of awareness, too. You may find your baby becoming frightened by things that did not bother him before, such as jumping when the doorbell rings. He needs you to comfort him but has started to learn to soothe himself by sucking his thumb or holding a special toy or blanket.