The first year of your baby’s life is full of countless firsts, including the anticipation and joy of watching your little one say mama or dada, or smile as they recognize your face and voice. And as everyone says, it goes fast: By the time you’ve mastered swaddling, it seems, they’ll be learning how to cruise, or taking those first wobbly steps.

All these milestones result from your baby’s brain rapidly developing and maturing in year one. While the foundational structure of your baby’s brain is formed in the womb, how it evolves in early childhood depends a lot on their environment and exposure to different experiences.

According to Dr. Jessica Stern, Ph.D., child development specialist and researcher on infant brain development, “Babies’ brains are shaped by genetics and the environment together. In the first year of life, infants’ brains are characterized by high neuroplasticity, which means they are especially attuned and sensitive to their environment.”

That means that parents play a huge supporting role in their children’s brain development — but don’t worry, parents: Your love, your time, your encouragement, and your willingness to play and engage with your child are the perfect ingredients for their health and happiness.

Here’s an overview of what exciting milestones to watch for during your first year with your baby, what’s going on in your baby’s brain during year one, and what you can do to foster their development.

Brain development in the first year of life

Birth to three months

At birth, your baby’s brain and nervous system are still immature —the most developed area of their brain at this time is the part that controls their basic reflexes like crying, sucking, breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate.

Memory

During the first three months, babies also develop their memory. The area of the brain that deals with memory is called the hippocampus. The hippocampus also regulates emotions, learning, and motivation other than memory. The hippocampus is not fully developed in a newborn baby, which is why infantile amnesia occurs — we don’t remember the first few years of our life.

Your baby’s long-term memory will start improving at around two years when the hippocampus matures.

Your baby is taking in a lot of information, from new faces to new voices, sounds, colors, and shapes. All this information needs to be consolidated and processed in their brain, which happens during REM sleep.

Sensory motor developments

By the time babies are three months old, they can lift their heads while lying on their bellies, also known as “tummy time.” Also, by this point, their brain has matured enough that some of the automatic reflexes they were born with, like grasping and spontaneous crying, have decreased and disappeared.

They are learning how to smile and can now grasp things — like your finger — with their tiny hands.

Vision

Babies are born with poor eyesight, which makes sense because there wasn’t much to see when they were in the womb. Dr. Norman Sheldo, O.D., from the Eyecare Center of Maryland, says, “In the first month, babies cannot see better than about 20/600. In the second month, they can see about 20/300. In the third month, they can see about 20/200.”

He adds, “It’s interesting to note that 20/200 vision is considered legally blind in the U.S. Every month their visual acuity gets a little bit better as their eyes develop. Normal vision, around 20/20, for most children does not develop until they are 36 to 48 months old.”

By the end of the first three months, your baby will be able to focus and track objects in motion. Now their eyes will be able to follow you as you walk in and out of their line of vision.

Tip: Use black and white photos with contrasting images and patterns to show your baby. Your infant can easily focus on these high-contrast photos, also known as infant stimulation cards. These photos encourage vision development in babies.

Four to six months

Memory

Between four to six months, your baby’s memory expands. This is a result of many functions of the brain, two of which are improved eyesight (the more and the better they see, the more they remember) and the ability to move independently. By this age, babies can differentiate between different colors and patterns around them. 

Research also shows that your baby can notice something change at four months after it has been out of their sight for a while. However, their retention power is still limited. They can only remember only one thing at a time.

Sensory motor developments

At this age, most babies can raise their arms, use both their hands to explore toys, grasp them, and bring different objects to their mouths. They can even sit up with a little help by the six-month mark. They may also start babbling at around this time, picking up sounds and language.

They can detect different emotions through the tone of your voice. They will also be able to gain better control of their neck. Now they can turn around when they hear an interesting sound and look at an object.

Vision

The most significant milestone that your child will achieve during this age is depth perception, the ability to see things in three dimensions and to judge how near or far an object is. This ability is absent at birth and develops around four months. At approximately five months old, they’ll start seeing in full color. They will start picking up the toys that they drop and get attracted to bright colors. They will also discover their image in the mirror between four to six months.

Seven to nine months

Memory

Boosted by the development of sight and motor skills in the first six months of life, your baby’s short-term memory becomes better in these months.

They will begin to understand the concept of object permanence around the age of eight months. This means that things and people still exist when they aren’t right there in front of them.

At around 9 months of age, if you hide your baby’s favorite toy under a blanket, they will pull it up to find it since they remember, even though they can’t see, that their toy is under the blanket.

Sensory-motor Development

Your baby’s motor skills will significantly improve during this age. Most babies start crawling by the time they are eight months old. So as your little one crawls around the house, it will further develop and strengthen the coordination between their eyes, hands, feet, and body. By around nine months, they can pull themselves up to stand.

Speech

Your little one can now make two-syllable sounds. So if they hear you say it enough times, one day, you might catch them saying ‘ma-ma’ or ‘da-da.’ Although it’s important to remember that each child develops speech at their own pace.

Tip: Instead of baby talk, interact with your baby in “parentese” — a style of talking where moms and dads speak slowly in modulated voices in a higher pitch, exaggerating vowels and intonation, and giving babies time to respond. Speaking in parentese will directly improve your child’s vocabulary and language skills.

Ten to twelve months

Memory

Your baby’s short-term and long-term memory will improve rapidly during this time. New connections will form between the frontal lobes and emotional centers of their brain, which is why they will probably start experiencing separation anxiety. Although some babies can experience it as early as five months, others can go through it later at 12 to 14 months.

Sensory-motor Development

By the time your baby is ten months old, they’ll be able to grasp objects with their thumb and forefinger. They can now stand and cruise while holding onto furniture. You might even find them trying to stand alone, taking baby steps. By the time they hit the one-year mark, they can move independently and crawl around to get their favorite toys. They can sit on their own and clap their hands too.

If your little one isn’t already walking by their first birthday, you may be wondering whether their development is on the right track. No need to panic: Every baby is different, and it’s common to start walking anywhere between 9 to 18 months.

Speech

By the time your sweetie reaches the one-year mark, they will start calling you ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ when they need you. They also start speaking gibberish, trying to imitate the sounds and rhythm of adults’ speech, and responding to words like ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ Indulging in conversations with them at this age can help them learn words and language better.

How to boost brain development in the first year

As Dr. Stern notes,, “First, we need to advocate for better support for parents, especially in the first year of babies’ lives. Research shows that reducing poverty, increasing community and social support for families, and providing paid parental leave all nurture healthy brain development.”

She adds, “Second, parents can engage in ‘serve-and-return’ interactions with their baby, along with sensitive stimulation and soothing touch (like cuddling). Third, talking, reading, or singing to your baby is especially important for neural networks supporting language development.”

Nature vs. nurture

According to Dr. Stern, “Environmental influences on infant brain development include nutrition and breastfeeding, parenting behavior and social support, family stress, and mental illness, to larger systemic factors like poverty and racism, environmental toxins, and paid parental leave policies.”

According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), “children are born ready to learn” — and as parents, you’re their first teachers, providing a safe and nurturing environment for them to learn in. 

Your care has a vast impact on your baby’s brain development. Since no one knows them better than you do, you can help them develop the skills they need. Remember, each baby’s development is unique and wonderful; the same is true for yours. Do your best, and your best is good enough.

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• 12 photos to take during baby’s first year
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• Best foods to eat during pregnancy for baby’s brain development
• How your baby’s brain develops during pregnancy