Development of Your Baby's Hands

After passing the leap at 8 weeks after the due date, your baby will discover his/her hands and feet. Your baby will look at those “things” attached to his/her body, and you will notice that your baby finds them extremely interesting. Your hands, too, will be quite captivating for your baby. Some babies are even already able to hold a toy in one hand. That is, of course, great fun. 

Once your baby has taken the leap at 12 weeks after the due date, your baby is able to grasp things with the hands. Your baby is now beginning to master the skill of a really good, targeted grip. In order to do this fully and properly, your baby must first take the next leap! Always help your baby while it is learning to “grasp.” Hand your baby something so that the action is not too difficult for your little darling. And if your baby succeeds, of course, you’ll lavish endless praise on your baby!

Many babies have not yet fully mastered the skill, but they do love to grab things! They snatch wildly at everything that they can get hold of in their surroundings. At this stage, many mothers will start to think that it’s now enough and will increasingly say “No, don’t” when their baby wants to grab something. Sometimes the admonishment even works! Always remember that this “erratic” grabbing has nothing to do with wild behavior in later life. This erratic grabbing at things at this stage is merely your baby’s way of discovering the world.

Your baby has gotten the hang of it and is now already quite good at doing things with his/her hands. At this age, babies can open and close booklet and use their hands to follow their new passion of discovering the notions of “in,” “on,” “below” and “above.” Because your baby has now taken the leap of relationships, he/she is interested in the respective distances and relationships of things in relation to each other. Your baby is now able to use his/her hands to put things together, put one thing in another, place things next to each other, or in between two other things, and so on. Actually, your baby is using his/her hands for the same purpose as you do: to do something with it. These little hands now have a real function.

Once your child is 11 months old and has passed the leap of “sequences”, he/she will be particularly interested in singing and activity games. You certainly shouldn’t miss the “Handclapping” game! But children at this age not only enjoy using their hands, they can also expose themselves to hazards through their actions! They are curious about everything around them and are becoming more and more mobile. Moreover, they do not yet understand the dangers and risks. They want to grasp everything, but they don’t know yet what the consequences will be. For the time being, the socket guards must continue to protect their little fingers!

Around this age, allow your child to “make” and “do” more and more to practice their hand movements. You will now see that babies are actually able to grab a bite for themselves and drink from their cups without spilling. They can now turn the pages of a booklet all by themselves. Your pre-toddlers enjoy creating beautiful drawings. Simply give them a few pens or paint and brushes. Choose special children’s pens that are slightly thicker than normal. Kids at that age can hold these pens more easily; moreover, the ink from those pens washes out easily when your little ones accidentally use them to draw, for example, on their clothes.

Children at this age are now busy properly exercising the smaller hand muscles. Building blocks and Lego help to stimulate muscle development. After all, your kids have to carefully stack the blocks straight on top of each other and then press them together. It is precisely this latter motion, which exercises the smaller hand muscles. Your little ones will now also be getting better at grasping bigger things with their hands. With a little practice, they can build a tower of no less than eight building blocks. The best part of it? Is still your lavish praise for the hard construction work and the toppling of the tower…

Your children are using their hands more and more like we do, and they use them for the same things as we do. With a little practice, they can even fasten and unbuttoning the buttons of their own clothes. Always encourage them to do as much as possible on their own. This boosts their self-confidence! They are now also making a huge leap in their hand muscle-brain development. You can even give them scissors and let them cut things. This is not only fun and enjoyable to do, but also stimulates hand muscle-brain development.

In the past, people used to believe that it was better to be right-handed than left-handed. Writing with the right hand was therefore compulsory at school. Fortunately, we have now moved on from this rule. As a parent, you cannot influence the dominant hand of your kid. In fact, if you “compel” your left-handed child to become right-handed, you increase the chance of stuttering and psychological problems.

If you and your partner are left-handed, your little ones are three times more likely to be left-handed. You will also notice that at a young age, your children will often switch between left and right. So sometimes your kid may appear to be left-handed, sometimes right-handed. At some point, you will notice that your child has a preferred hand. And that hand will remain your child’s preferred hand for their entire life.

Explore your child’s mental development and discover how you can boost its new skills with The Wonder Weeks app or book!