Baby training, month 11

At 11 month, DD’s training shifted from mastering her fine motor skills to exercising larger muscles. We taught her to climb upstairs and downstairs, encouraged her to cruise while holding onto furniture, and allowed her to crawl excitedly from one room to another. She began to taste the fun of being mobile and independent.

1. Climbing stairs up and down: DD was enamored with her ability to crawl anywhere she wanted, including stairs. M and I encouraged her to practice climbing upstairs by herself. We also showed her how to climb downstairs.

The way I showed to her was to turn sideways on the stair, put down one leg and then the other. M said this way was too dangerous for her since she couldn’t maintain her balance when she turned sideways on the stairs. In addition, there was nothing for her to hold on.

He decided to show her the right way to climb down the stairs. His way was to remain in the face-up position when climbing downstairs, lower one leg, making sure it touched the next step and stepped onto it, then lower the other leg. He also taught DD to hold the higher step firmly with both her hands and not let go until her two feet were both secure on the lower step.

DD tried several times and began to like this method. She was excited about the mobility she was getting and kept practicing up and down along the stairs. It was amusing to see her personality emerging at this early age.

2. Cruising around the house: Since she learned how to crawl, DD gladly visited the whole house. Soon she felt dissatisfied at her speed. She wanted to lift her body and walk just as we do. She kept excising and practicing. At the same time she experienced a few falls, bumps and bruises as all babies do. But nothing could stop this almighty tiny 11-month-old if she set her mind.

One afternoon, DD held onto the cabinets and walked around half kitchen completely by herself. It just happened, seemingly so easy and so natural for her to reach this milestone. But I know the real story of many hours of work she put into the process. From now on she can be officially called a cruiser.

3. Simple one-step instructions: I encourage DD’s language learning and polish her memory skills by giving her simple one-step instructions while playing games with her. I rolled a red ball to her and said “give mama the ball”, she would crawl to get the ball, crawl back with the ball in hand, and hand me the ball. (I was so touched!) Then I rolled the ball back to her, and said “mama is giving the ball to you.”

I also helped her learn by separating multi-step commands into easy-to-follow single steps, reinforcing them with gestures. For example, when I said “give mama the ball”, I would extend my open hand to her; when I asked her to roll the ball back to me, I would withdraw my extend arm.

4. Name things around her: I always take the opportunity to name things around her. I have been helping her make connections between objects and their names since she was eight months old. I began with labeling the food she was eating(see Baby training, month 8), describing specific functions of things around her (see Baby training, month 8), and reading picture books about colors, shapes, counting and animals (see Baby training, month 9). I think this is the best way for her to learn language — the more I do, the faster her vocabulary will grow.

I still kept talking to her and naming things around her. I counted stair steps as I showed her to climb down them, said “bye-bye” in Chinese when I waved at her, and pointed out “cold” or “hot” when she was eating (sometimes I forgot to check the food temperature and burned her mouth, so she learned what is being “hot” by experiencing it personally, unfortunately) .