9 month old baby

What a 9 month old baby is doing

Nine months is where movement and meaning arrive together. The HSE describes a baby who may pull themselves to a standing position and crawl on their hands and knees, and whose grip has sharpened: they can grasp a cube using thumb and fingertips, and a small object using thumb and second finger.

Understanding shows. Your baby will begin to show they understand some simple words such as "bye bye", and will copy actions like a wave and start using them at different times of day, not only when saying hello or goodbye. They will begin to grasp that objects still exist when hidden — hide a toy under a blanket and they will lift the blanket to find it.

Socially this is the month separation anxiety usually becomes obvious. The HSE lists it directly: babies can become upset or distressed when separated from a parent or carer, may be shy around strangers and less familiar people, will express feelings by laughing, screaming and crying, and may start to recognise feelings in others and get upset when another child is crying. Our separation anxiety guide covers how long that phase usually runs.

The 9 to 12 month review

This is the month's appointment, and it is the first developmental review since six to eight weeks. In England the NHS offers a review between nine and twelve months, usually done by a member of your health visiting team, looking at language and learning, safety, diet and behaviour, and giving you a slot to raise concerns.

Something arrives before it. Your health visiting team sends you an Ages and Stages Questionnaire, the ASQ-3, to fill in at home first, so you can try the activities with your baby somewhere they are comfortable and in familiar surroundings. The NHS says not to worry if you cannot complete all of it — a health visitor will help. Take the red book, and where possible both parents.

Ireland runs a comparable check between nine and eleven months, done by a public health nurse, and the HSE publishes what it covers: a physical examination including eyes, ears, genitalia, limbs, breathing and the fontanelle; a check that testicles have descended; responses such as alertness and smiling; posture and large movements including sitting and crawling and whether your baby can support their weight on their legs; fine movements such as poking with the index finger or raking objects; an in-depth hearing assessment including whether your baby listens when spoken to, responds to requests and enjoys games like peek-a-boo; speech development including babbling, gestures and copying speech sounds; and social, emotional, behavioural and play development. Growth and dental health are checked too, and the nurse will talk to you about diet, sleep and child safety now your baby is mobile.

Write your questions down before you go. This appointment is the designed place for them, and if you or the nurse have concerns you can be asked back or referred for further assessment.

Not crawling at 9 months

Search results for this are dominated by forums, and the useful fact is not in them. When the CDC's developmental surveillance checklists were rebuilt in 2022 by an expert working group convened by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the lists were rebuilt around milestones that at least 75% of children would be expected to achieve by a given age, explicitly to discourage a wait-and-see approach. About a quarter of the old milestones were cut and around 40% replaced. Crawling was not retained, because babies get moving in too many ways for one style to work as a checklist item.

What the HSE does flag at nine months is a longer and more useful list. Contact a GP or public health nurse if your baby is not holding objects, cannot move a toy from one hand to the other, is not rolling, is not sitting independently, has not started to move around in any way including bottom shuffling or crawling, or cannot take weight on their legs when held in a supported standing position. The concern is the absence of any mobility, not the absence of one particular style of it. Our milestones guide covers how the checklists are meant to be used: as prompts for surveillance, not as screening or diagnostic tools.

Feeding and sleep at 9 months

Three meals a day alongside milk is the usual shape by now, and milk still matters — our weaning timeline covers how the balance shifts across the second half of the first year, and our guide to first foods and textures covers what to offer. Expect appetite to swing between days.

Night waking around nine months usually has a reason attached, and it is often the same one as the daytime change: your baby now minds that you left. Add new motor skills to practise and teething. The published NHS figure for six to twelve months is that a baby may sleep for up to 12 hours at night by around six months, with teething pain and hunger disturbing it, and the NHS is upfront that sleep patterns keep changing as a baby grows. A baby who has learned to pull to stand will do it in the cot; floor practice during the day helps more than a negotiation at 2am.

Weight, growth and babies born early

Between six and twelve months the NHS says a thriving baby needs weighing no more than once every two months, which gives a clear idea of weight gain over time. Growth is read as a line on the centile chart in the red book rather than as a target weight.

Reviews at this age use corrected age. The NHS calculates developmental age from your original due date rather than the birth date until your child is two, and the HSE does the same, working out how well a premature baby is developing from the pregnancy due date. Work out your baby's corrected age before the review and mention it, so the questionnaire is scored against the right age. Our adjusted age calculator will do the arithmetic.

When to get urgent help

Get urgent advice if your baby has a high temperature with other signs of illness, is feeding much less than usual, has far fewer wet nappies, is unusually floppy or difficult to wake, or their breathing looks like hard work. A skill your baby had and has lost warrants a call at any age.