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What should a baby be able to do at 12 months?
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025

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At 12 months, or a year, a child is already a fairly formed personality who can do a surprising amount. He says some words, is happy with familiar people, is afraid of strangers, stands confidently and even walks. At 12 months, a child's attitude to the world around him changes radically. He already shares toys, plays around and laughs.
What can a child do at 12 months?
A child can share candy with mom and dad, laugh if something makes him laugh, and smile if he is happy with something. During the game, the child can have fun and involve all the family members in it. The child begins to "monkey", that is, repeat the words, actions, facial expressions, gestures of adults. This means that his brain analyzes the environment, and does so very actively.
Physical characteristics of a child at 12 months
At one year old, the child weighs from 9800 to 10.5 kg. He also grows very well: his weight reaches 76 cm. These are approximate data that should be taken into account only as approximate figures. The child's sleep at 12 months also changes. If earlier his daytime doses of sleep were quite frequent and long, now the child sleeps only 2 times a day, and not 6, as before. His sleep lasts from one to one and a half hours. This schedule is worth continuing - during sleep the baby grows.
Books and toys for a 12 month old baby
At this age, you can already be active with your baby. You can read him books, fairy tales, poems, sing him songs. The books should be large and beautiful, the pictures should be bright and easy to see. The content of what mom or dad reads should be understandable to the child, but interesting. The child does not immediately understand that this is a book that needs to be read. He looks at it and plays with it like a toy. Then the child will understand that the book is a source of interesting poems and fairy tales, and will expect mom to read them.
Today there are a lot of bright and beautiful coloring books, books with fold-out pages, where you can easily see the head of a wolf or a bright fur coat of a red fox. Such books should be bought for a child so that he can develop. Another opportunity to develop a child will be bright blocks. You can build something from them, and different letters are drawn on them. This is great for a 1-year-old child. This is an opportunity for further learning to read.
How to develop a child's speech?
When you go somewhere with your child, show him different objects and phenomena and tell him about them. You can tell something to your baby during a walk in the park, during a trip to the supermarket, during a visit. The child will be very interested and this will become a great educational joy for him.
Sing songs to your child, and he will soon sing along with you. This will help develop the child's musical ear.
A child at 1 year old loves to communicate. He can already understand the word "no", the word "no", the word "yes". The vocabulary of a small child at 12 months is up to 8, or even 10. These are the simplest words with open syllables, such as "mama", "papa", "dada", "lyalya" and so on.
A child of 1 year is already developed enough to recognize objects in a picture and point at them with a finger. The child can already recognize people and be happy or upset when they enter the apartment. The child lets those he likes play with his toys, and avoids those he doesn’t like.
A 12-month-old child likes to be in the company of adults. He immediately finds himself where a group of adults is sitting at the table or in front of the TV.
How does a baby move at 12 months?
A 12-month-old child can carry toys, do something interesting, for example, imitate a brother or sister, play with them. A 12-month-old child can do gymnastics, jump, tumble, crawl, stand upside down. A 12-month-old child loves to hide. He can crawl under the bed or hide in toys. He enjoys playing with a ball, throwing it to adults or simply rolling the ball around the apartment.
A 12-month-old child plays with toys just as enthusiastically.
How does a child eat at 12 months?
A 12-month-old child can already confidently hold a spoon and even eat from it independently. He can move the spoon from one hand to the other, and his fist is firm. He also holds a cup well and can even drink from it. With this cup, he can take water from a container where there is a lot of it, for example, from a saucepan, a bucket or a whole bathtub. In addition, the child really likes to play with water. If he also likes to bathe, this is very good. It means that you have instilled in him useful habits.
Baby teeth at 12 months
A child of this age already has several baby teeth. The child can already chew something with these teeth. But you should not give him solid food. A child of 12 months will happily chew steamed cutlets, porridge, milk or cottage cheese casseroles. The child will also drink kefir or yogurt with pieces of fruit or berries with pleasure. However, all these products should not be given to the child at once, but gradually, and you should make sure that he can eat them normally and not choke.
It is better to feed the baby every 3-4 hours a little. The food should be fresh so that the baby does not get a tummy ache.
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Baby Safety at 12 Months
A baby doesn't need much to feel safe. Such a child has almost no instinct for self-preservation, but he has more than enough curiosity. Therefore, a child can climb onto the most dangerous surfaces, grab toys, fall into a bathtub with water, fall off a chair, or just fall. However, when a baby finds himself at a height, he begins to be afraid and cry loudly, calling for adults. The first sprouts of fear of danger appear in him. This means that the child's brain is actively developing.
Hearing and vision of a child at 12 months
A child at this age is a great explorer and experimenter. He is interested in learning new sounds and melodies. To do this, he can scream, squeal, squeak, mumble, talk about something of his own and try to sing. This is not to annoy adults, but to hear what sound will be produced if the child screams or squeaks.
Sometimes he uses this interesting trick in the morning to get attention. Then mom and dad wake up immediately – how could you not wake up from a cheerful child’s squeal. The child can conduct these experiments often and for a long time, shocking those around him.
How to harden a child at 12 months?
A 12-month-old child really likes to feel different surfaces with his feet. There are many reflexogenic zones on the feet that stimulate all body systems. Including the immune system – the child will be less sick. Lead the child by the hand on sand (just not on hot sand), a wooden floor, green grass, a fluffy carpet. The child likes to experiment with different surfaces, as well as their temperature. And this is very useful for him.
Pour water over the baby - first warm, and then lower the water temperature by 1-2 degrees. If it is difficult to pour at first and you are afraid that the baby will catch a cold, you can start with rubbing.
How to play with a 12 month old baby?
You can play with your baby not only with toys, but also with household items. For a child of this age, any action is a game. Therefore, he will be pleased if you show him that he can pour water into a cup with a spoon, dissolve sugar in water, stirring it with a spoon, mold different figures, squares, balls, ovals from dough. For a child, this process is very entertaining and he will do it endlessly, without getting bored or crying.
You can sprinkle flour on the board and draw in it with your fingers. This is very good for developing the child's fine motor skills, which are not yet developed. And the fact that the child gets dirty with flour is not a problem - but how much joy he will get! And with him, mom and dad.
The first crisis of a child at 12 months
As you can see, the first crisis of a child occurs not in adolescence, but at the age of just one year. The child can already form his own personal position - what he wants to do and what he does not, what he likes and what he does not like. A child at one year old already begins to realize his own "I". This changes his behavior - it can be stubborn and illogical. For example, a child can agree to do something (for example, go for a walk), and then suddenly refuse, change his mind. The child can begin to fight with sleep, he can sometimes be capricious for no apparent reason.
Psychologists say that at this age a child can be allowed to scream and stamp his feet if he really wants something. At another age – no, but at this age – please. This is how the baby defends his position in life. These are echoes of the time when crying was the only way for a child to tell or show something to his parents, when there was no speech yet. There is almost none now, but very soon the child will start talking and such a luxury as crying will be increasingly inaccessible to him.
During a tantrum, you must not hit or yell at your child. If the baby is crying, it means that something is really wrong with him, the baby is in real grief. You need to pick him up, calm him down, rock him, kiss him. All the baby's problems will go away very quickly. The physiological characteristics of a 12-month-old child are such that, once he has started to cry loudly, he will not calm down on his own for a long time, since he may still have hypertonicity of the muscles. To relax them, you need to relieve the child's stress by stroking him and thus eliminating muscle clamps.
A child at 12 months already shows his character. This is good, because he grows up as a person with a position. And the task of adults is to understand him and help.