Looking for activities for 9-month-old babies? Discover what to do with your child to help them learn, grow, and develop through play!
Now that your baby is 9 months old, you are experiencing the excitement of your little one being more mobile and engaged in exploring the world around them. There is so much happening at this stage you may be looking for things to do with a 9-month-old that can help them learn more about their environment and foster their physical, cognitive, and linguistic development.
Your baby may already be crawling, or able to raise themselves to stand. They are responding to their name, and clearly expressing emotions with smiles, cuddles, and laughter.
Peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake are well-known activities for 9-month-old babies and are surely already some of your baby’s favorite games. However, there are so many other simple, fun things to do with your 9-month-old baby to keep the learning fun each and every day!
9-Month-Old Baby Milestones
There are so many ways you can support your baby’s development and growth. When you are looking for things to do with a 9-month-old, understanding which milestones they will be reaching this month can help you choose activities that strengthen their new and upcoming skills and development.
Some important 9-month milestones to look out for include:
- Making simple gestures (like waving hello or goodbye)
- Repeating sounds or actions that get people’s attention
- Pulling themselves up while holding on to furniture
- Interacting with other children through babbling
- Associating objects with their corresponding sounds (like looking for the phone when it starts to ring)
- Finding objects hidden under a blanket
- Going from sitting to kneeling
- Responding to music by attempting to move to the beat
- Going from lying down to sitting up
- Picking up small objects using their forefinger and thumb (like a cookie from a jar)
- Using both hands simultaneously to handle objects (like opening a box)
Download Kinedu to track your baby’s development and progress from 0 to 6 years old.
Activities For A 9-Month-Old
With so many exciting new milestones on the horizon, one of the most important things you can do as a parent is to encourage your baby’s learning and development with activities for 9-month-olds.
Here are some things to do with your 9-month-old that focus on their specific milestones and their physical, cognitive, and linguistic development.
Make sure you download Kinedu to access 1,800+ activities to support your baby’s development at each stage!
Bath Time Scientist
- Development: Health
- Goal: To foster your baby’s curiosity with an experiment during bath time.
- Supplies Needed: A bath, a toy that floats, a toy that sinks
How To:
This fun and engaging 9-month-old activity is done during your baby’s bath time. Start with two different bath toys, one that floats and one that sinks. Then grab your little one’s attention by dropping the floating toy and pointing out that that toy floats. Then, do the same thing with the sinking toy and say that that one sinks.
Now prompt your baby to try this experiment out for themself. With this activity, you are helping your little one learn about the concept of sinking and floating and fostering their curiosity by carrying out small experiments.
Can You Help Me?
- Development: Linguistic
- Goal: To encourage your baby to pay attention and ask you for help.
- Skills Practiced: Communicating through gestures.
- Supplies Needed: A toy and a box
How To:
To begin this activity, find a space to play with your child. Show your little one the toy and then hide it by placing it under the box. See if your baby pays attention to what you did.
Encourage them to ask you for help by gesturing. This will teach your baby how to begin communicating when they need you to help them. It will also stimulate their abstract thinking and attention skills.
Hidden Toys
- Development: Cognitive
- Goal: To enhance your baby’s fine motor skills.
- Skills Practiced: Early knowledge and curiosity.
- Supplies Needed: Toys and blankets
How To:
Begin by placing a few toys underneath a blanket. Next, ask your baby to find them and take them out. Observe your baby’s movements and if they learn how to hold the blanket’s edge with one hand and take the objects out with the other. That action implies the use of fine motor skills; continue working on it and eventually your baby will master the movements!
Download Kinedu to access 1,800+ activities to support your baby’s development at each stage!
Tear It Up!
- Development: Cognitive
- Goal: To stimulate your baby to create different effects on the same object.
- Skills Practiced: Imitating
- Supplies Needed: Sheet of paper and play-dough
How To:
Hand your baby a sheet of paper and show them how to wrinkle it, stretch it, and tear it. Let your baby try it! Next, do the same thing with play-dough. Help your baby see that when they take it from two ends and open their arms, the play-dough stretches until it breaks. This exercise will stimulate your baby’s cognitive skills, teaching them to experiment with different materials.
Hands and Knees
- Development: Physical
- Goal: To strengthen your baby’s muscles and practice the hands and knees position.
- Skills Practiced: Crawling
- Supplies Needed: Blanket
How To:
Begin by folding a blanket lengthwise over a mat. Now, place your baby face down over the blanket so that it’s under their chest. Next, take the tips of the blanket and softly pull from them, lifting your baby a few centimeters. This exercise will help your baby bring their legs under their belly and position themself on all fours. From that position, hands, and knees, your baby will proceed to crawl.
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t
- Development: Linguistic
- Goal: To provoke your baby’s emission of sounds.
- Skills Practiced: Babbling
- Supplies Needed: Sheet of paper
How To:
Start by sitting in front of your baby and covering your face with a sheet of paper. Tell your baby that if they want to see you, that they need to talk to you. Uncover your face when you hear your baby articulate something and repeat this activity several times. This activity will continue with the development of your baby’s language.
Hands To Feet
- Development: Health
- Goal: To develop your baby’s body awareness.
How To:
Begin this activity with your 9-month-old after changing your baby’s diaper. Remove your baby’s shoes, if they have them on, and then take their right hand and foot and bring them together while narrating what you are doing.
Now, gently rub the hand and foot together and then separate and softly stretch them out. Repeat the same exercise with the left hand and foot. With this activity, you will be helping your little one become aware of their extremities and how they feel when they are moved and when they are joined, an important milestone for future independent mobility.
Finding things to do with a 9-month-old doesn’t have to be complicated or overwhelming. Spending time each day engaging in simple activities can have a major impact on the growth and development of your baby.
For more interactive activities for 9-month-olds, make sure to download the Kinedu app and change the way you play with live and on-demand interactive play sessions.
