Half a year old...

At six months your baby can sit by herself and she can push her head, chest and shoulders away from the floor for as long as it pleases her when she is playing on the floor.

› She uses all her senses to explore and learn. Make sure she has a wide variety of safe objects that she can access easily. She needs to touch them, put them in her mouth and manipulate them. She will love a soft rubber ball to squash in her little hands, or even a bear that makes a sound when she presses his tummy or paw.

› If you place a toy near her when she is on her tummy, she is able to shift her weight to one arm in order to reach out to the toy with the other.

› Her fine motor skills are also improving and she can transfer an object from one hand to the other and also use both hands together.

› One of her favourite pastimes is to drop a toy for you to pick up and pass back to her.

› Your baby loves making sounds and copying sounds that you make. Give her a chance sometimes to make sounds for you to copy too – she will love it.

› By six months, your baby can see and hear her world as well as you can, and she can pinpoint where a sound is coming from. Practise this skill by calling to her from different spots in the room. She can also distinguish different tones and if you use a cross voice she might cry. YB