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Developmental milestones from birth to six

Developmental milestones are the skills most children pick up by a certain age, like sitting without support, saying a first word, or holding a spoon. They span six areas of development. This page sets out what to expect at each age from birth to six, and what to do when one arrives late.

Every parent has done the thing where you watch another baby at a family gathering and quietly count. That one is pulling up on the sofa. Yours is not. And the rest of the afternoon has a small hum of worry running under it.

So let's be clear about what developmental milestones actually are, because the way they get talked about causes half the panic. They're averages. Not a schedule, not a test, and not a verdict on your child.

What are developmental milestones?

Developmental milestones are skills that most children reach within a known age range, such as rolling over, pointing, or naming colours. Doctors use them to track whether a child's growth is on a typical path across thinking, movement, language, social skills and daily living.

A milestone describes a skill, not a date. "Walks alone" is a milestone. Most children get there between 9 and 18 months, and every one of those months is normal. The child who walks at 16 months isn't nine months behind the one who walked at nine. They're both walking.

Here's the part that gets lost. Milestones were built to catch patterns, not single events. One late skill in one area tells you almost nothing on its own. Five late skills across three areas tells you something worth acting on. That's why checking one milestone in isolation is close to useless, and why thinking skills get missed far more often than walking does. Nobody throws a party for object permanence.

Milestones and red flags are different things

A missed milestone is a skill that hasn't arrived yet. A red flag is a signal that something needs looking at now, and the clearest one is a skill going backwards. A child who was babbling and stopped, or who was waving and no longer does, should be seen by a doctor regardless of what any checklist says about age.

What are the six areas of development?

Child development splits into six areas: motor skills, language, cognition, socialisation, self-help and infant stimulation. Kidora's checklist holds 580 checkpoints across these six, so a child is measured on the full picture rather than one visible skill like walking or talking.

Most milestone lists you'll find online cover three or four areas. That's where blind spots come from. Self-help skills in particular get ignored, and they're often the first place a parent notices something without having words for it.

These areas lean on each other constantly. A toddler who won't do a puzzle might have a thinking gap, or the puzzle might simply be beyond her finger control. A child who doesn't answer questions might be behind in language, or might not yet be joining in socially. Same behaviour. Three different causes. That's the whole argument for checking all six.

What milestones should you expect at each age?

By 6 months most babies roll and babble. By 12 months they pull to stand and say a first word. By 2 years they run and join two words. By 3 years they speak in sentences. By 5 years they count, dress themselves and play cooperatively with other children.

The table below groups the skills by age band. Read the band your child is in, and treat anything in an earlier band as the more useful signal.

What does it mean if your child misses a milestone?

A single late milestone is common and usually resolves without help. What matters is the pattern: several late skills in the same area, skills that stay behind over a few months, or a skill the child had and then lost. Those three signals justify a professional opinion.

Most children are late somewhere. Prematurity shifts the whole picture, and a baby born at 32 weeks should be judged on corrected age until around two. Illness, a house move, a new sibling, or simply not having had the chance to practise a skill all show up as apparent delay.

But three situations are worth taking seriously:

1. A skill has gone backwards. This outweighs everything else on this page. Book an appointment.
2. One area sits well behind the other five, and stays there. A gap that holds over two or three months is more informative than any single missed skill.
3. Your instinct says something is wrong. Parents are usually right about their own child. An appointment that finds nothing costs an hour.

And the reverse trap is real too. Plenty of children get labelled as delayed on the strength of one late milestone by a relative with strong opinions. That is not a diagnosis.

When should you speak to a doctor?

Speak to a doctor if your child loses a skill they had, does not respond to sound, does not make eye contact, is not walking by 18 months, has no words by 18 months, or is not joining words by two years. Early support works better than waiting.

Start with your paediatrician or family doctor. They screen, then refer onwards if needed, and the referral usually goes to a speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist, a clinical psychologist, or an early intervention programme depending on what they find.

One thing worth saying plainly: waiting to see rarely helps. The window where support does the most good is early, and no doctor will think less of you for asking.

How do you check your child's milestones at home?

Check milestones at home by watching your child during ordinary play rather than testing them. Work through an age-appropriate checklist across all six areas, note what they do and do not do, and repeat it every three months to see the direction of travel.

Four rules make a home check useful instead of misleading:

• Watch, don't test. A child asked to perform on demand will refuse. You learn more in twenty minutes of normal play.
• Count a skill only if it's reliable. Once is an accident. Three times across a week is a skill.
• Use corrected age for premature babies until around two years.
• Check every three months. Direction matters more than any single snapshot.

Kidora's free check runs on 580 checkpoints drawn from the Portage checklist and CDC guidance. It asks only the questions for your child's age band, then shows how the six areas compare against each other. Comparing a child to themselves is far more useful than comparing them to a cousin.

Questions parents ask

Common questions about developmental milestones

What are the 5 developmental milestones?

Most lists name five: gross motor, fine motor, language, cognitive and social. Kidora uses six, splitting out self-help skills like feeding and dressing, because those are the ones parents notice first and generic lists leave out.

At what age should a baby walk?

Between 9 and 18 months, and the whole range is normal. Speak to your doctor if your child is not walking at all by 18 months.

Is it normal for a 2 year old not to talk?

By two, most children join two words together. A two year old with no words needs a hearing test and a speech assessment. That is not a diagnosis of anything, it is the sensible first step, and hearing problems are a common and fixable cause.

Do premature babies reach milestones later?

Yes, and that is expected. Use corrected age, which is age from the original due date rather than the birth date, until around two years. A baby born two months early who sits at eight months is sitting at six months corrected.

Can a child catch up on a missed milestone?

Often, yes. Many children who are late in one area close the gap on their own, and many others close it with support. Early help produces better outcomes than waiting, which is the main reason to check rather than hope.

How often should I check my child's development?

Every three months for under-twos, every six months after that. More often than that and you are measuring noise rather than change.

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Written and reviewed by Ms. Tehreem Talat, Consultant Clinical Psychologist. Last reviewed 9 September 2026. Milestones drawn from the Portage checklist and CDC guidance. See our sources. This page is a guide for parents, not a medical diagnosis.