On the move — time to baby-proof
However your baby chooses to travel — rolling, shuffling, commando-dragging or classic crawling — movement is probably arriving, and your home is about to be inspected at floor level. Stranger anxiety often shows up around now too.
Development
Many babies now sit steadily and are finding a way to get around: rolling as transport, bottom-shuffling, commando crawling or hands-and-knees. The variety is enormous, and an estimated 4–15% of babies never crawl on hands and knees at all — many are simply saving themselves for walking.
Babble is turning into strings — 'mamamama', 'bababababa' — and peek-a-boo is at its comedy peak as object permanence beds in.
New wariness of unfamiliar people is common and healthy: your baby has worked out who their people are.
Baby-proofing
Get down to floor level and see what a determined baby can reach. Small objects — coins, buttons, small toy parts and especially button batteries — need to live out of reach.
In the UK, the NHS recommends safety gates meeting BS EN 1930:2011 to keep stairs off-limits, and keeping hot drinks well away — they can still scald 15 minutes after being made.
Anchor bookcases and TVs that could be pulled over, mind trailing blind cords and cables, and use the highchair's harness every time.
Sleep
Two naps a day is a common shape now, though not universal. Separation anxiety can make bedtime partings harder — a consistent goodnight ritual and calm, brief returns work better than sneaking off.
Lower the cot base before your baby can sit or pull up, and keep the cot clear of anything they could climb on or pull over themselves.
And you
Supervising a newly mobile baby is genuinely tiring — a well-stocked playpen or the cot gives you a safe two minutes to make tea or just breathe.
If your baby now howls at handover to grandparents or nursery, it isn't a verdict on your choices — stranger anxiety is a phase, and it passes with warm, patient repetition.
Feeding at this stage
Pick how you're feeding — we'll remember for next time. Every one of these is a good way to feed a baby.
Breastfeeding
- As meals firm up towards three a day, breastfeeds often reduce naturally — follow your baby rather than a schedule.
- Night feeds may be hunger, comfort or both — all are legitimate, and if you want fewer, dropping them slowly and gently works better than sudden stops.
- If you do drop a feed, give your body a few days before dropping another, to stay comfortable and avoid blocked ducts.
Breast + expressed
- With solids carrying more, many mums start trimming a pumping session — drop one at a time and watch comfort for a few days.
- Frozen stash mixes nicely into porridge, sauces and mash — a lovely way to use older milk.
- If output dips during a busy patch, a few days of feeding or pumping slightly more often usually nudges it back.
Breast + formula
- Milk feeds — both kinds — often ease back as three meals take shape; keep the feeds that anchor your day, commonly morning and bedtime.
- It's fine to let mealtimes lead at midday and keep milk for the edges of the day if that suits your baby.
- No formula change is needed as food grows — same milk, gradually a little less of it.
Formula
- Many babies drift towards three or four milk feeds around their meals now — appetites vary, so treat NHS stage guides as direction rather than targets.
- Keep water in an open or free-flow cup at every meal — cup skills now make the eventual goodbye to bottles much easier.
- Avoid letting your baby fall asleep drinking a bottle — milk pooling around new teeth is a decay risk.
Totally normal (even when it doesn't feel it)
- Bottom-shuffling or commando-style movement instead of textbook crawling — all styles count.
- Skipping crawling altogether — some babies go straight to pulling up and walking, and research shows no link with later development.
- Sudden suspicion of people they adored last month — stranger anxiety is developmental, not rudeness.
- Food flung to the floor at every meal — it's learning (and the dog's gain).
- Still no teeth — the late end of normal runs past the first birthday.
- A week of cot protest that vanishes as mysteriously as it arrived.
Worth checking
You know your baby best — if any of these ring true, or something just feels off, it's always OK to ask.
- Your baby isn't sitting without support by around 9 months.
- There are no babbled consonant strings like 'bababa' or 'mamama'.
- They don't look when you call their name by around 9 months.
- They don't pass objects from one hand to the other.
- They don't seem to notice or respond to people across the room.
- They've lost any skill they used to have — this one is always worth raising promptly.
- For any of these, book a chat with your health visitor or GP — checking is free, calming and never a fuss over nothing.