University of Maine Cooperative Extension
Bulletin #4229

Month 12 

How Baby Is Changing

Your child is probably spending a lot of time mastering walking. He may be extra-clingy now. Try to give him the extra attention he needs. It will help him to become independent sooner.

The drive to walk is so strong it may even interfere with eating and sleeping. Try sticking to foods you know your child likes so that his appetite stays strong.

It may be hard for your baby to relax and go to sleep. He may rock or bounce in his crib (take the casters off if the crib moves). A backrub or rocking in a rocker may help him drift off to sleep.

Have you noticed that your child enjoys doing small errands for you, like bringing you things? He understands more than he is able to say yet.

Your little one may be able to say a few words, but they stand for whole thoughts. This makes puzzles for you. When baby says “mama,” does it mean “where’s mama?,” “I want mama!” or “Play with me, mama!”? As you start to figure it out, your little one will be learning even more words.

What’s Ahead?

By the end of the first year, your baby has developed his own personality. He’s a full-fledged member of your family. It is hard to imagine what life was like without him! In the months ahead, look forward to your child:

• Sleeping about 12 hours at night and being an early riser.

• Needing more of a nap on some days than others.

• Usually wanting attention when waking up.

• Having a varied appetite, especially when teething. Children grow more slowly after 12 months, and eat less.

• Having a language “explosion.” A 12-month-old may speak two or three words. A 2-year-old may know 200 to 300.

• Exploring and playing with genitals. This is normal curiosity.

• Starting to show independence without really knowing what he wants. You may hear “no!” and “me do it” a lot.

Memories

Your baby and family have come a long way! At birth, your baby was probably between five and nine pounds. Now she’s tripled her birth weight.

At birth, she ate many times during the day and night. Now she eats meals just like you, including a variety of solid foods. And she can help feed herself!

At birth, your baby could barely lift her heavy head up off her mattress. Now she can sit, stand, stoop and maybe walk.

At birth, your baby couldn’t reach for things she saw. Now she can pick up tiny objects with her thumb and first finger, swap things from hand to hand, and put one object inside another.

At birth, your baby communicated only by crying. Now she smiles, laughs and frowns. She shows anger, fear, joy, curiosity and love, and may even say a few words.

When to Toilet Train

You have already made it through one year of diapers. Will your baby be ready for toilet training soon? Probably not.

Child development research shows that the average child is not fully toilet trained until 2 ½ to 3 years old. Some take longer. Night-time control takes until 3 to 4 years old. A child must be ready before he can start to be toilet trained.

Learning to use the toilet is a complicated task. Your child must:

1. Understand what you want him to do.

2. Feel when he is about to urinate or have a bowel movement (before he actually does it).

3. Be able to tell you in words that he needs to go.

4.  Get into the bathroom.

5. Undo clothing, including snaps and zippers.

6. Sit on the potty.

7. Relax and let the urine or bowel movement out.

If you try to toilet train too early, your child will be upset that he can’t do what you want. You may become frustrated when things don’t go smoothly.

Sometimes, a child goes on the potty once or twice by accident, and then his parents feel that he’s being disobedient on purpose when he “won’t” do it again.

You can avoid a lot of problems by waiting until your child is ready, probably after his 2nd birthday. He’ll want to stay dry, “like a big boy,” and toilet training will go much more smoothly for both of you.

What to Feed Baby

Milk: Your baby still needs to have a lot of milk, about two to three cups a day. Most health authorities recommend that a baby should be at least one year old before he is given cow’s milk. When a baby gets cow’s milk, it should be whole milk, not skim. 

Until your baby is one year old, breast milk or formula is the most appropriate milk to give him.

Other Food Groups: Besides milk, give several small servings from each of the following food groups over a two-day period:

• Vegetables and fruits

• Meat, fish, poultry and egg yolks

• Cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese

• Bread, crackers, cereal, rice, spaghetti, tortillas

How Much Should Baby Eat?

Your baby doesn’t have to eat something from each food group at every meal. He may eat well at one meal, not so well at the next and refuse the third meal. One hearty meal a day plus four foods from the above food groups are about average at this age. Forcing baby to eat can work in reverse and make him refuse any food. Or he may eat just to get your approval.

Offering food to babies when they are upset may quiet them for a few moments, but it will also teach them the habit of using food as a solution to problems. Try to find the cause of the problem and solve it without using food as a pacifier.

Baby Needs to Suck

You may think now that your little one is 12 months old, that she doesn’t need to suck a pacifier or her thumb any more. Not so!

Studies show that the 2nd year of life is the peak time for sucking. By 2½, most children suck less and begin to give up the habit all by themselves.

Sucking a pacifier or a thumb will not hurt a child’s teeth if it stops before the second teeth come in at age 6.

Why do children like to suck? It is calming, and helps them to relieve their stress.

A study of 12-month-olds found that when their moms left them in a room full of toys with a pacifier, they stayed longer, explored more and played with more toys than children without pacifiers.

Sucking helps protect sleep, too. Noises and other things that would wake a child up just make her suck harder.

Try to understand and respect your child’s need to comfort herself by sucking, or by keeping a favorite toy or blanket nearby. Your patience will help her to give up these habits on her own, when she is ready. 

Learning Abstract Ideas

How does a child learn ideas, like up and down, big and small, shapes, colors, time and numbers? With your help! Research shows that much of this learning takes place in the home. Parents are very important teachers.

In the first two years, your child’s play helps him pick up basic concepts like texture, size, sound, taste, shape, color, smell and temperature. With these ideas, he can sort out his world into things that are similar and different.

Children learn best with the approval of a caring adult who shows interest in what they do and talks to them about it. It helps to have new and different things for your baby to play with.

Here are some ideas to help your baby learn about:

Size:

• Different-sized cans: orange juice, baking powder, tuna, shortening, coffee, or soup (make sure there are no sharp edges).

• Sets of measuring spoons, mixing bowls, pots and pans.

• Daddy’s shoe and baby’s shoe.

• Large boxes, a paper grocery bag or a laundry basket to crawl into.

Shapes:

• Finger foods (cheese cubes, banana or carrot circles, apple triangle, sandwich squares, cooked noodles).

• Shape-sorter toys. Buy or make one.

• Household items to match up circle to circle, box to box.

Sounds:

• Pot lids to clash as symbols, wooden spoons to bang on an oatmeal box “drum.”

• Salt box filled with beans or rice. Tape the box shut for safety.

Volume:

• Play dump and fill games. Use water in the bath or sand in the sandbox.

• Drink from different-sized cups.

Watch your child to get more ideas for things to play with that help to show abstract ideas. You can learn together.

Sex Roles

Parents sometimes treat boys and girls differently, and react differently towards them. They may give toy trucks to boys and dolls to girls.

They may get upset if a boy picks up a doll and plays with it because they think a doll is a girl’s toy. The same thing may happen when a girl plays with a toy truck or car. 

Although your child is still a baby, it’s not too early to think about your own attitudes about sex roles. Now is a good time to look at the messages you want to give about “what little boys and little girls are made of.”

Here are some questions to help you sort out your attitudes:

• Do I hold back hugging my son just because he is a boy?

• Do I expect less toughness and drive from my daughter than I would from a son? 

• What kind of adult roles should I prepare my child for? 

• How will his or her world be different from mine?

Discipline: Setting Limits

Your child understands some words and may even be able to say a few herself. But she can’t think about what might happen, and she can only decide between the most basic choices.

This means you have a challenge ahead: to help your child learn your rules so she can eventually learn to manage her own behavior. How can you do this? Here are a few suggestions:

Be Brief: Your child understands short, simple phrases. You should give reasons for your rules, but long involved explanations will not be helpful at this age.

Be Clear: Baby can understand the difference between splashing and not splashing in the bath. She cannot know that “splashing is OK if you don’t get too much water on the floor.” Keep things simple for now.

Be Specific: Tell your child what she can’t do, and what she can. If she is throwing blocks tell her, “blocks are not for throwing. Here, stack the blocks like this.” Be ready to remove her or take away the blocks. Or you could give her a soft toy that is OK to throw. This focuses on positive, rather than negative behavior.

Be Consistent: A child can adjust to small differences in the rules set by two parents, or by parents and day care providers. But don’t forbid an activity (like jumping on the bed) one minute and allow it the next. It’s good to be flexible sometimes. But most of the time, try to make up your mind what you want and be firm about it.

Feelings are OK: Sometimes children do things that make parents angry. When you feel angry, admit it. But don’t make baby feel like a bad person just because she did something bad. And don’t scare her with feelings that are too scary.

Say in a firm voice, “I’m really mad that you did that.” She’ll know how you feel. When you admit your anger without yelling, calling names or hitting, you help her deal with her own angry feelings. She will learn to express her anger without hurting others. 

Prevent Childhood Poisoning

You know that your child likes to put things in his mouth and taste them. You may not know that children will eat poisons (like mothballs or drain cleaner), even if they taste bad. Only as we get older do we learn that bad-tasting things may be harmful.

It is up to you to protect your child from poisons in your home. Here is a room-by-room list of common household products that are poisonous:

Kitchen: Dishwasher soap, oven cleaner, floor and furniture polish, ammonia, lye.¹

Bathroom: Medicines (prescription drugs, aspirin and Tylenol, vitamin and iron pills, tranquilizers, birth control pills, cold and cough medicines), cosmetics, drain cleaner, toilet water, disinfectants, perfume, rubbing alcohol.

Laundry: Bleaches and detergents.

Store Room: Kerosene, lighter fluid, gasoline, paint and paint thinner, turpentine, weed killer, pesticides, rat poison, fertilizer.

Other Areas: Houseplants, tobacco, any alcohol, mothballs, paint chips.

Think ahead to prevent poisoning:

• Put poisonous products in a locked cabinet, or up high out of children’s sight and reach. Put them back after use.

• Look up the phone number for your local poison control center, and keep it by every phone in the house.

• Buy a bottle of syrup of ipecac to keep on hand for causing vomiting, if instructed by a physician or emergency technician.

• Never put a poison in food or drink containers. Someone may think it is food and eat it.

• Don’t take medicine in front of your children, or tell them that their medicine is “candy.”

• Watch out, other people’s homes may not be childproofed.

If Poisoning Occurs

1. Try to figure out what was swallowed. Keep the containers. If the child vomits and you don’t know what was eaten, keep a sample for chemical analysis.

2. If the child is awake, call Poison Control or the doctor right away. Even if the child seems OK, some treatment may be needed. Time is very important.

3. If the child is unconscious, call the rescue squad. Begin CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) if the child is not breathing. 

4. Never induce vomiting if a caustic substance was swallowed. These products cause severe mouth and throat burns in addition to poisoning. They burn a second time if the child is made to vomit.

¹These products are caustic, and cause severe mouth and throat burns as well as poisoning when swallowed. Never induce vomiting if a caustic substance is swallowed.

For more information on family issues, contact your county Extension office or the Family Living Office, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, 5717 Corbett Hall, Orono, ME 04469-5717, (207) 581-3448/3104 or 1-800-287-0274 (in Maine).

Published and distributed in furtherance of Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914, by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, the Land Grant University of the state of Maine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Cooperative Extension and other agencies of the U.S.D.A. provide equal opportunities in programs and employment.

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