When Do Babies Start to Grab Things?

Every parent is excited to see their baby grow and learn new skills. Something many parents are eager for their baby to learn is how to grab things! That is until their favorite thing to grab is hair! Learning how to grab things is the stepping stone to more sophisticated play and feeding themselves. 

Although your baby might get a fistful of your hair right from birth, this isn’t on purpose. They can’t grab anything on purpose until at least a few months old. Looking to learn more about when your little one should be using those cute little fingers to grab their favorite reading? Continue reading to learn just that!

When Will My Baby Start Grabbing Things?

Before your baby can start grabbing things, they must learn how to complete other tasks first. This usually means that they follow a certain progression to slowly build up their skills. As always, every baby learns at a different pace and might learn some skills before others. The textbook progression is as follows:

• Reaching: Babies don’t typically notice objects until around three months of age. Eventually, they will see something they like and want to reach for it! 

• Batting: The next thing you may notice your baby do is start batting at items. While their actions aren’t calculated or defined, you will see them swinging their little arm to slap items (or people) near them. 

• Putting their hands at their midline: Babies will start putting their hands toward the middle of their bodies before they will truly start reaching for objects. This means that sometimes their hands and feet will “somehow” make it into their mouth! 

• Opening their hands: As your baby reaches around 4 or 5 months old, they might start opening and closing their hands more often to expose their palm. Opening their palm is another stepping stone for them to learn how to grab objects. 

• Grabbing: Once your baby has hit all of these milestones or even some of them, they will finally learn how to grab items! 

• Transferring objects: After they learn how to grab, they will eventually learn how to transfer objects between their hands. Usually, by the time your baby is nine months old, they can do this party trick with no problem! 

• Shaking and banging: This is when the fun really begins! Between 6 and 8 months, your little one can usually bang their hands together or objects on the ground to make fun sounds. 

After learning some of these movements, your baby will eventually learn that certain movements will produce certain results, such as shaking a rattle, which will create a silly noise. 

How to Assist Your Baby in Learning How to Grab Things

Similar to most other skills your baby will learn, you can help them along the way. If you find your baby falling behind in learning how to grab things, there are things you can do to support them and encourage them to learn how to reach and grab. 

Something to keep in mind is that when babies are small, they have difficulty seeing color, so using high-contrast black-and-white toys and fluorescent toys is a great way to ensure that they can see the toys and that they are engaged in play. You can place your baby on their back for easier play and slowly move the toy back and forth in front of their vision. Instead of on their back, this can also be done in a stroller. 

If the colorful toys aren’t enough, you can always opt for more exciting toys. Ones that light up and make noise are sure to engage your baby’s attention! A great tip is to choose a toy that is small enough for little hands to grasp. This means that if they are intrigued by the toy, they can hold onto the toy comfortably! 

While you can definitely try to grab the attention of your baby through play, you can also go ahead and put the toys right in their hands. Although they may not hold onto them right away, this should encourage them to begin reaching consistently. Once they get holding objects down pat, you can always place their toys at a little farther distance to coerce them into reaching farther to get their desired item! 

Stay Up To Date with Your Baby’s Development

As always, every child moves at their own pace, meaning some children don’t hit milestones the same as others. It’s important to talk to your child’s pediatrician if you are concerned about your child falling behind.

An important fact to remember is that milestones serve as more of a way to survey children’s progress as opposed to diagnosing them. Although your child might be behind on some milestones, it does not mean that there is definitely something wrong. 

Monitor Your Baby’s Milestones with Baby Connect 

As experienced parents know, every child is different and goes at their own pace. This means that not every child will hit milestones at the same time! Some will hit them far earlier, while others trail behind a little. In general, there is a range of times when your child should hit the milestone, but there are not really firm rules as to when they should hit them. 

Keeping track of your baby’s milestones has never been easier with Baby Connect. Baby Connect is an app designed for busy parents to write down all of their baby’s important information and milestones. Whether you need to track their bottle feedings, bowel movements, or even their sleep schedule, this app can do it all!